8

the summer of 1957 testing the bells with tuning forks. The foundry was too small to set up the carillon for playing, so the bells were moved by raft to the Isle of Swans on a nearby lake. Here, with the Alps in the background, the lake dotted with small boats, and with people gathered on the mainland coast, Bigelow gave "testing" concerts all during August.
The largest bell, the bourdon, weighs nearly four tons and the smallest weighs twenty-two pounds. An electric motor eliminates bell-pulling by rope, and the motor swings the bourdon. This massive bell will also strike the hour for Breslin Tower's clock.
The fifty-six bells (total weight: twenty-three tons) are made of bronze, the largest ones being seventy-eight percent copper and twenty-two percent tin. To give the small, high bells more "ring" a greater percentage of tin was used. The four-story split belfry begins with the bourdon on the botttom, than the seven other bass bells, then the keyboard, officially termed a clavier, and on top the medium and high bells. The keys resemble broom handles and their two rows correspond to the white and black keys of the piano. At the keyboard the bellmaster is in the midst of his bells, a location of prime importance, according to Bigelow. Connections between keys and appropriate bells must be kept within twelve to fiftteen feet "for the sake of controllability," he exlains.
Practicing can be done in private on a special practice keyboard connected to small steel bars, each bar being carefully tuned to its corresponding bell, and set up in Sewanee's Music Studio.
Weekly Sunday sftertoon concerts are anticipated on the Polk Carillon. Again to quote Designer Bigelow: "In the quiet of an afternoon set aside, or the stillness of an evening planned for it, the carillon will be heard pealing out a very special form of music proper only to itself, a music inexpressible upon any other instrument. Here the bells will make themselves felt and loved for their sheer beauty in music so appealing, floating down from the belfry, so pure, so strong, so tender, so incomparable. It expreses all moods. It endears itself to all. And it will be a part of Sewanee, a presence, a being."