The Open Air
Beautiful Bells
Carillon Music and Singing Towers of the Old World—and
Carillon Music and Singing Towers is a great advance on the author's first work on this subject, The Carillons of Belgium. and Holland, and he has certainly given us the most .cOmplete study of the subject yet published. One factor that has helped him considerably,• no doubt, is the rapid growth of carillons within the last three or four years on the American continent.
It is a far cry from the days when Charles the 'Fifth of Stain held'sway over the Netherlands, early in the sixteenth century, down to 1925, but the author has covered this period faithfully. Ile traces the growth of the carillon in the Netherlands to the peak of its popularity in the seventeenth century when the flemony Brothers of Amsterdam were installing carillons and bells, better tuned and more musical than any achieved by- other craftsmen until • the present day.. The belfries equipped by Dinnery and Van den Gheyn, the founders who followed the Hemonys in the eighteenth century,. are all carefully reviewed. .
• The author deate extensively with the renaissance of the carillon art at the present day---due partly to the interest in the playing of the instrument that has been revived lair M. Jef Denyn's recitals in his famous belfry of St. Rombold's Cathedral, Malines, and the setting up of a Belgian national school for carillonneurs there by D. Denyn. Another important factor has been the rediscovery of an irnproVeine:nt on the methods' of casting and tuning employed by_ the three best founders of the Netherlands of former times—the work of two English firms, Gillett and Johnston; of Croydon, and
Taylor of Loughborough. , The reproduction of musical settings, as played Mr the carillon, may not always withstand the criticism of the musician, but it must be remembered that the actual number of bells often controls the arrangement of the music, whilst each carillonneur has evolved to alarge extent-his -own -repertoire and written his own carillon arrangement. The book is well illustrated and is unique for the wide field it covers musically, historically, and technically, and is, moreover, the work of an acknowledged expert.
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