Day of the American Carillonneur
Dave Hunsberger is assistant carillonneur at the University of California in Berkeley amd Organist and Director of Music at St. John's Presbyterian Church in Berkeley. He contributes the following report of activities in Utrecht.
People have lived at the location of modern Utrecht at least since AD 47, when the Romans built a fort at exactly the site the medieval builders chose for their cathedral twelve centuries later. The tower rose first, beginning in 1254, then the choir and transepts, and finally the nave. Work stopped in 1517, and then in 1674 a tornado laid flat the inadequately-buttressed nave. Only in 1826 did the city finally clear the rubble to make way for the fine Domplein we find today, separating the 112-meter tower from the surviving part of the church.
At least as early as the 1630s, Jacob van Eijck played music of some sophistication on the bells of the Dom Tower. The old bells retired from carillon service when, in 1663, the city invited Pieter and François Hemony to cast a new 35-bell instrument, whose bourdon of about 2750 kg sounded B. The Hemony carillon has grown several times, with the contributions of Melchoir de Haze, Severinus van Aerschodt, van Bergen, Taylor, and Eijsbouts. As a consequence of the 1972–74 rebuilding by Eijsbouts, today its 50 bells (16 by Eijsbouts and 34 by the Hemonys) sound clear and full, in meantone temperament, with a 7000+ kg bourdon sounding F-sharp (attached to G), and with a keyboard compass of G, B-flat, c1, d1 through 5. The carillon resides in the tower's upper bell chamber, a climb of some 70 meters from the street.
On 15 August 1998, one day after the world congress ended in Belgium, Utrecht opened its tower and its sunny sky to a Day of American Carillon Art. Host Arie Abbenes invited American carilloners Wylie Crawford, Todd Fair, Margo Halsted, and David Hunsberger to perform. Three of their 30-minute recitals contained exclusively works by Americans, and the fourth included also two Baroque pieces arranged by Americans and a work by Kamiel Lefévere, a Belgian who spent his career in New York. The performers all remarked on the challenge of choosing representative music by composers who unquestionably and unquestioningly wrote for the possibilities and limitations of equal temperament. They then performed the chosen works on the meantone instrument, tellingly revealing its particular musical beauties while sidestepping its hazards. Mr. Abbenes also played the elegant light 31/2-octave instrument nearby at the Nicolaïkerk, which includes Hemony bells from 1649.
The day rang rich with other events. At the opening ceremonies the Mayor honored American composer John Courter for his contributions to carillon literature. Later, Mr. Abbenes spoke on the contrasts and the interplay between the American and Dutch carillon cultures, and Milford Myhre offered a program of slides and recordings on the art of the carillon in North America. Jan Janssen and four assistants presented a colorful concert of works by Americans using the Bätz/Van Vulpen organ in the Dom, and Stephen Taylor gave insightful readings in a program of works by composers who have emigrated, on the landmark 1957 Marcussen organ at the Nicolaïkerk, the instrument that helped set the standard for the organ reform movement of succeeding decades. The day ended with a grand barbeque in the serene Gothic cloister garden.
But for all the day's fine moments, the Dom tower itself may have provided the most unforgettable for most listeners, when the Utrecht Bellringers' Guild coaxed the 14 swinging bells (which weigh a total of about 32,000 kg) in the lower chamber to unite their bronze throats in a great Stentorian midday roar.
