(Ger., also Stahlspiel; Fr. (jeu de) timbres, carillon; It. campanelli, campanette).
A percussion idiophone, a Metallophone with tuned metal bars (usually of steel) of graduated length, arranged in two rows like the piano keyboard (in the Hornbostel and Sachs system it is classified as an idiophone: set of percussion plaques). Modern nomenclature includes the abbreviation ‘glock’ and the American use of ‘bells’, a term now universally recognized though frequently confused with Tubular bells. In Germany ‘Glockenspiel’, also means Carillon and is further applied to the smaller diatonic sets of bells known in England as Chimes. There are two types of orchestral glockenspiel: the open type (see illustration), played with mallets (the glockenspiel has sometimes been confused with another mallet-played instrument, the dulcimer); and that with a keyboard mechanism. Maximum resonance is obtained by the bars being supported on felt (or similar insulation) or otherwise suspended at the nodal points. These positions may be determined by Chladni’s method (metal filings or a similar substance strewn on the bar will, when the bar is vibrating, form two ridges transversely where it is to be supported; see Physics of music). The instrument with a miniature piano keyboard has a compass of two and a quarter to three and a half octaves; small metal hammers strike the bars from below. The mallet-played instrument is struck with small hammers consisting of flexible cane shafts mounted with heads of wood, bone, plastic, rubber or, in rare cases, metal. The beaters are held as timpani mallets. In certain cases the open glockenspiel has tube resonators, as for example the instruments patented in the early 1900s by J.C. Deagan & Co. of Chicago (‘Deagan Parsifal Bells’). The glockenspiel usually has a range of two and a half octaves (F–c''), but at the end of the 20th century an instrument of three octaves (F–e'') with a damping mechanism operated by a foot pedal was in wide use. The latter instrument, made by Bergerault, was designed to cope with the larger range required in some contemporary music. Instruments going down to C are also found.
Metallophones in the form of graduated metal plates struck with beaters have existed in East Asia for over 1000 years (examples include the Javanese saron and gendèr). In Europe, the earliest known reference to a glockenspiel-type metallophone was made by Grassineau (Musical Dictionary, 1769), who referred to a ‘cymbal’ constructed of bars made of bell metal and silver, with a compass of more than three octaves. The bars, which were struck with ‘knobs of wood at the end of sticks’, were arranged keyboard-fashion ‘in the manner of a spinet’. The earliest use of a glockenspiel dates from this period, in Handel’s Saul (1739). Handel’s instrument, which he called a ‘carillon’, consisted of a series of metal plates (or possibly small bells) with a compass of two octaves and a 4th, and had a chromatic keyboard. Charles Jennens described this instrument as ‘both in the make and tone like a series of hammers striking upon anvils’ (letter to Lord Guernsey, 19 September 1738). Handel scored for this instrument in other works as well, including revivals of Il Trionfo del Tempo and Acis and Galatea (both 1739), and in L’Allegro il Penseroso ed il Moderato (1740). Half a century later Mozart scored for a glockenspiel (strumento d’acciaio) in Die Zauberflöte (1791), to represent Papageno’s magic bells. This instrument has been described by Berlioz and Gevaert as a series of small bells operated by a mechanism of keys.
The mallet-played orchestral glockenspiel, which may have developed from the lyra-glockenspiel (see Bell-lyra) as used in German military bands, did not make a firm appearance in the orchestra until the middle of the 19th century. An instrument of this type may have been used in Adam’s Si j’étais roi (?1852), and in Wagner’s orchestra in place of the then generally used continental keyboard glockenspiel. In England at this period, mention is made of an interesting form of glockenspiel: the ‘New Patent Educational Transposing Metallic Harmonicon’, an inspiration of Thomas Croger, in which the metal bars were removable for transposition, rendering the instrument – according to its inventor – ‘useful in schools where singing is being studied’.
From Wagner onwards writing for the orchestral glockenspiel suggests a frequent employment of the mallet-played instrument, though in circumstances such as Puccini’s operas Turandot and Madama Butterfly (campanelli a tasteria), Dukas’ L’apprenti sorcier, Debussy’s La mer, Respighi’s Pini di Roma and Honegger’s Fourth Symphony, an instrument with a piano action was obviously intended. The better-known examples of the use of the orchestral glockenspiel include the Dance of the Hours (La Gioconda) by Ponchielli, the Bell Song (Lakmé) by Delibes, Strauss’s Don Juan, Tchaikovsky’s suite Nutcracker, Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, Vaughan Williams’s A London Symphony, Holst’s suite The Planets, Kodály’s Dances of Galánta, Copland’s Third Symphony, Britten’s The Prince of the Pagodas, Orff’s Oedipus der Tyrann (three glockenspiels, one with keys) and Boulez’s Pli selon pli. An important part is given to the glockenspiel in Siegfried Strohbach’s Concerto in G (1959) which is scored for two flutes, glockenspiel and string orchestra.
In the orchestral repertory the glockenspiel has been the most freely used of all tuned percussion instruments. The keyed glockenspiel was, at the end of the 20th century, used relatively rarely, as the mallet-played instrument is superior in tone and offers through choice of mallets a greater variety of colours. Even parts written specifically for the keyed glockenspiel, such as that in Messiaen’s Turangalîla-symphonie (1946–8), were sometimes assigned to the mallet-played instrument. Composers often employ its bell-like tone imitatively. The music for the instrument is written in the treble clef, usually two octaves lower than sounding.
BladesPI
H. Berlioz: Grand traité d’instrumentation et d’orchestration modernes (Paris, 1843, 2/1855/R; Eng. trans., 1856, rev. 2/1882/R by J. Bennett)
F.A. Gevaert: Nouveau traité d’instrumentation (Paris and Brussels, 1885)
W. Ellerhorst: Das Glockenspiel (Kassel, 1940)
N. Del Mar: Anatomy of the Orchestra (London, 1981)
JAMES BLADES/JAMES HOLLAND