Word: saradjeff
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...melting-pot, Crane purchased them from the Soviet government and shipped them to America. At that time, the construction of Lowell House was in its finishing stages and plans for a clocktower were altered to accommodate the carillon. When the bells finally arrived, an enigmatic man called Saradjeff arrived with them to oversee their installation and playing. He is vividly described by Mason Hammond in a 1936 document preserved in the Harvard University Library. Saradjeff was supposed to be a genius of ringing--a tortured but prolific composer of carillons with an ear tuned to the exact pitch of bronze...
...However, Saradjeff's epilepsy and paranoia gradually caught up with him. After several severe attacks, he was hospitalized. When he began to suspect his doctors of poisoning him and took up drinking ink as an antidote, it was decided that he should return to Russia. The poor man eventually died there in a sanatorium...
...Saradjeff's early departure was something of a tragedy for the bell project. He left only partial plans for the bell's hanging, and he was the only man around with any comprehensive knowledge of their playing. The bells are tuned to an eastern scale, supposedly a mixture of Byzantine and Tartar influences, which, to the Western ear gives their carillons a haunting and unfamiliar sound. No one here is quite sure how to play them or what music they were cast for. Aara admits that it is only through a lengthy apprenticeship that one begins to recognize the bells...