(Fr. Cloche; Ger. Glocke; It., Sp. campana).
An idiophone consisting of a hollow object, usually of metal but in some cultures of hard clay or even glass, which when struck emits a sound by the vibration of most of its mass. Bells differ from gongs in that their zone of maximum vibration is towards the rim, while that of gongs is towards the centre; bells are held at their vertex, or point farthest from their rim. While the word ‘bell’ is often loosely applied to any device that produces a metallic sound of gradual decay, a true bell is not so long in relation to its diameter as to be considered a tube closed at one end (see Tubular bells), nor so short as to form a shallow pan (see Cymbals, Gong, Metallophone). The term ‘bells’ often refers to the (See Glockenspiel (i)) because of its bell-like timbre; this usage originated in the USA and has become universally recognized though it has led to confusion with orchestral bells.
The bell is classified as a percussion vessel; certain types (for instance, pellet bells), however, are vessel rattles.
1. Forms and methods of sounding.
6. European techniques and traditions.
7. The use and representation of bells in art music.
PERCIVAL PRICE (1–5), CHARLES BODMAN RAE (6), JAMES BLADES, CHARLES BODMAN RAE (7)
True bells are derived in shape from two basic forms: the cup and the hollow sphere. The cup form, also called the ‘open’ bell, is the more common. It appears in a great variety of profiles, of which the modern European tower bell with sides flared towards the rim is a representative example (figs.1 and 2). It is also found in more squat forms (as exemplified by many bicycle and clock bells, and some similarly shaped bells used in music) and in more elongated forms such as cylindrical and ‘barrel-shaped’ Buddhist bells, certain African tribal bells, and some of the earlier European ‘beehive’ and ‘sugar-loaf’ tower bells. In addition to the above forms, which all have circular rims, bells are found in many parts of the world with rims and cross-sections of oval, rectangular and other shapes – for example Cowbells, which have been used in the modern orchestra for tonal effects.
When the word ‘bell’ is used without further description the open bell or cup form is usually meant. The hollow-sphere form, or crotal (Fr. grelot; Ger. Schlittenglocke), however, is equally universal and of equally ancient origin; a representative example is the sleighbell. Called the ‘closed’ bell in contradistinction to the ‘open’ bell, the crotal's basic form is the sphere, but it has as many varieties of shape as the open bell, resembling such diverse objects as clam-shells, pears or teardrops. It does not have a wide rim; instead, most examples have a long slot or crossed slots in the lower half, or holes in either the lower or upper halves. A few examples have holes in both halves; and a few large crotals, such as those at Shinto shrines, have neither holes nor slots (fig.3) and are therefore distinct acoustically from bells in the normal sense. Both open bells and crotals have a device at the vertex for attachment. This may be a lug, a loop or crossed loops (‘canons’: Fr. anses; Ger. Krone) or in many modern open bells simply a bolt hole.
An integral part of many open bells is a clapper. This is either a rod with a knob on it or, in many non-European examples, a pellet or ball suspended by a string or thong; it is attached to the bell on the inside directly under the vertex. Its purpose is to sound the bell by striking it: either the bell is oscillated to cause the clapper to hit it at opposite points on the inside, the prevalent method in Western church usage, or the clapper is pulled by means of a rope or wire to make it strike the bell on one side only, as in most Eastern church usages and in manual chiming and carillon playing. An open bell may also be sounded by striking it with a hammer on either the inside or the outside, as in automatic clock-chiming, or by striking at a fixed point on the outside with a ramrod, which is the customary Buddhist method for ringing very large bells (see fig.9 below). Where the hammer is used it is usually affixed permanently close to the bell and moved by remote control; however, a series of bells within reach of one or two performers may be played with hammers held in the hands, as with the Chinese bianzhong, the medieval cymbala, and some modern performances on handbells (see Chimes, §1, Cymbala (ii) and Handbell).
For crotals the device corresponding to the clapper or hammer of the open bell is a loose pellet permanently enclosed inside. The crotal is sounded by agitating it so as to cause the pellet to bounce freely and strike the inner surface. There are crotals which have several pellets inside them, just as there are portable open bells with several clappers.
When a bell is struck it gives off a complex sound containing a considerable number of partials that may or may not be in concordant relationship, rather than a fundamental pitch with a series of concordant harmonics above it (as found in most wind and string instruments). Moreover, after each stroke the sound does not cease abruptly, as with the drum or the xylophone, but continues for an indefinite period depending on the bell's form and size, and the elasticity and homogeneity of the material of which it is made. The highest partials cease very soon after striking, and the lowest partial – which is not the loudest during most of the total decay – lasts longest (fig.4 and ex.1).
In European tower bells the hum-like quality of this lowest partial led English bellfounders to call it the ‘hum note’ (Fr. bourdon; Ger. Unteroktave). The next frequency, approximately an octave above but greatly varying in untuned bells, gives the impression of being the principal pitch of the bell during most of its decay, and is therefore called the fundamental (Fr. principal; Ger. Prime). The next two partials are called the tierce (Fr. tierce; Ger. Terz) and quint (Fr. quinte; Ger. Quinte): they lie approximately a 3rd and a 5th above the fundamental. This 3rd tends to be minor, not major, which indicates that these frequencies are independent partials, not overtones generated from a common root. Approximately one octave above the fundamental is the nominal (Fr. nominal; Ger. Oberoktave), so called because although it is short-lived its intensity at the moment of striking has great influence in defining the pitch of the bell. Above the nominal there are more partials: in the sound of a large bell there may be from ten to perhaps 100 extending over several octaves. They are in more or less dissonant relationship to each other and to the lower partials, but their decay is so rapid that they scarcely affect the pitch of the bell. However, they give its sound the rich, vibrant attack that is an essential characteristic of a bell's timbre and makes it uniquely useful for arresting attention.
In bells where the fundamental and the nominal are not a true octave apart, a keen ear can recognize another frequency at the instant of striking which lies a true octave below the nominal. This is called the ‘strike note’ (Fr. note de coup; Ger. Schlagton). It is of very short duration, and has caused controversy among acousticians because it is not of the same nature as the other partials but is a resultant tone. In bells with the fundamental an octave below the nominal it becomes part of the fundamental. Its presence has been a debatable asset, for while it is considered objectionable in music on chimes and carillons where precise pitch relationships are demanded, it may actually enhance the effect of bells swung as a peal, where the aural interest is that of kaleidoscopic patterns of sound melting one into the other, or of Russian-style chiming, where the interest derives chiefly from the sounding of rhythms and timbres at high and low pitches. From the 13th century, when a few founders – after a careful study of profile design – succeeded in casting bells with octaves between the nominal and the fundamental (thus eliminating an obvious strike note), European opinion has altered over the necessity of this interval in bells sounded by swinging. A controversy raged in the English press in 1933, for example, when the historic ‘Bow Bells’ of Bow Church, Cheapside, London, were replaced by bells with true octaves. Those bells, destroyed in World War II, were in turn replaced by the present ones, in which the interval is a few cents under the octave (see Whitechapel Bell Foundry).
Such fine control of individual partials in a bell is achieved by tuning the bell after it is cast. Tuning involves removing a small amount of metal from the bell's inner surface at certain concentric zones that determine the pitches of specific partials. This is a very delicate and highly skilled operation, for very slight alterations in the profile of the bell may alter the pitch frequency not only of the partial in question but of others as well. It is usually done in the foundry immediately after the casting, and remains permanent for the life of the bell unless it is affected by corrosion. In bells used for chimes and carillons the five most important partials (named above) must be tuned. The pitch to which they are made to relate is the fundamental: the nominal is tuned an octave above and the hum note an octave below; the tierce a minor 3rd above; and the quint a perfect 5th above (ex.1). As the removal of metal in most zones tends to lower – rather than raise – the pitch of the particular partial, bells intended to be tuned are usually cast sharp, and then ‘tuned down’. The above process is the internal tuning of a bell. For a bell to be used in musical performance with other bells there must also be external tuning: that is, the fundamental of each bell must be at the proper scale interval, not only from its other partials but also from the fundamental of every other bell.
This tuning of the five principal partials applies to bells of the form and thickness of the conventional Western tower bell, that is a conoid ‘cup’ form with its bottom or rim diameter twice that of the top diameter and equal to the distance between the edges of the two diameters. The sides of this type of bell are in fact not straight, but from the top flare out slightly for two-thirds of their length and then flare more rapidly until turning down at the rim. With the increase in flare at the outside there is also an increase in the thickness of the bell wall, the maximum thickness occurring near the rim at the zone where the clapper strikes, called the ‘sound-bow’ (fig. 5b).
After European bellfounders determined that these proportions yielded both the best bell sound and the necessary durability to withstand years of severe pounding from the clapper, they discovered that with slight deviations in profile and in the ratio of height to diameter they could cast a bell which, under proper foundry conditions, would have from a 7th to a 9th as the interval between fundamental and nominal. Some founders developed sufficient skill, in filing or chiselling at a few places on the inner surface, to bring this interval to an octave. This fine adjustment was not considered necessary for great outdoor bells, which were to inspire with awe as they summoned to church, or to drive demons out of occasional storms: but it was required for the more musical uses of bells on the cymbala and other chimes, and for the regular iteration of musical figures as clock signals. The relation of thickness to pitch (the thicker the bell the higher the pitch) had been determined in making cymbala bells in monasteries in the 12th century, just as it had been determined some 17 centuries earlier in making sets of oval bianzhong bells in China (see Zhong). By 1200 ce there were founders who could make tower bells with pure octaves between the fundamental and the nominal.
The first known written work on bell acoustics appeared in China in the 3rd century, and dealt with the sounding of bells by sympathetic vibration. The earliest dated treatises on bells in Europe are from the 13th century. One, by the French monk Vincent de Beauvais, noted three pitches in a bell and is the earliest record of recognizing partials. There is material on bells and their proportions of weight and size in Walter Odington's Summa de speculations musice (pt.3, c1300). Another treatise is credited to Theophilus Presbyter, a monk attached to a Benedictine monastery near Essen, who may have been of Byzantine birth and who has been dated as early as the 10th century; his Diversarum artium schedula (bk 3, §§lxxxv–vi) discusses the bellfounder's craft in great detail, and had a strong influence on bellfounding throughout Europe. In the 13th century bellfounding passed into lay hands; bellfounders experimented with broadening the rim to withstand clapper thrust and with other new profiles, trying to find the best design of bell for church towers, which were then increasing in number. The founders next developed the outward curve of the sides into the tower-bell form presently most common, which in some countries is referred to as the ‘Gothic profile’.
Modern investigations into bell acoustics sprang from the conflict between theological dogma and scientific curiosity among some men in religious orders. In the 17th century Mersenne wrote that the ringing of churchbells could disperse storms and thunder, but he was not sure whether this was due to the bells' baptism or to their vibrations tearing through clouds and releasing the thunder in them. He published a table of weights, diameters and thicknesses of sound-bows for bells sounding the C major scale in sizes up to 90 cm in diameter and weighing 450 kg. Mersenne's investigations, along with those of Descartes and of Christiaan Huygens, who also perfected a tower-clock mechanism, opened the way for the development of a wide range of well-tuned bells such as those made by the Hemonys and other 17th-century founders.
The investigations into bell acoustics by Mersenne and Huygens were continued in the 18th century by Leonhard Euler in Switzerland and Ernst Chladni in Germany, and in the 19th century by Baron Grimthorpe, Lord Rayleigh and Canon A.B. Simpson in England. In the 1890s Simpson made studies of sets of English and nearby continental bells, and reported that in most of them the founders had tuned only one partial, either the nominal or the fundamental, but in the bells of the best 17th- and 18th-century carillons on the Continent the founders had tuned the five most prominent partials. He therefore advocated that founders of his day should also tune all five, and he indicated the zones on the inside of the bell where metal should be removed in respect to each partial. Few founders followed his advice; but John Taylor & Co. and then Gillett & Johnston developed sufficient skill to tune a chromatic series of carillon bells properly. Although Simpson's desire was simply to improve the sound of English churchbells, he can be said to be the father of the modern Carillon.
At the same time Aristarkh Izrailev, a Russian priest, conducted research on Russian stationary bells (Russ. zvonï) and P.J. Blessing investigated swinging bells in Germany. The reawakening of Dutch interest in the carillon included research by Abraham vas Nunes in 1909 on the bells of François Hemony. During World War I Johann Biehle conducted research in Germany on the tonal qualities of steel bells as possible replacements for bronze ones that had been sequestered to supply bronze for war purposes.
In the 20th century a few Japanese physicists, including Ichiro Aoki (who published from 1934 to 1957), did research on the sounds of large and medium-sized Japanese bells. In the USA research was done by the Meneely bellfounders (Watervliet, NY) in the 1890s and A.T. Jones in the 1920s. Jones's research was followed in 1930 by that of Franklin Tyzzer, who introduced a new procedure into bell-tone analysis: while 17th-century Dutch founders used bronze bars similar to those of the East Indian gamelan as tone standards, and 19th-century founders and physicists used both resonators and plain and adjustable tuning-forks, Tyzzer used an electric oscillator that could be set to various frequencies and touched to the bell to cause each partial to sound individually as a sustained tone. The same procedure was used by Erich Thienhaus in Germany during and after World War II, and by E.W. van Heuven in the Netherlands just after the war. They worked under unique conditions in that the wartime removal of bells from towers in both countries made it possible to bring selected bells to the laboratory for testing. Since then a great variety of research on old and new Dutch bells has been conducted in the Netherlands by André Lehr.
Shortly before and after World War II other electrical apparatus was developed not only to analyse bell tones but also to imitate them. The reproduction of swinging bells, tried in Germany, proved impractical because of the changes in timbre and surge as a bell swings in opposite directions; but the sound of stationary bells was approximated closely enough for the ‘electronic carillon’ to be promoted in areas where real tower bells were little known. Two American physicists who were also carillonneurs – Robert Kleinschmidt and Arthur Bigelow – were prominent in pioneering this instrument. One principle of its operation involved activating metal rods (one for each note) and amplifying their vibrations (fig.6). The difficulty was that although the timbre might approximate to that of a bell for an instant, it was not the same throughout the decay, and in low notes the rich effect of the many high partials of large bells was lacking. The instrument was played automatically or from a digitial keyboard without transmission of the touch, and all dynamic variation was by electric control affecting the whole range at once.
It has been demonstrated that concordant tuning in a bell is not always preferable. In the early 1950s the Dutch found that, after a government commission for the inspection of tower bells permitted only those bells with partials reasonably in tune to be rung, every bell in a city sounded alike and could be distinguished only by its direction and pitch. The Russians learnt to value an element of discord in tower bells somewhat earlier: after the work of Izrailev and others, some careful tuning was done to Russian zvonï (e.g. those in the Russian Orthodox church in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jerusalem), but it was found that the magnificent timbre of the old Russian bells was sacrificed. (Tchaikovsky planned to use the glorious Russian bell timbres in the first performance of his 1812 Overture by having all the churchbells of Moscow rung on a signal from cannon in the Kremlin, but he had to be content with the massive bells at Uspensky Cathedral where it was first performed.)
The large Buddhist bells of East Asia, although not so dissonant as corresponding Western bells because of their fewer partials, are favoured with enough dissonance to have one to three beats per second; one reason they are hung low is so that the listener can come near enough to feel this pulsation bodily. For a discussion of the vibrational properties of bells, see Acoustics, §V, 5.
No instrument has been made in such a wide range of sizes as the bell. The smallest is no bigger than a pea; the largest could be used as a room. The smallest open bells have a diameter of less than 5 mm, and the largest just under 6 metres. Between these extremes bells have been made of almost every size, depending upon use, cost, attractiveness and the development of the bellmaking craft. But use and cost have determined that most open bells are much closer to the smaller size given than the larger, while all crotals are relatively small. The largest crotals (worn by Indian elephants) are about 18 cm in diameter, and the smallest (on pre-Columbian American jewellery) about 5 mm.
For such a universal instrument as the bell it is meaningless to speak of standard sizes. The size of a bell can sometimes be suggested by stating its use, as with a tower bell or animal bell, but this is in no way precise. Weight is in some ways a more useful standard than dimension for differentiating bells, especially large ones, because bells of very little difference in linear measurement may differ greatly in weight. In standard usage the figure given for the weight of a bell includes any inseparable protuberances for attaching it to a fixture (although this is not included in the height) and for holding its clapper, but does not include the weight of the clapper. The range of weights of bells is much greater even than that of their dimensions. Bells have been reported weighing as little as 1·5 grams and as much as 200,000 kg. Most bells are closer to the smaller limit than to the larger, and relatively few weigh more than 20,000 kg (Table 1).
There is no direct relationship between weight and size, even for bells with homologous outside dimensions, because of variables such as thickness (small bells varying up to ten times in weight; large bells having less variation in proportional thickness with more variation in actual weight), material (e.g. bronze or clay), or porousness due to slight differences in the manufacturing process.
It is difficult to obtain reliable statistics on the size of a bell, although the dimensions of existing bells can be measured. But often the investigator must rely on records of weight that may vary according to whether they represent the intended weight before casting, the weight of the total material used less that of what remains over, or the weight of the bell when it is removed from the mould. However, the true weight of the bell is its weight after cleaning and tuning (if done), when ready for delivery. There is a method for estimating the weight of a bell that is already in place, provided it is of circular plan, but the exactness of this method depends on the accuracy of measurement of the profile, which can be guaranteed only if the profile is in exact homologous relationship to a known one.
The bell is found in many cultures both ancient and modern, and probably originated as a copy and development of two natural noisemakers: the pod filled with dried seeds (a natural rattle) and hard sticks arranged in a loose cluster. The bell's earliest use appears to have been as an amulet worn by people to impress both gods and men; this was the case with the golden bells on the high priest's robe (Exodus xxviii. 33–5). They were also attached to animals to guard against evil spirits, frighten away predators, and hold a flock together by its distinctive sound. Although the magic or sacred efficacy of bells is almost nowhere maintained, it was an important part of their historical use in both Christian and non-Christian cultures.
The bell's cultivation as a musical instrument developed from its having been worn by people and shaken as a rhythm instrument to emphasize body movements in temple dances. Later it was hung on a frame singly or in small groups and used as a tone-colour instrument in court orchestras and was played by striking; from this it developed into an instrument of fixed scale comprising bells tuned in series. Bells were used thus in China from the Zhou to Ming dynasties (1122 bce to 1644 ce) and also provided a means of fixing interval relationships in the Chinese system of music theory. Such an instrument did not appear in Europe until about the 13th century, when it was used both for musical performances and to give the pitches for plainsong incipits. The Chinese development has been kept alive in Korea; the European one, after receiving further expansion in the Low Countries in the 17th century, has spread to all areas of Western culture (see Chimes, §1, Carillon, Handbell).
Paralleling the bell's musical uses, and sometimes borrowing from them, was its cultivation as a signalling device. This development can be traced back to the hanging of small bells on draught and riding animals to indicate their approach; to the placing of somewhat larger bells on posts and gates to warn of danger or designate an area of military control; and then to the hanging of still larger bells in specially built permanent structures to call people to religious and secular assemblies, mark the hours, enhance public rejoicing and solemnize public mourning. Meanwhile, the use of small bells was developed in various ways for such local signals as summoning a person.
(ii) Central Asia to the Mediterranean.
Excavations suggest that small bronze bells of both open and crotal types, circular in cross-section, came into use first in South-eastern Asia before 3000 bce, and from there spread to India, China and the Near East. They were worn on the dress, presumably to ward off evil, signal a person's approach or emphasize body movements. Between 1500 and 1000 bce open bells of oval circumference with pointed or ‘fishmouth’ rims came into use in China. They were made in increasingly large sizes until about 1000 bce, when bells too large to be carried were made, necessitating a distinction between portable and non-portable bells. The non-portable ones were hung on a frame and struck with mallets. Terms describing the timbres of bells came into use, and eventually the tuning of bells to standard pitches was developed. By the 5th century bce bells held an important place in Chinese state orchestras playing for Confucian rituals (see Chimes, §1). For a detailed discussion of early Chinese bells see Zhong.
With the spread of bronze casting in the last centuries bce, another form of open bell, the windbell (with clappers moved by the wind; fig.8), came into being; these were hung in groups from the eaves of sacred structures from Bali to Tibet, replacing clusters of sticks and other natural materials. In regions where the horse was widely used, crotals were favoured over open bells on harnesses because they could be sounded by vertical (as well as sideways) shaking and so were better adapted to trotting motion.
In India both crotals and open bells started to be used in Vedic ritual in about the 6th century bce. Iconologically the open bell with flared sides represented the lotus flower. Handbells continue to be used in rituals and crotals are affixed to dancers' ankles. Open bells are hung in temple porches for devotees to invoke the deity they are about to worship by moving the clapper (see Ghantā).
Buddhism adopted the handbell and the temple bell, and spread their use. It also made greater use of windbells, placing them in profusion along the eaves of temples and pagodas, so that at shrines where hundreds and even thousands of them hung each gust of wind caused aeolian effects as if from a great orchestra. Buddhism related bellfounding to astrology, and cast larger bells than ever before as darbār (‘court’) bells. With its eastward spread Buddhism carried the bell of circular cross-section to China, where its much longer sound decay eventually caused it to replace bells of rectangular or oval cross-section. In Japan the Buddhist-type bell (see fig.9 and fig.5a above) was the successor to a flat bell with wide flanges. The belief that bell sounds transmitted a spiritual essence stimulated the casting of colossal bells by Korean, then Chinese and Japanese founders (see Table 1 above). This led to the use of large bells at gates for defence signals.
From prehistoric times in the area north of the Himalayas and west as far as the Caucasus, bells were light enough to be held in the hand or worn on pack animals because of the nomadic habits of the population. Any increase in volume of sound was effected by using bells in clusters. In about the 10th century bce Iranian open bells were formed as representations of the flower, and crotals as the fruit of the pomegranate, thus adding bell timbres to potent visual symbols of regenerating life forces. In the 9th century bce small rugged open bells were worn on Assyrian royal horses, and by the 5th century bce such bells were hung singly on horses and camels from India to Libya and the Balkans. The Turks and Mongols made two-note crotals by joining two hemispheres sounding different notes to enclose the pellet. In Afghanistan the characteristic rhythmic patterns set up by bells on pack animals moving at an even pace were transferred to drum music and given descriptive names such as zang-i-shotor (‘camel-bell rhythm’) etc. The development of a clapper with an extension or ‘flight’ led to clusters of bells, one inside the other, used on camels in Persia and Egypt.
Although crotals (first of clay, then of bronze) were in use in Egypt as early as 2000 bce, open bells did not appear until about 1000 bce. They were probably first used as cult bells, often being decorated with the heads of such sacred animals as the ram, jackal or lioness, and sometimes shaped so that the body of the instrument represents the face of the god Bes. Magical purpose is clear in the case of a bell found at Meroe in the northern Sudan (late 1st millennium bce), on which are incised figures of captives transfixed with arrows or the sword. The developing use of animal bells is illustrated by the splendid sets found with horses in the burials of X-group chiefs at Ballana and Qustul, reminiscent of the bells shown on horses in Assyrian hunting scenes. The wearing of bells for certain dances is a very ancient custom, traceable from the Middle East across Egypt to western Africa (and eventually found in England in morris dancing). Just as the role of cult bells evolved from one of protecting against a wrathful god, to marking the order of worship of a beneficient one, so their iconology developed from representations of reptile and animal deities to representations of flowers, abstract designs and the Coptic cross (see Handbell, fig.2).
In Greece, clay bells were in use from about the 8th century bce and bronze bells from the 6th. They were all small and seem to have had slight musical or terpsichorean use, being employed rather as windbells to attract beneficient spirits or as votive offerings to a god. They also had military uses, such as dismaying people who were unfamiliar with the sound of metal. The Etruscans made use of large decorated bronze bells in funeral rites, presumably for apotropaic purposes. The cymbala and the crotala were the preferred instruments for dancing until Roman times, when both open bells and crotals, alone as well as with other instruments, were used to mark the rhythms of dances at festivals, especially in the orgiastic rites associated with Dionysus. With the gradual admission of the public to view rites formerly witnessed only by priests and initiates, a small bell was rung in front of some temples. The transfer of this custom to Christian rites in Alexandria and Carthage in the 3rd to 5th centuries may be seen to have prefigured the church tower bell. The largest pre-Christian Roman bell, found near Basle, Switzerland, and dated from about the 2nd century ce, is 17 cm in diameter and 10·5 cm high.
From ancient times a great variety of bells has been used in all parts of sub-Saharan Africa. They are in both crotal and open forms, and mostly are made of hammered iron, although some are of wood and a few of cast bronze. All the indigenous types are portable, the largest being about 50 cm high (without the handle). There are also instruments that are simply pieces of folded iron and are not strictly bells.
The main uses of African bells are for ritual, music and the protection and location of cattle. They are used musically in processions, dances and especially songs introducing dances. The crotal is employed for tone colour, either separately or attached to another instrument as in the harp-lute of Sudan, West Africa. However, it is used more sparingly than the open bell because it usually is deemed to have a greater ritual potency. Most crotals retain the shape of the natural pod rattle from which they are derived. The custom of wearing small crotals to give tonal emphasis to body movements is not so great as on other continents, Jingles being used instead.
In some parts of Africa there are metal open bells with a suspended crotal for a clapper. However, the most typical open bell from Liberia to Mozambique has no clapper. It is made of forged iron shaped like a pyramid or a flattened hood, and is held in the left hand and struck with a hammer held in the right (fig.10); these struck bells may be manipulated against the players' bodies to produce changes of sound, usually in rapid succession. Sometimes two or three are joined to form a two- or three-note instrument. There are also wooden bells, usually with clappers and sometimes with multiple clappers hung to strike each other as well as the bell so that the instrument (resembling certain buffalo bells in South-east Asia) serves as both jingle and bell. In some parts of Africa a progenitor of the bell is used: the shell of a nut with a stick suspended inside as a clapper. Unusually, the erero, an open cast-bronze bell 10 to 30 cm high found in Benin, southern Nigeria and in variants along the western coast to the Congo, is regarded, however, more as an object to revere than as an instrument to sound.
Small bells were used in most areas of North and South America before the European invasions of the 16th century. A multiple-clapper wooden bell, resembling those in parts of Africa and South-east Asia, was known from Bolivia to Argentina. Clay crotals in imitation of natural pod rattles were made in Central America between 2000 and 1000 bce. About the 1st century ce small clay crotals were atached as tripod legs to clay bowls, a device which had been applied to metal bowls in China in the 5th century bce. In the 5th century ce remarkably clear-sounding clay crotals up to 10 cm high were made in Mexico, as well as cone-shaped open bells; both kinds are still in use.
Metal bells first appeared between the 8th and 10th centuries in Colombia and Peru. They evolved from a tine conic jingle of copper, first taking the form of an open bell with a pellet suspended inside, and then of a crotal with the pellet enclosed loose. These were cast in bronze in sizes from 4 to 16 cm high, first in teardrop shape, then in fruit and animal forms. By the 11th century they were also made of gold and silver alloys in smaller sizes. Generally in South America the crotal was both a ritual object and an article of dress. In Peru it was attached to the leg to mark rhythms in dances. Metal crotals were circulated widely along trade routes from Argentina to what is now the central USA, being particularly attractive to peoples without indigenous metal. For their ceremonies the Aztecs imported great numbers of crotals from subject peoples. Metal open bells were also made in South America, but were less widely used than the crotal. They were made in several shapes, in heights up to about 30 cm. Some had single or multiple clappers of bone or stone, but metal clappers were unknown. One of their uses was as animal bells on llamas in caravans.
The primary development of the bell in Europe was as a signalling device first for the Christian church and later for secular uses. Crotals on censers and other altar furnishings were derived from the rituals of earlier faiths. The open bell was first spread by Celtic missionaries who from the 5th century to the 9th placed handbells, mostly of forged iron, in religious houses across central and northern Europe from Germany to Iceland. Cast bells began to be manufactured by Benedictines in Italy at the end of the 6th century, and their use, first in handbell size but then larger, spread north and west across Roman Catholic Europe; gradually they replaced forged bells because of their louder volume and longer decay. This led to the use of large bells permanently attached to religious buildings for regulating religious life. Eventually the upper part of the church tower, originally a structure for defence, became the usual place for housing such bells, which increased in size and number as religious institutions grew in size and wealth over the centuries. These tower bells were sounded in the same manner as handbells by swinging, regardless of their size. This added a surge to their volume which has been a characteristic of Western churchbell sounds ever since, while limiting their rhythmic and melodic use.
In eastern European churches the original signal for calling to worship was the sound of ‘knocking’, made by striking on a thick wooden board called (from the Greek) a Sēmantron. Tower bells appeared much later than in Western churches. As they were gradually adopted, however, the custom of ‘knocking’ was transferred to them by fastening the bell stationary and pulling the clapper to strike it. This method of sounding does not put such a sideward thrust on a structure as do swinging bells; therefore when the Eastern churches became increasingly wealthy they tended to acquire more bells, and much heavier ones, then were found in Western church towers.
At first the accumulation of bells in both Eastern and Western towers resulted from their function of giving distinct signals for mass, obit, alarm etc; hence a distinct, recognizable timbre for each bell was desired. Indeed for some uses a disagreeable timbre was the most effective (e.g. the alarm bell ‘tocsin’, originally a manner of striking the bell rapidly high on the waist to bring out the upper partials). But as it became more common to ring several bells together for festive occasions, attention was given to improving their tone. This led to changes in the bell profile in order to bring the most prominent partials into octave relationship (see §2); the earliest extant example of this, a bell in the parish church at St Martin am Ybbsfeld, Lower Austria, is dated 1200. The next step was to relate tower bells tonally. This had already been accomplished on much smaller bells in monasteries (see Chimes, §1). In the 14th and 15th centuries the impetus to relate the pitches of tower bells to short scale segments came from a desire to use fragments of liturgical melodies on tower clocks in abbeys, or to suggest such fragments in the interplay of notes in swinging peals.
In most of western Europe bells were swung at the natural pendular tempo of each bell, causing the smaller, higher-pitched bells to sound in faster succession than the larger, lower-pitched ones. In England a method of checking the bell's movement after each stroke was devised, so that each bell sounded the same number of times; variety was achieved by changing their sequences (see Change ringing). The arrest of the natural pendular swing of bells in order to control their succession in a series was also practised in parts of southern France. In the Iberian peninsula a type of tower-bell ringing using both stationary and swinging bells was developed. One large bell (signum) and sometimes several others were suspended stationary from the bell chamber ceiling and sounded, while smaller bells, which had great counter-balances and were hung pivoted in the bellchamber openings, were continually rotated – the player pushing alternately on the bell and the counter-balance.
Swinging bells were mostly rung by pulling a rope attached to an arm or a wheel, and required a person for each bell or even several people for a heavy bell. With stationary bells rung by pulling ropes attached to their clappers one man could sound several, except for the heaviest bells, which were often rung by one or two men directly pushing the clapper. This type of ringing was general in eastern Europe and was also practised in western Europe (see Chimes, §1).
The rise of cities introduced secular ownership and control of some large bells without greatly affecting their usage. The development of clock chimes, which before general literacy were more useful than dials, led to widespread automatic playing and the evolution of the carillon. New combinations of notes in swung tower bells came into use over the centuries, with departures from old church modes. Eventually even the bells used on herd animals were musically related: Balkan herd bells, following Turkish tradition, conformed to a melodic scale, whereas Alpine herd bells, following western European tradition, were usually based on a harmonic grouping. The military bells of Turkish troops in Europe contributed two bell stops to the Baroque organ: the Glockenspiel and the Zimbelstern.
Both European bell customs and the actual products of European foundries have spread to all continents with the growth of world trade. Electricity is used to sound bells ranging from the largest swinging churchbell to the most remote telephone bell. By means of an electrical hook-up a carillon in western Belgium, an orchestra in Switzerland and a chorus and conductor in Brussels were combined in a broadcast concert. The daily ringing of the angelus, once a sign that the sexton was in the church, is now done automatically according to a time-clock. Except for English change ringing, much of the church ringing in western Europe is similarly performed. At the same time the tonal accomplishments of bellfounders and the development and spread of the musical use of bells have never been greater.
The casting of bells is an ancient and complex art that requires skill in the making of suitable moulds and the heating and fusing of metals into an alloy with specific acoustical properties. The Egyptians made bronze crotals using plaster moulds about 2000 bce. Some time between 2000 and 900 bce small open bells were cast in northern Iran, and by 850 bce Assyrian bronze founders had found it better to use a higher ratio of tin to copper for harness bells than for their non-acoustical castings. The Hittite movements spread this knowledge to the Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean areas. By the 4th or 3rd century bce the casting of small bells was established at Nola, near Naples. In the meantime the Egyptians were putting ornamentation on their bells by the ‘cire-perdue’ (lost-wax) method.
Bronze casting was known in India by about 2000 bce, but there is no proof of its use at that date to make bells. The ancient Indian bell-casting process (still used in Nepal) was conducted in the temple compound under strict astrological as well as metallurgical rules. From the Himalayas this knowledge spread over parts of south-eastern Asia, and after the advent of Buddhism it was applied to the casting of some very large bells, necessitating the use of furnaces instead of open fires.
Bellfounding in China began about the 11th century bce, and by the 5th century bce an alloy of about four parts copper to one of tin (the most common ratio of bell alloy today) was established. The metal was heated in crucibles and poured into clay moulds comprised of fitted sections. Bianzhong bells were at first made in different sizes for different notes, and later in different thicknesses; they were tuned by filing the rims.
The spread of Buddhism in eastern Asia between ce 200 and 600 gave a new impetus to bellfounding in Korea, China and Japan, and introduced cire-perdue for modelling small bells and for reliefs on large ones. Enormous bells were desired in order to produce a deep, prolonged and far-carrying note simulating the sacred sound ‘Om’. Korean craftsmen took the lead in supplying the enormous bells called for in China and Japan. From about ce 1000 some large bells were cast in iron.
Iron bells have been made in different parts of sub-Saharan Africa from times unknown; in Benin (West Africa) bronze bells were cast well before ce 1600. In the north Andean regions of South America small copper bells – both crotal and open – were made from about the 8th century. The craft gradually moved northwards, flourishing in Mexico in the 14th and 15th centuries, and extending as far as Arizona. A wax model was used and native copper, sometimes mixed with gold, was melted over a small charcoal fire with the aid of a blowpipe. (The clapper of the open bell was not a solid rod enlarged at one end, as on European bells, but a pellet on a string. In post-Columbian times this type was adapted to large tower bells by Latin American founders.)
In Europe and Christian Near East, evidence indicates that the small bells used by Christian cults in the first four centuries were cast according to pre-Christian Mediterranean traditions. The first recorded Christian bell makers are the smiths Tasag, Cuana and Mackecht, whom St Partick took to Ireland in the 5th century; but they seem to have made forged bells (like the ‘cowbells’ in some jazz orchestras) rather than cast bells. The development of cast churchbells started about the year 530 when the mother house of the Benedictine Order was established at Monte Cassino, providing easy contact with the pre-Christian bronze-casting centre of Nola. Drawing on this, the Benedictine order developed the casting of larger bells, making sketches of their profiles and writing specifications for their materials and weights. As the order spread, it established foundries in its monasteries elsewhere, and became the first widespread supplier of bells to Christian institutions throughout western Europe. As for such small bells as the Eastern churches then used, evidence suggests that those in the Balkans were supplied from Constantinople and those in Russia from Cherson in the Crimea.
Bellfounding in western Europe was aided in the 11th century by several treatises on metallurgy. The most detailed one was by the monk Theophilus (see §2); it tells how to make a wax model over a clay core on a horizontal spindle (as may be seen in the Bellfounder's Window of York Minster; see fig.11), and how to cast in a bronze alloy only slightly different from the ancient Chinese formula.
In the 12th century the horizontal spindle began to be replaced by a vertical one, except for the casting of small bells such as handbells. The common form of the bell changed form the more or less cylindrical ‘beehive’ shape to a slightly conical ‘sugar-loaf’, and eventually the present European bell form, a compromise between the two, was adopted by the end of the 14th century. Instead of the preliminary modelling in wax, clay was used to model a discardable ‘false bell’ on which to form the outer mould; and in place of line designs and lettering on the bell derived from stylus marks in the outer mould, reliefs and block lettering were obtained from wax forms applied to the false bell.
These changes in technique and design occurred as bellfounding slowly passed from clerical into lay hands. With this came the casting of the founder's name on the bell, rarely done by clerics but common among lay founders. The latter included widows who knew their late husbands' casting secrets, for the bellfounding craft was held within families, and a foundry worker would not learn its fine points until he had proved himself a worthy member of the family and made himself a legal part of it by marriage.
Most of the work of medieval founders was itinerant. The founder carried boards (sweeps) which were cut to the profiles of his bells and used for shaping them, and the parish or municipality supplied the metal and hired local labour. Heavy tower bells were cast beside or near the tower; part of the founder's work was to recast bells that had become cracked or needed larger replacements.
The advent of cannon in the 14th century enlarged the scope of the bellfounder's activities because cannon used almost the same alloy as bells and were made by similar methods. In order to have the security of a local arsenal, cities offered foundry sites and special privileges to founders who would settle within their walls. The supply of metal might come from the city's churchbells, which would be made into cannon in wartime and back to bells after hostilities – if they did not have to be yielded as bronze to a conqueror. Foundry locations also depended on the proximity of good moulding clays. In a treatise published in 1540, the Italian bronze founder, Biringuccio, gave formulae (which have been followed to modern times) for improving clays and building moulds to withstand the intense heat and pressures of the founding process.
The career of a bellfounder was not always profitable restricted to one place, and by the 16th and 17th centuries most founders were either itinerant or migrant. Itinerant founders would cover a smaller area, returning annually to their homes; migrant founders might never return. Migrant Italian founders of this period wandered into central Europe and the Balkans, central European migrants went to Italy, and western European migrants worked across central and eastern Europe; the bellfounding craft which flourished in Russia in the 17th and 18th centuries was derived from German Baltic sources. Almost no English founders went to the Continent though they shipped bells there, an export that Elizabeth I banned lest the bells be converted into enemy artillery.
On the Continent in the 17th century the perfection of the clock increased the usefulness of tower-clock chimes and led to interest in their musical possibilities. This gave a favoured market to founders who could tune bells in an extended musical scale. Two migrant brothers, François and Pieter Hemony from the Bassigny region of Lorraine, were to become prominent in this. After casting several bells in Germany the Hemonys met a Dutch clockmaker, Juríaan Sprakel, who in 1642 had them cast 19 bells (later increased to 26) for the chimes of a civic tower clock he was installing at Zutphen, near Arnhem. Further orders combined the Hemonys' skill in casting with guidance in tuning from Van Eyck, the carillonneur of Utrecht, producing a wide gamut of bells (i.e. a carillon) so finely tuned that chords and extended figures sounded pleasing on them. Sprakel's installation of such bells on his numerous tower clocks, where they not only sounded the hours but were hand-played in musical performance, introduced the carillon as a more sophisticated instrument then the more limited chimes.
The Hemony brothers settled in Zutphen and cast carillons there until 1657, when François Hemony moved to Amsterdam as bellfounder and ‘cannon maker by royal command’. His brother joined him in 1664 and soon took over the foundry. Later Pieter moved to Ghent, where he cast until about 1680. The two brothers cast over 50 carillons, with ranges of 26 to 37 bells (see Hemony). They had no qualified successors, but this did not prevent other clockmakers from selling tower clocks with two to three chromatic octaves of poorly tuned bells in regions where better bells were unknown. Usually the clockmaker arranged the contract for a civic tower clock with carillon and obtained the bells where he chose. The few musically valuable carillons between the death of the Hemonys and the 20th century were almost all made by Flemish founders.
During the 17th and 18th centuries bellfounding was also influenced by the more opulent Russian monasteries, which both increased the number of small bells in their trezvonï (see Chimes, §1) and added larger ones. Since ringing them put no lateral thrust on the tower (unlike swinging bells), Russian bellfounders were called upon to make larger bells than any in western Europe; in fact, before the founding of modern ship propellers no castings of any kind were as large as these bronze idiophones, many of which were melted down during the Russian Revolution. The very largest were cast at their site, using multiple furnaces; Russian founders also made large bells to be sold in open trade at annual bell markets in several cities.
In western Europe during and just after the French Revolution, there was a great melting of bells for armaments and coinage; but this (as with the destruction of bells in World War I and the much greater confiscations of World War II) meant an expansion of foundries after peace came, in order to make replacements. By the mid-19th century the railways made the itinerant founder unnecessary. By this time too the dominance of Europe in world politics and trade helped to place European bells where before they were unknown or forbidden.
European bellfounding had, however, already been long established in certain non-European areas. The crusaders introduced it to Lebanon where it has continued on a small scale (from the 16th century in the Naffah family). The Spanish and Portuguese brought bellfounders to their American colonies, and their descendants have carried on the craft. One of the largest bells in Mexico City Cathedral was cast in 1528 by Simon and Juan Buonaventura. In the American colonies further north, bells were imported from Europe as long as there were close political connections. The first native bellfounders in the USA were in New England: Aaron Hobart, who advertised in the Boston Gazette in 1770, the celebrated Paul Revere, who cast his first tower bell in 1792, and George Holbrook, who after ten years as apprentice to Revere set up a foundry in Brookfield, Massachusetts, moving in 1816 to Medway. In the 19th century foundries were established outside New England: McShane in Baltimore, Meneely in Watervliet, near Albany, New York, and others.
The 20th century, and particularly the post-World War II period, brought still greater changes in bell-founding practice. Foundries began to use commercial moulding materials and bell metal in ready-made alloy form. The drying of moulds could be done by forced air in controlled temperature chambers. There were sophisticated instruments for indicating the temperature of the metal before the bell was poured, and for measuring the frequencies of the partial tones both after it was removed from the mould and during the tuning process. Power equipment moved ladles from furnaces to moulds and hoisted the bells from their pits after casting. All this required a capital investment and made the head of a foundry more akin to the modern businessman than to the craftsman of earlier times. Modern founders include Gillett & Johnston, John Taylor & Co. and the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in England; Eijsbouts and Petit & Fritsen in the Netherlands; Paccard and Bollée in France; Cavadini and Colbacchini in Italy; Grassmayr in Austria; Rincker and Friedrich Schilling, and the VEB Glockengiesserei (formerly Franz Schilling Söhne) in Germany; and Sørensen in Denmark.
Most European languages use a word which is clearly related to the English ‘clock’ (as in ‘clocking’, striking or chiming a bell): cloche (Fr.); Glocke (Ger.); klokke (Dutch); kolokola (Russ.). Only in the English tradition do bells ‘ring’ fully, in the sense of rotating (on a wheel) through 360°. Most continental European bells ‘swing’, in that they rotate (sometimes on a full wheel, but often on a half wheel) through a maximum of 180°. Russian bells neither ring nor swing; they are hung ‘dead’ and are sounded not by the movement of the bell but by the movement of the clapper (operated by a rope or ropes). This means that they are ‘chimed’, albeit on the inside rather than on the outside rim, which is normally associated with controlled chiming. These contrasting installation methods not only determine the behaviour of individual bells, as ringing, swinging or chiming, but they determine the nature and effect of the ensemble when whole collections of bells are in play. The method of installation especially determines the range of rhythmic outcomes, and it is this rhythmic aspect which has determined the contrasting approaches to pitch in the English and central European traditions.
Because English bells rotate through 360° they can be balanced upside-down, using the point of inertia to delay the moment when the bell is rung. It is this capacity for controlled delay that enables the bells to be rung through all the rhythmic permutations known as ‘changes’ (see Change ringing). Central European bells, however, once in motion, tend to swing through an arc at a speed determined by their size and weight. While English bells are not normally intended to strike simultaneously, in the European tradition it is considered inevitable and desirable that two or more bells will strike simultaneously. Thus the English conception of bellringing is essentially melodic whereas the central European approach favours a clangorous euphony.
The disposition of pitches within a peal reflects these different melodic and harmonic priorities. English peals are almost invariably designed in tetrachords, according to the diatonic major scale, while continental peals tend to produce a chord or chords. In the great majority of cases these chordal effects are based on the pentatonic scale, or subsets of it. Some great peals (such as the ‘Plenum’ peals of the cathedrals of Frankfurt and Strasbourg) are designed on a hexachord which is configured like a major scale without the fourth degree; this allows for two pentatonic patterns (each produced by deleting either the top or the bottom pitch) and their respective subsets. Many European composers have incorporated such pentatonic patterns into their music as part of either a literal or a disguised representation of bells (e.g. Liszt, Wagner, Mahler, Janáček, Debussy and Ravel). Such effects are entirely different in concept from the principles of English change ringing and these different traditions and techniques should not be confused.
While such pentatonic configurations are typical of bell peals throughout northern and central Europe, including Germany, northern France, Switzerland, Austria and Bohemia, they do not apply in Russia, where bells are rarely cast as complete collections and so are not required to conform to any overall pitch design. Religious foundations have tended to acquire individual bells at different times, often as gifts from local rulers or from the tsar. There were also periodic ‘bell fairs’ at which bells could be purchased ‘off the peg’, an approach quite different to the Western European preference for custom-made or commissioned peals. The dissonant properties – in particular, the strong tritone overtones – of individual Russian bells were regarded as part of their particular character, and it was not thought necessary or desirable to suppress such dissonant overtones by ‘tuning’ them, as was usual in Western Europe. The gradual, unplanned acquisition of bells by Russian foundations also made it possible (or even probable) that there would be harsh dissonances between bells hung in close proximity to each other.
Bells were first used in orchestral music in the cantata Schlage doch, gewünschte Stunde (formerly attributed to Bach, now tentatively attributed to Melchior Hoffmann) they were probably small and operated from the organ manual. Bells are called for in various late 18th-century scores, e.g. Dalayrac's opera Camille (1791) and Cherubini's Elisa (1794). Rossini called for a bell to sound g' in the second act of Guillaume Tell (1829), and Meyerbeer for low bells sounding c and f in Les Huguenots (1836). Possibly real church bells were used on these occasions, and also by Berlioz for the finale of his Symphonie fantastique (1830). In the original score of Boris Godunov (1868–9) Musorgsky called for trezvonï (see Chimes, §1; for details of the bells used at the first performance of Tchaikovksy's 1812 Overture(1882), see §2 above). The use of real church bells, or their near equivalent, is connected more with the theatre than the concert hall: the stage equipment of many opera houses includes real church bells. Some composers have aimed to imitate their effect with orchestral colour; others have used substitutes, including tubular bells, bell plates, mushroom bells and electrically amplified metal bars, piano wires and clock gongs. Mushroom bells and large bronze plates, such as those used in La Scala and the Covent Garden mushroom bells, have proved effective substitutes for church bells. The instruments used for the notorious ostinato tolling which accompanies the processions of the Grail Knights in Wagner's Parisfal (1882) have ranged from church bells and a piano frame with four strings (occasionally supplemented with the 16' stop of an electric organ) to hammered bell machines, amplified metal rods and gongs; since the 1970s synthesizers and electronic instruments have increasingly been used. Wagner apparently based the ostinato, a pattern of interlocking perfect fourths c–G–A–E, on chimes which he had heard at Kloster Beuron; the motif was soon to become as ubiquitous in German timepieces as William Crotch's ‘Westminster’ chimes had long been in England (see Chimes, §2). The bells generally used in the concert hall are Tubular bells (termed ‘chimes’ in the USA, ‘orchestra bells’ being the term for the glockenspiel). These were introduced by John Hampton of Coventry in 1886, for the peal of four bells in Sullivan's Golden Legend. In 1890, tubular bells appeared with a keyboard (the codophone) at the Paris Opéra. In the symphonies of Mahler, bells are used for literal effects (the sleigh bells in the outer movements of the Fourth Symphony) and metaphoric reasons (in the Sixth Symphony real alpine Cowbells allude to the ascension of a human soul). In the fifth movement of the Third Symphony Mahler employed bells in pentatonic patterns.
Outstanding bell writing in the modern orchestra can be found in John Ireland's These Things Shall Be (1937), Britten's chamber opera The Turn of the Screw (1954), Messiaen's Turangalîla-symphonie (1946–8) and Chronochromie (1960), Boulez's Pli selon pli (1959–62), William Alwyn's Fifth Symphony ‘Hydriotaphia’ (1972–3) and Tippett's The Rose Lake (1991–3); Stockhausen wrote for a specially constructed set of bell plates in Musik im Bauch (1975).
Composers also use orchestral colour to imitate the motivic and timbral effects of bell ringing and chiming for metaphoric or allusive reasons:
The music of Liszt abounds in bell effects, mostly drawing upon central European pentatonic turnings. The opening bell-like motif of ‘Spozalizio’, from the second year of Années de Pèlerinage, permeates the texture and so determines the harmonic language of the piece. The ninth piece of the Weihnachtsbaum set (1874), ‘Abendglocken’, evokes evening bells by means of rhythmic layers of pentatonic harmony.
The bell textures which are so common in the piano works of Debussy and Ravel tend towards the pentatonic formations of the central European tradition. The last song in Debussy's collection Trois Mélodies (1891), ‘L'échelonnement des haies’, is a setting of the poem by Verlaine which depicts the flat Lincolnshire fenscape, closing with a reference to bells. Although Verlaine would have heard change ringing in Lincolnshire, Debussy's setting evokes the sound of pentatonic bells familiar to him from the churches of northern France. By contrast, allusions to bells in the music of Messiaen display his sensitivity to the principle of ‘added resonance’ and have a higher level of dissonance (for example, in ‘Noel’ from the Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jesus, 1944), suggesting a greater affinity with the Russian approach of Stravinsky.
Within the Russian tradition the most outstanding musical treatments of Orthodox zvonï (chimes or peals) occur in works by Musorgsky, Stravinsky and Rachmaninoff. (The relative lack of bell effects in the music of later Russian composers can be attributed to the after-effects of the revolutions of 1917, including the destruction of numerous bells and the prohibition of sounding those which remained.) The ‘Coronation Scene’ in Musorgsky's Boris Godunov is not only a spectacular example of the musical simulation of Russian zvonï (specifically, the layering of rhythmic activity, representing the different sizes of bells); it also accurately reflects the tritonal dissonances so characteristic of Russian bell tunings. If this piece may be regarded as a touchstone for the tritonal harmony developed by Debussy, Stravinsky and others, then it must be acknowledged that the Russian bell tradition has had a remarkably potent effect on music of the 20th century, for example in the minimalist compositions of Steve Reich.
Apart from Stravinsky's liking for tritonal oppositions (exemplified by Petrushka), the most significant bell-derived element of his compositional technique is his use of layerd ostinato patterns. These permeate his music: in Petrushka the opening scene depicts the Shrovetide Fair in St Petersburg, a festival strongly associated with joyful bell chiming.
The rhythmic layering can also be found in an early work by Rachmaninoff, the ‘Russian Easter Festival’ from the Fantasie-tableaux (1893) for two pianos. His output contains numerous other examples of bell-derived harmonies and rhythms of which perhaps the most interesting case is the choral symphony Kolokola (1913), his treatment of Edgar Allen Poe's The Bells, in which he takes care not to overplay the opportunities for literal representation at the expense of the metaphoric meanings conveyed by the poetry.
Numerous instances may be found of literal representations of change ringing in the music of English composers. An outstanding example of literal (yet highly imaginative) depiction is the ‘Sunday Morning’ interlude in Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes. Here Britten fondly reproduces not only the melodic and rhythmic permutations of the changes, but also composes some realistic inaccuracies into them. Although bells (either individually or collectively) appear frequently in Birtwistle's music, they often occur in a disguised manner, as part of the musical fabric, for example in passages where the music proceeds in different layers of rhythmic pulsation. Two early works by Maxwell Davies have titles which are explicitly derived from change ringing: Stedman Doubles for clarinet and percussion (1955, rev. 1968) and Stedman Caters for sextet (1958, rev. 1968), although the musical content is in fact more strongly influenced by elements of Indian classical music. Several works by Gilbert have used change ringing principles as a means of generating rhythmic and motivic permutations of material; these are often used as part of the background texture of a work, although they can also operate at a developmental level. Such ideas have featured strongly throughout Gilbert's teaching career and have thus had a significant influence on the following generation of British composers.
Not all ‘bell’ pieces by English composers, however, have been influenced by the native change ringing tradition. John Tavener makes extensive use of bell patterns, but these tend to reflect his religious and musical interests in the Greek and Russian Orthodox traditions. One of the most significant bell-inspired pieces is Jonathan Harvey's tape piece Vivos Voco! Mortuos Plango! (1980) which samples and transforms electronically the sounds of the great bell of Winchester Cathedral and a boy treble (the title derives from two of the Latin inscriptions on the bell).
MersenneHU
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S. Thurm: Deutscher Glockenatlas (Munich, 1959–85)
F.P. Schilling: ‘Das russische Glockengeläut’ Musik und Kirche, xxxi (1961), 107–15
A. Weissenbäck and J. Pfundner: Tönendes Erz: die abendländische Glocke als Toninstrument und die historischen Glocken in Österreich(Graz, 1961)
Pong-Do Yi: Korean Bells (MS, 1966, Seoul)
P. Price: ‘Japanese Bells’, Occasional Papers of the Institute for Japanese Studies of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, 1969), no.11, pp.35–66
W. Westcott: Bells and their Music (New York, 1970)
M. Schilling: Glocken und Glockenspiele (Gütersloh, 1982)
M. Seidler: Die Kölner Domglocken (Cologne, 1982, 3/1992) [incl. recording]
P. Price: Bells and Man (Oxford, 1983)
T.D. Rossing, ed.: Acoustics of Bells (Strondsburg, PA, 1984)
K. Bund, ed.: Das Frankfurter Domgeläute und das Frankfurter Grosse Stadtgeläute (Frankfurt, 1986) [incl. recording]
K. Bund, ed.: Frankfurt Glockenbuch (Frankfurt, 1986)
K. Kramer: Die Glocke und ihr Geläute Geschichte, Technologie und Klangbild vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart (Munich, 1990) [incl. recording]
C.B. Rae: ‘The Voice of European Bells’, The Listener (Jan 1990)
W. Leib: Von Glocken, Klängen und Tonsystemen, ed. A. Leib-Lang (Frankfurt, 1991)
L. von Falkenhausen: Suspended Music: Chime-Bells in the Culture of Bronze Age China (Berkeley,1993)
