FAMOUS CARILLONS.

Waikato Times, Volume 112, Issue 18777, 27 October 1932, Page 11

FAMOUS CARILLONS.

IN OLD WORLD AND NEW. GIANTS OF RUSSIA. No sound that breaks the silence at twilight or upon a still Sabbath morn Is so resonant, so magnificent, so majestic as the chiming of cathedral bells. No tune Is so inspiring as the measured melody of the deep throated bells as they ring out their message of good will. Men born within the sound of such notable instruments carry the memory of their sweet music through life, no matter how far they may wander from their homeland, wriles John Menaugh in the “San Francisco Chronicle.” The song of the bells for centuries has been sacred and cherished music of Europe. In Belgium, the home o the Carillon, people regulate their lives by the chimes, while In England evencity boasts of Its bells. America, to , has become carillon conscious. ''lthln the last two decades, and especially within the last few years, great oarlllons have been installed in the belfries of some of the finest American churches and In other towers and steeples. The word carillon means an arrangement for playing tunes upon a set of bells by mechanical means. Sometimes the word means the tune played, and sometimes, commonly in England and America, It means the bells themselves. Bells have been in existence since the days of the Romans, as far back as A.D. 180. Bells were first placed In church towers by the order of Pope Sablnianus in A.D. 604. Sets of tuned bells, upon which music could be played, were developed In Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Those early bells were played by beating upon them with hammers. The idea of ringing the bells by swinging them with ropes was a much later development. In Holland, Belgium, France, and England there are to-day hundreds of sets of tuned bells. On the Continent the favoured way of ohimlng the bells is by mechanical means, hut in . England change ringing, or hand ringing, is the popular method.

By Keyboard. Sets of chimes can be operated either by mechanical means, by eleor trical keyboards, or by the hand method. JPhe mechanical method was first perfected In England and applied to the 48-bell carillon of Louvain University in Belgium. In the mechanical' method tiie operator works small wooden, levers, instead of keys. The levers are connected by wires to the clappers of the hells. For the heaviest hells there arc pedals, which sometimes connect to electrical motors, which operato flic clappers. In the completely electrical method, the console keyboard, is connected to magnets, which operate the clappers for all of the bells. The electrical method was perfected In America. In plain change ringing a number of men pull upon ropes t'o swing the bells. There are a dozen more, different, methods of change ringing, each having. a name and .each having Its particular group of adherents. Virtually all the great carillons set up in America In recent years came from the famous founders of Croydon .or Loughborough, England. The English for many centuries have been expert at moulding great bells for carillons, several of the leading firms of founders having been in existence three or four hundred years. Within reoent weeks several mammoth bells have been shipped from Croydon to' lie installed within the tower of the. University of Chicago Chapel in Chicago. The carillon of tiie university chapel will contain 72 bells, the greatest weighing 18 tons. 926 pounds. This is the bourdon, or drono bass hell of the carillon. It is 10 feet in diameter at its flare. The second largest bell of this group weighs 14 toils 1613 . pounds. The Laura Spelman Rookfeller Memorial carillon in the belfry of the Riverside church in New York City contains 64 hells. The bourdon of that set weighs slightly in excess of 18i tons. In the tower of the House of Parliament in Ottawa, Canada, Is a 53-bell carillon, of which the greatest bell weighs 10 tons. There is a famous carillon In the Bok Singing tower, in a bird preserve In Florida. In St. Chrysostom’s church in Chicago there Is a set of bells cast In one of the famous bell foundries of Croydon. In the tower on the campus of the University of Chicago is a small carillon. Churches in many of the American cities have sets of chimes, and at Valley Forge there is a famous group of hells Installed In an open tower.

Largest In the World. At the time the huge bourdon was cast for the carillon of the Riverside church it was said to be the largest tuned bell in the world. The great hell of the University of Chicago is approximately four 'hundred pounds heavier than the New York bell, according to available information. But these bells, it must be remembered, are jolly the largest of llie carillon bells and mere pygmies beside some of Ihc really huge bells of the world. The biggest bell in the world is tho “Czar Kolokol” at the Kremlin in Moscow. It weighs 180 tons, is 19 l’eet 3 inches high, has a circumference of (50 feet 8 inches, and is 24 inches thick. It was cast in 1733 but, unfortunately, shortly after its casting a seven-foot fragment was broken from it. The great bell no longer is rung, but it remains an interesting curiosity. The second largest bell in the world, also is in Moscow. It weighs 12S tons, and actually rings. In a pagoda in Upper Burma is an 80ton bell. There is a bell that weighs 53 tons in the To Chung Su temple, near Peking, China. It is 17 feel high •'ll feet in circumference, and nine Inches thick. It was moulded in 1409 at tin 1 order of Emperor Yung ho. By far the most famous hell in America is the hiborly boil. As bells go it Is md, much for size, weighing only Nil pounds more than a ton. It was cast in Kngland in 171(1 for the Assembly halt of the colony of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. It was brought In America the following year and hung in the belfry of the hall. The people of Philadelphia did not like its tone, so in .753 two Americans, Press and Stow, recast the hell. Another pell was cast in Kngland to lake its place lull the original hell was reI.lined and the substitute rejected.

Tho Llborty 8011. The famous Philadelphia In’l] rang mil the . .proclamation , of American liberi \ mi 8| h .lul' , I 7 7 <h Then i! became the Liberty belt. It rang ,un

many other notable occasions. In 1835 it cracked In ringing. Now it is the nation's most prized relic, and it is taken out of its glass case in the old assembly hall (now Independence hall) occasionally to travel to some exposition. It was In Chicago in 1893, during the World’s Columbian exposition. Bcllfounders down through the centuries have experimented with various different kinds of metals in an effort to produce musical toned bells that would not crack easily. Even gold and silver have been introduced Into metal mixtures in an effort to improve tonal quality. That practice has been abandoned, however, and now the best bells are made of a metal mixture which is four parts copper and one part tin.