Carillons, musical instruments of bells in the percussion family, are found throughout the United States. Several institutions register and count them. Some registries specialize in counting specific types of carillons. For example, the War Memorial and Peace Carillons registry counts instruments that serve as war memorials or were built in the name of promoting world peace. [1] TowerBells counts carillons played via a baton keyboard as "traditional carillons" and those with computerized or electronic mechanisms as "non-traditional carillons", among other bell instruments. It also publishes maps, technical specifications, and summary statistics. [2] As the World Carillon Federation does not consider non-traditional carillons to be carillons, it counts only those played via a baton keyboard and without computerized or electronic mechanisms. [3] According to TowerBells and the World Carillon Federation, there are about 170 existing traditional carillons in the United States.
According to the World Carillon Federation , the carillons in the United States account for 25 percent of the world's total [3] and is consequently considered one of the "great carillon countries" along with the Netherlands and Belgium. [4]
The World Carillon Federation defines a carillon as an instrument of at least 23 cast bronze bells hung in fixed suspension, played with a traditional keyboard of batons, and tuned in chromatic order so that they can be sounded harmoniously together. It may designate instruments of 15 to 22 bells built before 1940 as "historical carillons". [5] Its member organizations –including for example The Guild of Carillonneurs in North America –also define a carillon with those restrictions. [6] This list contains only carillons that meet the definition outlined by these organizations.
Location | City | Bells | Bourdon weight | Total weight | Range and transposition | Bellfounder(s) | Ref. | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
lb | kg | lb | kg | |||||||
Saint Barnabas on the Desert | Paradise Valley | 25 | — | — | Up 8 semitones | Royal Eijsbouts 2006 | [7] |
Location | City | Bells | Bourdon weight | Total weight | Range and transposition | Bellfounder(s) | Ref. | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
lb | kg | lb | kg | |||||||
University of Kansas | Lawrence | 53 | 13,400 | 6,100 | 79,000 | 36,000 | Down 1 semitone | John Taylor & Co 1951 | [30] [31] |
Location | City | Bells | Bourdon weight | Total weight | Range and transposition | Bellfounder(s) | Ref. | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
lb | kg | lb | kg | |||||||
Joseph Dill Baker Memorial Carillon, Baker Park | Frederick | 49 | — | — | Up 4 semitones |
| [33] | |||
— | Tagart Memorial Chapel, McDonogh School | Owings Mills | 48 | — | — | Up 2 semitones |
| [34] | ||
— | Brown & Church Carillon, Salisbury University | Salisbury | 48 | — | — | None (concert pitch) | Meeks & Watson 2017 | [35] |
Location | City | Bells | Range and transposition | Bourdon weight | Total weight | Bellfounder(s) | Notes | Ref. | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
lb | kg | lb | kg | ||||||||
Missouri State University Duane G. Meyer Library | Springfield | 48 | None (concert pitch) | 5,894 | 2,673 | 32,000 | 15,000 | Royal Eijsbouts 2002 | Jane A. Meyer Carillon At 140 feet is the tallest freestanding carillon in the Midwest. [52] | [53] [54] | |
— | Luther Tower Campus of Concordia Seminary | Clayton | 49 | None (concert pitch) | 5,000 | 2,300 | — | Van Bergen 1970 | — | [55] [56] |
Location | City | Bells | Bourdon weight | Total weight | Range and transposition | Bellfounder(s) | Ref. | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
lb | kg | lb | kg | |||||||
University of Montana | Missoula | 47 | — | — | Up 5 semitones | Van Bergen 1953 | [57] |
Location | City | Bells | Bourdon weight | Total weight | Range and transposition | Bellfounder(s) | Ref. | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
lb | kg | lb | kg | |||||||
First-Plymouth Congregational Church | Lincoln | 57 | 4,592 | 2,083 | — | Up 2 semitones |
| [58] [59] | ||
University of Nebraska Omaha | Omaha | 47 | — | — | None (concert pitch) | Paccard 1988 | [60] |
Location | City | Bells | Bourdon weight | Total weight | Range and transposition | Bellfounder(s) | Ref. | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
lb | kg | lb | kg | |||||||
St. Paul's School | Concord | 23 | — | — | Up 5 semitones | Gillett & Johnston 1933 | [61] |
Location | City | Bells | Bourdon weight | Total weight | Range and transposition | Bellfounder(s) | Ref. | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
lb | kg | lb | kg | |||||||
Middlebury Chapel, Middlebury College | Middlebury | 48 | — | — | Up 4 semitones |
| [90] [91] | |||
— | Adams Tower, Norwich University | Northfield | 47 | 1,200 | 540 | — | Up 3 semitones |
| [92] [93] | |
Ira Allen Chapel, University of Vermont | Burlington | — | — | Nearly 4 octaves comprising 40 pitched tuning rods | [94] |
Location | City | Bells | Bourdon weight | Total weight | Range and transposition | Bellfounder(s) | Ref. | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
lb | kg | lb | kg | |||||||
— | Kane Hall, University of Washington | Seattle | 47 | — | — | Up 7 semitones | Royal Eijsbouts 2017 | [96] [97] | ||
Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist | Spokane | 49 | — | — | None (concert pitch) | John Taylor & Co 1968 | [98] |
Location | City | Bells | Bourdon weight | Total weight | Range and transposition | Bellfounder(s) | Ref. | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
lb | kg | lb | kg | |||||||
Concord University | Athens | 48 | — | — | None (concert pitch) | Paccard 1997 | [102] |
The Netherlands Carillon is a 127-foot (39-m) tall campanile housing a 53-bell carillon located in Arlington County, Virginia. The instrument and tower were given in the 1950s "From the People of the Netherlands to the People of the United States of America" to thank the United States for its contributions to the liberation of the Netherlands in 1945 and for its economic aid in the years after. The Netherlands Carillon is a historic property listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of Arlington Ridge Park, which is part of the George Washington Memorial Parkway. It is owned and operated by the National Park Service.
The Peter and Paul Cathedral is a Russian Orthodox cathedral located inside the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg, Russia. It is the first and oldest landmark in St. Petersburg, built between 1712 and 1733 on Hare Island along the Neva River. Both the cathedral and the fortress were originally built under Peter the Great and designed by Domenico Trezzini. The cathedral's bell tower is the world's tallest Orthodox bell tower. Since the belfry is not standalone, but an integral part of the main building, the cathedral is sometimes considered the highest Orthodox Church in the world. There is another Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul Church in St. Petersburg, located in Petergof.
Royal Eijsbouts is a bell foundry located in Asten, Netherlands.
Soldiers' Tower is a bell and clock tower at the University of Toronto that commemorates members of the university who served in the World Wars. Designed by architects Henry Sproatt and Ernest Ross Rolph, the Gothic Revival tower stands at 143 feet tall and houses a carillon of 51 bells.
Gillett & Johnston was a clockmaker and bell foundry based in Croydon, England from 1844 until 1957. Between 1844 and 1950, over 14,000 tower clocks were made at the works. The company's most successful and prominent period of activity as a bellfounder was in the 1920s and 1930s, when it was responsible for supplying many important bells and carillons for sites across Britain and around the world.
Pieter Hemony and his brother François Hemony were the greatest bellfounders in the history of the Low Countries. They developed the carillon, in collaboration with Jacob van Eyck, into a full-fledged musical instrument by casting the first tuned carillon in 1644.
Royal Bellfounders Petit & Fritsen, located in Aarle-Rixtel, the Netherlands, is a former foundry, one of the oldest family-owned businesses in the Netherlands, with the foundry dating back to 1660.
Budolfi Church is the cathedral church for the Lutheran Diocese of Aalborg in north Jutland, Denmark.
The Century Tower is a 157-foot-tall (48 m) bell tower containing a carillon in the center of the University of Florida campus in Gainesville, Florida, United States.
The McFarland Memorial Bell Tower is a 185-foot (56 m) bell tower located on the South Quad of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The tower was approved by the University's trustees in 2005 and built in 2008-2009. It was designed by Fred Guyton of Peckham, Guyton, Albers & Viets. The carillon has 48 bells.
During World War II, the Netherlands was the scene of five years of continuous air warfare between the Allied and the Nazis as the Netherlands lies en route from England to Germany and was designated and built up as the foremost line of Nazi air defence of Germany. Also, in 1944 there was heavy land fighting during the largest Allied airborne attack of the WWII in the south and east of the country in 1944–45. Thousands of airmen, soldiers and others of many nations were killed, and their war graves in some 4,000 locations are in the care of the Dutch War Cemetery Organisation.
John Warner and Sons was a metalworks and bellfoundry based in various locations in the UK, established in 1739 and dissolved in 1949.
The Nieuwe Toren is located at the Oudestraat in the city of Kampen, in the Netherlands. This Carillon tower was built in the period between 1649-1664 partly according to a design by Philips Vingboons. The lower brick-built part was erected by the Edam mill maker Dirck Janzn. The design for the lantern was made by Philips Vingboons, which may have originally been intended for the Town hall now the Royal Palace of Amsterdam. The construction work went through many setbacks, the work even came to a standstill during the period 1655-1660. It was declared a Dutch National Monument (Rijksmonument) in 1972.
The Exhibition Place Carillon is a carillon located at Exhibition Place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Campanology is the scientific and musical study of bells. It encompasses the technology of bells – how they are cast, tuned, and rung – as well as the history, methods, and traditions of bellringing as an art. Articles related to campanology include:
... and the three 'great' carillon countries –the Netherlands, the United States and Belgium –are responsible for almost 70% of all carillons worldwide.
The definition of a carillon is fixed as follows: 'A carillon is a musical instrument composed of tuned bronze bells which are played from a baton keyboard'. Only those carillons having at least 23 bells are considered.
For the purpose of these Articles, a carillon is a musical instrument consisting of at least two octaves of carillon bells arranged in a chromatic series and played from a keyboard permitting control of expression through variation of touch. A carillon bell is a cast bronze cup-shaped bell whose partial tones have a sufficiently harmonious relationship to each other to permit many such bells to sound together in varied chords with harmonious and concordant effect.
The largest bell in NC State's carillon, ... required some 2,400 pounds of metal to be melted in two furnaces and poured into its mold; it weighs more than 1,800 pounds in its finished form.