My online friend Marietta just had a lovely article about her published in a newspaper in her home state of Connecticut. Check it out:
——————–
Surround-sound for the out of doors: The pealing of carillon bells inspires a devoted following
——————–By Katherine Didriksen
Special CorrespondentJuly 6, 2005
STAMFORD – Perched hundreds of feet in the air, Marietta Douglas moves her hands up and down the two-tiered keyboard and pumps a series of foot pedals in an organized frenzy.
As sweat drips from her brow, twilight overtakes the city.
She coaxes the sound of bells into the air. The ringing of the 56 bells drape downtown Stamford with the rippling strain of Jean Joseph Mouret’s “Fanfare (Rondeau).” Douglas, a Greenwich resident, is one of a select group that will climb to the top of bell towers for the love of a rare instrument: the carillon.
“It was just so intriguing that I took to it immediately,” said Douglas, 45, who has played since her freshman year at Smith College in 1977. Nearly 30 years later, Douglas is the carillonneur for First Presbyterian Church in Stamford and St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in New Canaan.
Tomorrow night, First Presbyterian will kick off its annual summer concert series, featuring a carillon recital followed by a jazz performance. The church has combined the carillon and jazz every July for 30 years.
“Who do you suppose had the idea of putting peanut butter and jelly together? They don’t have much in common either,” said the Rev. Blair Moffett, who has served as a pastor at First Presbyterian for nine years. “I’m not sure where the idea came from . . . What it does is to give sort of a smorgasbord effect.”
The church has received a lot of positive feedback on the annual concert series, which is not a worship service but a community event, he said.
Although at first glance it may look more like an organ, a carillon has more in common with the piano. A series of wooden batons act like keys: when pressed, they cause a clapper to sound out a particular bell. The bell is stationary and only the clapper moves.
The carillon was developed in the lowlands of the Netherlands, Belgium and northern France, where it was used as a time-keeping device and later expanded to include melodies. The first tuned carillon was cast in the Netherlands in 1652.
The Maguire Memorial Carillon Tower at First Presbyterian stands 260 feet high and across the driveway from the church’s distinctive fish-shaped sanctuary. Its 56 bells span 41 2 octaves and toll out a bit of city history.
According to church records, Swiss officials of the Nestle Unilac Company presented First Presbyterian with 36 bells as a gesture of “faith and good will” in 1944. The company had its wartime headquarters in Stamford from 1939 to 1946.
The bells, initially held in a temporary tower at the church’s former property at 96 Broad St., were later moved to their present site on Bedford Street. Dedicated in 1947, they were first called “The Friendship Carillon.”
The remaining 20 bells were supplied by longtime church member Walter Maguire, for whom the tower is now named. The carillon and tower were dedicated in 1968.
There are about 200 carillons in North America and 10 in Connecticut. Texas has the most carillons in the United States with 15, Ellen Dickinson of Stamford, a carillonneur and board member of the Guild of Carillonneurs of North America, said.
First Presbyterian has the largest carillon in Connecticut.
“Carillons do come about in a variety of ways,” Dickinson said. “Oftentimes it’s because one person has taken an interest or discovered the carillon.”
For example, one woman is responsible for donating the majority of the carillon bells at both Yale University and Trinity College in Connecticut, she said.
Dickinson, who has been a member of the carillonneurs guild for eight years and serves as editor of its bulletin, started playing about 12 years ago as a sophomore at Yale. The 29-year-old continues to play at Yale, but the guestbook at the top of the Fish Church carillon often bears her name.
She loves the instrument in part for its mechanics: the carillon has the “widest dynamic range that does not use electricity,” she said.
And of course, there’s the lure of the tower and its view, she said.
The carillon community is relatively small but encompasses a wide age range and an even balance between men and women, she said. Established in 1936, carillonneurs guild has about 500 members (150 of them carillonneurs).
The carillon at First Presbyterian has a somewhat quirky design in which the bells are split, with high bells above the keyboard station and low bells below it, Dickinson said.
Most carillons house all the bells above the playing room, but the fish church must have split them to better fit the dimension of the tower, she said.
“The high bells at the carillon here are really lovely, particularly the top octave and a half,” she said. “They have a really lovely tone.”
The Dana-Barton Carillon at St. Mark’s Church in New Canaan is on the larger side of the nonconcert size instruments with 30 bells. Carillons are referred to as concert size when they have four octaves or higher. This is because most of the instrument’s repertoire is written for this range, Dickinson said.
Like First Presbyterian Church in Stamford, St. Mark’s Church usually holds carillon concerts every summer, but this year it is not, Douglas said. That carillon is “really a gem for its size,” she said.
About twice a week, Douglas ventures up the 99 steps to the playing room of the Maguire Memorial Carillon and rehearses. In addition to her weekly responsibilities at First Presbyterian — she plays every Sunday as people exit the worship service – Douglas gives concerts around the country and abroad. On Thursday, she will perform in her native Albany, N.Y.
She acknowledged that most people haven’t heard of a carillon or don’t understand her art. To explain it, she likes to show guests firsthand.
“I still enjoy coming up here,” she said. “Every time.”
Copyright (c) 2005, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.
——————–
This article originally appeared at: http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/local/scn-sa-carillon1jul06,0,5554648.story?coll=stam-news-local-headlines
Visit the Advocate online at http://www.stamfordadvocate.com
