Christmas Eve Carillon concert

And if you wish to receive of the ancient city an impression with which the modern one can no longer furnish you, climb–on the morning of some grand festival, beneath the rising sun of Easter or of Pentecost–climb upon some elevated point, whence you command the entire capital; and be present at the wakening of the chimes. Behold, at a signal given from heaven, for it is the sun which gives it, all those churches quiver simultaneously. First come scattered strokes, running from one church to another, as when musicians give warning that they are about to begin. Then, all at once, behold!–for it seems at times, as though the ear also possessed a sight of its own,–behold, rising from each bell tower, something like a column of sound, a cloud of harmony. First, the vibration of each bell mounts straight upwards, pure and, so to speak, isolated from the others, into the splendid morning sky; then, little by little, as they swell they melt together, mingle, are lost in each other, and amalgamate in a magnificent concert. It is no longer anything but a mass of sonorous vibrations incessantly sent forth from the numerous belfries; floats, undulates, bounds, whirls over the city, and prolongs far beyond the horizon the deafening circle of its oscillations.

Nevertheless, this sea of harmony is not a chaos; great and profound as it is, it has not lost its transparency; you behold the windings of each group of notes which escapes from the belfries.
? Victor Hugo, Notre Dame de Paris

You want bells? That’s bells!

I love love LOVE the Carillon. If the tune seems a bit hard to grasp, that just makes it even better. I like the intriguing, impressionistic feel of it. Long live the Carillon, and big respect to all carillonists!

One hopes the burghers of Campbell will be there protesting against the noise with axes and pitchforks a’la foreshore…

I have always thought that the Carillon in full flight is a fairly torturous experience. I have never been able to make out exactly what tune is being played – probably because I’m trying to get as far away as possible from it at the time.

I suppose some foul version of Jingle Bells is on the cards…Not that there’s a non-foul version of JB.

God, I almost put that through without clarifying that I meant that acronym in a purely musical sense.