Travelogue III
This is the third and final installment of my travel journal with candid reflections on a 10-week carillon and organ recital tour through Europe.
Last month's journal left off on a Saturday afternoon following my recital in Almere-Haven, near Amsterdam. From there I make my way back to my pied-a-terre in Mechelen. On Sunday morning the entire family assembles for breakfast and the family portrait. On my first visit to Belgium I started the tradition of making a photo of the family gathered around the display case in the bell shop. Now they want me to dig out all the photos and frame the series. The boys, age 8 & 10 in the first photo, now both have partners and are roughly the same age that I was when I first set foot in Belgium. After the photo, the two young couples and I drive to Brussels. It is the final day of the bloementapijt, a "carpet of flowers" that covers the huge market square. We have a bite to eat, and I catch a train to Ieper in West Flanders.
The Hallentoren--the belfry--is part of the Cloth Hall which was destroyed in World War I and rebuilt in the original style. Inside the Cloth Hall, the In Flanders Fields Museum is an impressive interactive museum devoted to The Great War 1914-1918. The recital is at 4:00 pm on what feels like the hottest, most humid day of the summer. The carillon is heavy; the action is cumbersome; the console is that detestable old Denyn standard for short people. I hope that someone is enjoying this music in spite of my suffering. Fortunately, I am alone in the bell chamber. Except for shoes and socks on my feet, and bandages and leather protectors on my pinkies, I play buck naked, leaving huge puddles of perspiration on the bench and floor. As much as I'd like some air circulation, the sound in the glass-enclosed playing cabin is excruciatingly loud with the door open, so to avoid going deaf, I keep the door closed. Between each number I go out into the bell chamber to cool off a bit in the breeze and to drink some water. Afterwards, I dry off, cool off, don my dry clothes and go downstairs to discover that Charles Wilson, a retired major general from the US Air Force, was in the audience with his lovely Belgian wife, and they were waiting to greet me. Together with Geert, the municipal carillonneur, we all go to an outdoor café for drinks and lively conversation, eventually ordering dinner. Suddenly a fierce wind comes out of nowhere and showers us with rain. So much for dry clothes.
Geert drives me to nearby Kortrijk where I stay for three nights in a bed and breakfast in the restored Begijnhof. Begijnhofs--or béguinages--were self-contained lay sisterhoods devoting themselves largely to charitable work. It is virtually only in Flemish Belgium that begijnhofs survive today, although most are no longer inhabited by religious communities.
On Monday evening I play at the St. Maartens Church in Kortrijk on another of the dreaded Denyn playing consoles. The carillonneur warns me in advance of the atrocious tuning of the bells, but I am still shocked when I play, constantly glancing in a panic at my feet to ascertain that I really am playing the right pedal keys. I find it a fascinating historical phenomenon that it is just this sort of carillon that once made Flanders famous for its singing towers--then quite a marvel. But now, these instruments make some of the Flemings somewhat infamous for their reluctance to move forward with the times now that the art of tuning bells and building quiet, responsive, ergonomically de-signed playing consoles and action nearly has been perfected. In fact, I was astonished to hear one prominent carillonneur from West Flanders proclaim, with reference to another old carillon with abominable action, console, and tuning, that he really liked playing that instrument. Fortunately, the younger generations studying at the Belgian Carillon School in Mechelen are being instilled with a more musically responsible aesthetic. Back to Kortrijk. The large audience is appreciative nonetheless: they hear the music despite the tuning and timbre, and forgive the inadequacies of the instrument if they are aware of them.
Tuesday's recital is in nearby Menen, still in the province of West Flanders, right on the border with France. Most of the bells are modern, relatively speaking (only 40 years old), and the playing console is brand new, so playing is not such a chore, and the musical experience is more fulfilling.
Wednesday morning I board a train back to the south of France. This summer's schedule has made me zigzag across Europe more than usual, but I take advantage of the time on the train to read. Since one of my minors during my doctorate at Indiana University was French literature, I'm always delighted when I find time to read another novel. I've also been fascinated by comparing the styles of French, Dutch, German, and Belgian newspapers. They view the world from a different perspective than the American press.
My host Elizabeth picks me up at the train station in Perpignan and informs me that we are invited to a paella dinner party at a friend's home in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Remembering the disastrous paella in Barcelona, my stomach started churning immediately, but as luck would have it, this was the best paella I've ever eaten, complemented by several delicious wines and cheeses.
On Thursday morning after coffee, croissants, and pain au chocolat, we head for the cathedral Saint-Jean-Baptiste so that I can practice on the carillon. It is another oddball instrument. The bells were made by the19th-century French foundry Bollée. The compass is a standard four octaves with a few exceptions. Although it is not unusual to leave C-sharp out of the lowest octave, the G-sharp is also missing in this instrument, which is most annoying. Also, in that Bollée and Perpignan are so far from Flanders and The Netherlands, the real cradle of the carillon art, the playing console has a most unusual design: the pedalboard is only one octave and is displaced quite a ways to the left, creating a challenge especially when playing pedal notes along with the top octave of manual keys. Then there is the highest "A" which I discover is not an "A" at all, so I must remember always to play something else in its place. Adaptation is the name of the game here. Fortunately I brought a copy of the version in C of Courter's In memoriam which, with some adaptation, is playable here.
Laurent and Louis, the other two Perpignan carillonneurs, come to meet me, and they treat me to a lovely dinner at the restaurant terrace under the tower, actually the parvis of the cathedral. After a brief siesta at home, we head back to the cathedral where they've arranged for me to have a few hours to play the four-manual Cavaillé-Coll organ. They had to drag me away in time to get upstairs for the carillon recital. Now, Louis is in the tower communicating via walkie-talkie with Laurent on the ground who is giving verbal program notes to the large audience. Despite the challenges of the instrument, I manage to produce an exciting and musical program, and they are happy that I've come to end their summer series "with a bang."
In the morning Laurent offers me his computer and Internet connection long enough for me to type up my travelogue #2 for The Diapason and send it to Jerome. Laurent, Elizabeth, her children and I have lunch, and I catch my train to nearby Agde. Now I have vacation at a naturist resort on a beach on the Mediterranean. The week goes by much too quickly, and I wish I had planned for two weeks here, but alas, there are more bells to ring. The train takes me to the other end of France: the Alps between the Mont Blanc and Geneva.
Taninges is a small village of about 4000 inhabitants where there is great enthusiasm for their two-and-one-half octave carillon. Shortly after arrival we head to the home of one of the local carillonneurs for a dinner party. Monique, being of Swiss origin, prepares a delicious cheese fondue. She remembers that two years ago at a reception in Taninges I was so taken by one of their dishes that I demanded the recipe on the spot. So, after some champagne, she invited me into the kitchen to share her ingredients and techniques with me.
In the morning I practice on the carillon--another "exceptional" instrument. Here again there is only one octave of pedals, but the range is from B to B instead of C to C. I am perplexed. Why would anyone do this? But I've learned that when I'm in France and start taking these things too seriously, it's time to dine with a good glass of wine, and so we did. Then we went up into the mountains for a hike. We passed a bunch of cows wearing large bells around their necks. I called them the mobile carillon of the Haute-Savoie. After a short siesta at home, we head for a community hall under the tower where the members of the carillon committee meet for a meal. Their practice console is here in the hall, so I review a few of my "adaptations" before we eat.
Another unique facet of the tower in Taninges is the seating area with bleachers inside the tower. It is rare that so many people can come inside and watch the carillonneur play. It is a very intimate setting, and the audience was most appreciative that I gave commentary on the program between each of the pieces. A champagne reception followed the recital. In the morning there was time for a trip to the boulangerie and a walk in the botanical garden in Samoëns before catching my train in Cluses.
Back at home in Mechelen, I spend Monday morning helping Luc to prepare the cellar for the evening reception. Their home dates from the 17th century and is a registered historical landmark. In return for the government subsidies that they received to help defray the costs of restoration, they open the home to the public in some way on special occasions. This evening, the cellar with its low vaulted ceiling will be the site for a candlelight reception following the carillon recital in the St. Rombouts Tower, presented in the framework of the Festival of Flanders.
In the afternoon I head for Zaventem to greet my friend John who arrives from San Francisco to travel along for my final two weeks. We spend the rest of the week sightseeing in Belgium and Amsterdam, with a visit to Haarlem on Thursday afternoon for Jos van der Kooy's recital at the St. Bavo Church.
My final two of the summer's 28 recitals are on Sunday in Wavre, Belgium, where there is a two-day Carillon Festival as part of Open Monument Day in Belgium. My host forgot to pick us up at the train station in Ottignies, so by the time we figure this out, wait for the next train to Wavre, and walk to the church, all of my time for practicing on the organ is gone, and I must go directly to the carillon and begin the recital. On the way, I run into Major Wilson and his wife who I had met in Ieper. A torrential rainstorm lets loose about 40 minutes into the program, and the chief insists that I stop playing and go to the organ. I suggest lunch, as I am famished and feeling faint by this time. Then I am informed that they have changed the original schedule and have sent the audience into the church to stay dry and to hear my organ recital--so I must sit down and play with no preparation. The two-octave pedalboard (completely chromatic, thank goodness, but I could use a few more notes) has no independent stops; it pulls down the great keys. So, if you want the 16-foot stop to sound in the pedal, you have it on the great as well. Some ranks were discant-only stops or were divided into separate discant and bass registers. Some but not all of this was evident from looking at the stop knobs. The first thing I did wrong was to begin the recital on the wrong manual, but since I had drawn no stops on that manual, and since there were no pedal notes involved, no one knew except my page turner. The recital went surprisingly well, as I had no time at all to get nervous or to think about anything besides making music out of this mess. Major Wilson, by the way, later accused me of shaking up the heavens and causing a deluge every time I play the carillon. I suggested that if the carillons in Belgium were all in tune, the heavens might be less troubled, and the sun would shine there more often.
On Monday the Thalys whisks us to Paris for a delightful vacation until Friday when we fly to Southampton and sail to New York on the Queen Elizabeth 2. The End.
