The Hour After

A carillon is not an organ. Nothing in this tower is amplified, sampled, or quantised. Each baton pulls a wire; the wire pulls a clapper; the clapper crosses the dark inside of its bell and lands. For Petronella, thirty-eight kilograms of bronze at the top of the frame, the trip takes about eighty milliseconds. For Great Maren it takes a third of a second — her clapper alone outweighs a cellist.

Carillonneurs deal with this the only way possible: they play the future, striking the low notes a heartbeat before the beat. The punched rolls below do exactly the same — watch the read bar and you'll see the big holes fire early. When you freestyle, you'll feel it. The bourdon arriving late is not a fault in the wire. It is mass.

Before 1911 the tower played by drum — a studded barrel the size of a cart wheel. The drum went for scrap; the airs stayed, punched into cards. The card is the score: one row per bell, one hole per stroke. Press play and the belfry above takes over — the low holes fire early, exactly as a carillonneur's hands would.

Seventeen bells: the bourdon named for the tower, and sixteen named alphabetically for the founder's sixteen grandchildren, Aldwin to Petronella. Five went south in the requisition of 1943 and came back as new castings in 1949. You can hear the difference on a cold night — or so the ringers claim. Click a row to hear the bell.