Singing Bronze: A History of Carillon Music

Contents

• Introduction
• PART 1 – BELL CULTURES IN ANTIQUITY AND THE MIDDLE AGES
• Chapter 1 – The magic of old bells
• A fruit with pith
• A world of sounds
• Made in China
• Jingle Bells
• Bellmen
• Chapter 2 – The time of God
• The daily call to prayer
• Europe of Bells
• The appearance of the medieval bell
• Church doctrine and popular belief
• Tolling for political ends
• Chapter 3 – The time of man
• A day in the city
• Tolling for special events
• New bell casting techniques
• The bell-founder in action
• Chapter 4 – The bondage of time
• Clocks in monasteries and cathedrals
• Measuring time in the open air
• The signal becomes music
• PART 2 – THE OLD CARILLON ART
• Chapter 5 – A new musical instrument
• Making music with bells
• The terms beiaard and carillon
• Further development of the new musical instrument
• The first founders of carillon bells
• Chapter 6 – Carillon music in a divided land
• Why in the Low Countries?
• Good and bad songs
• Bells as commodity
• The oldest carillon books
• Chapter 7 – Pure bells
• A blind nobleman with a keen sense of hearing
• François Hemony
• The Hemonys’ secret
• Pieter Hemony
• The Hemony legacy
• Chapter 8 – Carillon music at the court
• The successors of the Hemonys
• The carillons of Peter the Great
• Carillons for the young Prussians
• Royal extravagance in Portugal
• Chapter 9 – The Bach of the carillon
• Peter Vanden Gheyn, monk and entrepreneur
• Matthias Vanden Gheyn, virtuoso carillonneur
• Andreas Jozef Vanden Gheyn, talented bell-founder
• The descendants of the Vanden Gheyns
• Chapter 10 – Panorama of the old carillon art
• The bells
• The automatic mechanism
• Manual playing
• The carillonneurs
• The carillon repertoire
• The audience
• The fate of the French Low Countries
• PART 3 – THE NEW CARILLON ART
• Chapter 11 – National Carillon
• Carillon music riding the waves of politics
• The confiscation of bells in the Southern Low Countries
• Gradual restoration of the bell stock
• The Northern Republic in the French era
• Napoleon’s bell
• Chapter 12 – The carillon as romantic symbol
• The carillon, an old instrument
• Literary interest in bells and carillons
• The carillon at the service of nationalism
• Chapter 13 – In search of the sound of the past
• Bell-founding in the 19th century
• Innovations in keyboard construction
• Rediscovery of the art of bell tuning
• Chapter 14 – A soul in peace, among the stars
• A carillonneur with an interest in technique
• Enchanting Monday evenings
• The vision of the master
• An American much interested in carillons
• Chapter 15 – The broken bells of Flanders
• War rages over Belgium
• The voice of fallen carillons
• Carillon war in the Netherlands
• Bells of victory
• Chapter 16 – Memorial bells
• A school for carillonneurs
• Carillon sounds across the Atlantic
• Rockefeller and his Belgian carillonneurs
• The race for bigger and heavier
• Contours of a new carillon culture
• New carillons in other parts of the world
• Chapter 17 – New carillon construction in the Old Country
• Belgian and English influence in the Netherlands
• Protectionist reflexes in Belgium
• Malaise among the Belgian bell-founders
• Belgian carillons in the United States
• The Mechelen carillon school during the interwar period
• Chapter 18 – ‘The bells fight with us’
• Nazi bells
• Carillon music in occupied territory
• The confiscation of bells in Europe
• Liberation
• Chapter 19 – Dutch manufacture versus Carillon Americana
• The return of the bells
• Reconstruction in the Low Countries
• A carillon without bells
• Carillon battle in the Vatican pavilion
• Chapter 20 – Innovations in the Old and the New World
• American Beauty
• The American carillon movement
• Acid rain in Europe
• Using the computer
• Carillon music in the East
• Chapter 21 – Panorama of the new carillon art
• The carillons of the world
• Carillon organizations
• Carillonneurs and their audience
• The diversity of carillon music
• A future for the carillon
• Sources and acknowledgements
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Origin of the illustrations
• Indices