Dear Readers: I was SCOOPED by The Washington Post! I had almost finished writing this when I opened the paper one morning and saw an article on the front page of the Metro section about the carillon tower in Baker Park, Frederick. Quite a coincidence! But I wrote mostly about Belgium so I just decided not to go on at length about the Frederick tower and refer you to the Post instead. It is a great article, though it omits the Belgian connection.

In 1626 Francesco Belli, traveling with Italian Ambassador Giorgio, wrote home from Flanders:

The bells in these countries serve for music; their timbre is so sweet and their harmony so complete that they express and include all the notes of the voice.

Two hundred and fifty years later Robert Louis Stevenson and a friend traveled through Belgium by canoe following the rivers and canals from town to town. In his account of the journey, An Inland Voyage, he recalled their starting point in Antwerp:

On the other side of the valley a group of red roofs and a belfry showed among the foliage; thence some inspired bell ringer made the afternoon musical on a chime of bells. There was something very sweet and taking in the air he played and we thought we had never heard bells speak so intelligently or sing so melodiously as these.

These are just two of the awed travelers who recorded their impressions of Flemish bell towers in diaries, letters, memoirs, and travel books from medieval times to our own day. One dubbed the region “The Land of Singing Towers,” another described journeying through Belgium as following “a chain of melody.”

Continue reading “The Bells of Belgium… and Frederick, MD” →