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Start Date: April 19, 2024
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Luray Virginia Charles T. Chapman Carillon Luray Singing Tower Vinyl LP Record
Vinyl / Jacket Grade Per Goldmine Standard: VG / VG
A few words about bells and carillons. The craft of bell-founding is almost as old as civilized man. The Chinese were making bells at least 6000 years ago. Down through the ages bells have been made in many shapes and sizes and of many materials, but the cup-shaped bell made of bronze has been proven best. Many famous people have been interested in bells. William the Conqueror and Napoleon loved them and were moved to tears by their sound. Paul Revere cast hundreds of them. The great composer, Claude Debussy was fascinated by them, spent many hours listening to them and created many bell effects in his compositions. Bells occupy an important place in the daily lives of the peoples of many lands. They ring out for all the great events which come to mankind from the cradle to the grave—birth, youth, marriage, joy, triumph, grief and death, the high-lights of human existence. The carillon is an old world instrument, originating at least 400 years ago. It is a very popular musical instrument of the old country, especially in the low countries where in many communities it has traditionally become a part of the lives of the people. For the new world it is a comparatively recent instrument. The carillon is not played from a keyboard as in the case of an organ, but from a clavier of oak levers and pedals. The action is direct, that is, there is no pneumatic or electrical aid and though this adds difficulty to the playing, it gives the carillonneur a great dynamic range and makes possible artistic and expressive music. The Luray Carillon consists of forty-seven bells cast at the Taylor Bell-foundry in England. The largest bell weighs 7,640 lbs. with a six foot diameter—the smallest 12l/> lbs.—total weight of bells, 36,170 lbs. Recitals are given each Sunday, Tuesday, Thurs- day and Saturday from March 15 th to November 15 th. Bell metal is composed of an alloy of pure copper and tin, and the rigid control of the temperature at which the bells are cast plays an important part in the balanced tone and uniform quality of the finished product. The final and most important phase in the manufacture of a bell is the tuning. There are many tones in each carillon bell, the most prominent ones being the Fundamental, the Hum note, which is an octave below, the minor third, the perfect fifth and the perfect octave. The tuning of these prominent overtones, especially the minor third, gives the carillon its peculiar bur lovely dissonances—the "out-of-tune” effect which in bell music becomes a thing of richness and beauty. To tune these notes in each bell is a very long and costly operation, demanding much patience and knowledge, and is indeed the crown of the bell-founder’s art. The Luray Singing Tower, officially known as the Belle Brown Northcott Memorial, contains a carillon of 47 bells, and with an endowment to provide for its maintenance and for recitals in perpetuity, is a gift to the town of Luray by the late Col. T. C. North- cott and his daughter, Mrs. Katherine Northcott Graves, in memory of Col. Northcort’s wife, Belle Brown Northcott. It was dedicated in 1937. Charles Thomas Chapman, carillonneur of the Luray Singing Tower, is a graduate of the University of Virginia and also studied at the Peabody Conservatory of Music and John Hopkins University, Baltimore, and the Washington, D.C. Musical Institute. He studied the Carillon with Anton Brees, carillonneur of the Bok Singing Tower, Lake Wales, Florida. He has been heard as guest artist on a number of the carillons in the U.S. including the Dutch carillon in Washington, D.C., for the President’s Christmas Tree- lighting Programs, 1954-56, and for the Inaugural Program, 1957 The Luray carillon has created widespread interest among musicians and composers. More than 100 compositions by 20 American and foreign composers have been written especially for Mr. Chapman. ''Charles T. Chapman plays with a variety of shading which is truly astonish- ing. The reason for his excellence is his all-around musical ability combined with a great artistic sensitiveness in respect to musical values. To him his bells are not merely masses of metal to be struck at, but musical entities from which are to be coaxed all the beautiful and varied sonorities requisite to rhe expression of human emotion through sound.”—LaSalle Spier, American Composer, Pianist and Teacher. LaSalle Spier has written many works in all forms from songs to Symphonies as well as 27 compositions for Mr. Chapman and the Luray Singing Tower, includ- ing a Concerto Pastorale for Garillon and Orchestra which was played in the Festival of American Music in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. in 1958 and 1959. Mr. Chapman was the soloist by means of a tape recorring which was played back, accompanied by the National Gallery Orchestra, Richard Bales conducting. Whitford L. Hall, who recorded the Concerto as well as the Hymns on this record, is Minister of Music in the First Congregational Church, Washington, D.C., but he is also an expert in recording all types of music. While recording the Hymns, various rural background sounds were unavoidably picked up by the microphone, but these, by adding to the authenticity of rhe beautiful Tower set- ting, help to create the illusion of actual attendance at a concert there.La Salle Spier, Composer
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