CD review
Die Glocke und ihr Geläute; eine klingende Kulturgeschichte mit Kommentaren von Kurt Kramer. [The Bells and Their Tolling; A Cultural History in Sound with Commentary by Kurt Kramer.] Psallite CD P60661; <www.motette-verlag.de>.
This CD is a colorful, historical documentary of bells in Germany. We hear 55 examples of bells and peals, ordered chronologically from the eighth through the twentieth centuries. Each track includes audio commentary by Kurt Kramer dubbed over the bells, with adequate time given to the bells alone to hear them in their full glory. Both the commentary and the accompanying booklet are in German only.
Photos in the booklet show the evolution from the early sugar loaf and beehive types of bell profiles to the forms more common in recent centuries, and Kramer draws attention to the effects of the various profiles on the sound of the bells. Although he doesn’t delve into the effects of the copper/tin ratio in bronze alloys—analogous to the lead/tin ratio in organ pipes and the resulting effect on tone quality—Kramer does begin with an example of an early iron bell. We hear the two 11th-century “silver bells” in the Augsburg Dom, named not for their metal, but referring rather to the jingle of money in the collection. From the Freiburg Münster we hear the Hosanna bell, the oldest Angelus bell in Germany. The seven-bell peal in the Bonn Münster is one of the few unchanged large peals preserved from the Baroque era. The largest freely swinging bell in the world is the 24,000-kilogram (52,800 lbs.) Petersglocke in the Cologne Cathedral. We hear the Petersglocke itself, and later in the CD we hear the entire peal. It is often said that the Freiburg Münster has one of the most beautiful towers in Christendom, and there we hear one of the greatest peals in Germany. It was installed in 1959 by Friedrich Wilhelm Schilling and has a range of over 2½ octaves. Schilling is also represented by his pentatonic peal in Hamburg’s Nikolaikirche. Kramer touts the peal of the Straßburg Münster, with bells by Schilling and Hans Gremp, as one of the most beautiful in Europe.
Such a delightful documentary would not be complete without Maria Gloriosa, a masterpiece, created by the Dutch bellfounder Gert van Wou. This legendary bell, cast in 1497 for the Dom in Erfurt, represents the high point in the art of bellfounding. It is known not only for its glorious sound, but also for the harmony of sound with its form and beautiful design. Before electronic means, it took two teams of eight men to swing all 11½ tons.
The recording is remarkably free of ambient noise, with the exception of a lovely chirping bird at the end of the unusually long six-minute track that features the impressive new peal in Dresden’s recently restored Frauenkirche.
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