Word: carillon
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...inimitable piano style is such an integral part of the music he has written that few jazz pianists have much luck with even the Monk tunes that have become part of the standard jazz repertory. Monk himself plays with deliberate incaution, attacking the piano as if it were a carillon's keyboard or a finely tuned set of 88 drums. The array of sounds he divines from his Baldwin grand are beyond the reach of academic pianists; he caresses a note with the tremble of a bejeweled finger, then stomps it into its grave with a crash of elbow...
There is no shortage of bequests to provide churches and colleges with a carillon; the trouble is there is seldom enough left over for the salary of the rare musician who can play the big bells. North America at present has 115 carillons and only six fulltime carillon-neurs. All six are members of the Guild of Carillonneurs of North America, a society of 60 or so friends and players of the carillon who gather yearly to talk about what's new in bell ringing. Last week at the Washington Cathedral's inaugural recital...
Barnes, 36, arrived fresh from a twelve-year engagement at the University of Kansas, where he was resident carillonneur, professor of carillon and harpsichord, and curator of rare musical instruments. He brought to Washington the sort of vellum-bound humor acquired in his esoteric calling. "A good organist can adapt to a carillon fairly quickly," he said pleasantly. "In about two years he should have a good start...
...Carillon technique requires striking rounded oak keys with clenched fists while pumping on the foot pedals-yet tone is controlled by variations in touch, just as on a piano. In his octagonal playing cabin inside the 301-ft. Washington tower, Barnes is surrounded by bells on all sides, and the broad keyboard confronts him like a firing squad's rifles. Each carillon is unique, and because the 12-ton, E-flat bourdon bell in the Washington carillon is heavier and therefore deeper in pitch than its counterpart in Kansas, Barnes must rescore all his music a major third higher...
...tower will enclose the world's most awesome bell chorus-a ten-bell peal and a 53-bell carillon. The carillon bells will range down the scale to a twelve-ton low E-flat bell. "The reason for bells in a church tower," says Dean Sayre, "is to mark for people events in their lives which portend the turning points"-in the case of the Washington Cathedral, "the inauguration of a President, word of war or peace." The Final Gargoyle. More than $12 million has been spent to bring the cathedral to its present grandeur. At today...