Our Lady's Carillon
We arrived in Saltely at about 4:30pm in time for Caroline to play Evensong before the 5:30pm mass. We met up with Clive who is one of the Carillonneurs and he led us up a very tight iron spiral stairway to the clavier room - only a mere 58 steps or so this time!
The installation of a carillon here was inspired by a similar 1928 installation at St Patrick's RC Church, Dumbarton; you may recall that we were unable to see the Dumbarton carillon earlier in the tour. The carillon of 23 bells was given to the church by Monsignor John Power (connections with Power Brewery, Dublin) and the bells were consecrated on 2nd January 1933 a year before the new church was completed and consecrated.
Although the climb was very narrow, the tower housing the clavier and the bells is very spacious. The clavier is housed in an inner room and then there are just 18 more steps leading up to the bells which are hung on a frame which you can walk all around - thus enabling us to get some of the best video footage of bells while they are being played so far (to follow).
There's still some research I have to do on this but, apparently, someone (I will find out the name of the author hopefully) wrote a book about the perfect way to install and house a carillon and clavier - including positioning of the clavier in terms of distance from walls etc, distance from bells and the positioning of the bells in relation to the louvres - all designed to get the best sound. This installation was built to those specifications.
Caroline got started pretty much straightaway while the rest of us went up to see the bells.
During World War II the bells were sent away down to Charnwood Forest for safe-keeping where they were looked after at Mount St Bernard's Abbey. It was just as well as the church took a several direct and indirect hits between 1940 - 1941.
You can read more about the history here:
http://www.know-britain.com/parishes/rosary/history_1.html
The bells did not ring from the church again until they were re-installed in 1944.
After Caroline had been playing for around 20 minutes, Clive took over to finish the recital so that Caroline could get a chance to hear how the carillon sounded from outside.
Caroline says that this carillon has been her favourite as the positioning for playing is ideal for her; she also likes the two octave arrangement. She said that the foot pedals were at a slightly different alignment to the batons than she was used to but it wasn't a problem. She also said that the sound of the bells while she was playing was much clearer and more accurate so that she felt that she could be more expressive with them. She certainly played with more confidence on this clavier. Perhaps the 'perfect installation theory' is spot on.
We really enjoyed our visit and would like to thank Clive for inviting us and showing us around. Caroline hopes to be able to go back and play again soon - it's certainly her personal favourite to play so far (except Loughborough, of course!)
Our next visit is to Bournville - Caroline has a booking to play the bells after two weddings. In the meantime you can brace yourself for some brilliant video clips of Newcastle and then York - you'll just love the one of Caroline having a panic over Great Peter!
1 comment:
Awww! Looks like you've been having a great time Caz! Fantastic. It's great to be able to keep track of it all on here eh! :-D
Catch up with you soon!
Pete.
xx
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