Our half-term excursion to the Netherlands didn’t include any musical performances, but I did notice one musical aspect of Dutch life; the carillon melodies played by church clocks. In town centres you never seemed to be very far from a bell-tower which chimed out an elaborate and lengthy tune to announce the fact that it was, say, a quarter to two. There was a particularly fine example near the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam.<\/p>\n
Strictly speaking I suppose a carillon requires a player, and there aren’t many British examples, though I have heard the one at Newcastle. (For a list see this page<\/a> [link broken – info on a successor site if one exists would be welcome]. They seem to be a Scottish speciality). Otherwise one has to make do with bells which can be programmed to play a tune. Bath Abbey sometimes plays one of a small repertoire of hymn tunes on the hour (if you go on a tower tour you can see the mechanism which does this). Holy Name Church in Manchester (where I occasionally used to sing) had a rather more impressive range, often appropriate to the season. When I was serenaded by Llanfair<\/i> one Ascension Day, I wondered whether the chimes were driven by a complex program which knew about Sunday Letters, Golden Numbers, epacts and the rest in order to deal with moveable feasts; but I later learned that the clergy could set a particular tune manually.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Our half-term excursion to the Netherlands didn’t include any musical performances, but I did notice one musical aspect of Dutch life; the carillon melodies played by church clocks. In town centres you never seemed to be very far from a … Continue reading