Salzburg carillon
The famous Salzburg Glockenspiel is located in the tower of the New Residence on Residenzplatz in Salzburg's old town . The carillon (together with the tower clock there) had a task to indicate certain times of the day. These dates were also vanitas symbols and reminded of the transience of things. Such toys also served for representation.
The bells should also encourage spiritual exercises: “Spiritual carillon. Through which the souls lulled to sin mediate Fünff and Dreyssig bells, When so many ... preaching, to penance and virtue ... are encouraged; whereby the sinners are then awakened from the vice-slack ... "(Quote 1706 printed by Lorenz Kroninger and Gottlieb Göbels)
history
Holland, especially the area around Amsterdam, is often referred to as the “home of the carillon”. The carillon of the west tower of the city of Amsterdam goes back to 1636, the one on the palace on the Dam in this city to around 1650. The carillon in Brielle not far from Amsterdam was built in 1660, the one on the cathedral in Utrecht in 1664. The brothers François and Pieter Hemony allegedly created 52 carillons there in the 17th century. The oldest known large carillon in the Strasbourg Cathedral dates back to 1382. Ornate old carillons are also known from the Kremlin in Moscow (1625) or from Dresden (1728).
Around 1695, Prince Archbishop Johann Ernst von Thun and Hohenstein bought 35 bells from the bell caster Melchior de Haze from Antwerp, which had been cast between 1688 and 1689. In 1696 they were packed in straw and transported to Salzburg on carts. The heaviest bell weighs around 300 kilograms, the smallest around five kilograms. At the beginning of 1703 - after the difficult structure and manufacture of the baroque movement had not seemed certain for a long time - the then court clockmaker Jeremias Sauter was still successfully commissioned to build the carillon. This baroque work is an independent work from Salzburg. Today's action comes z. T. from the 19th (and 20th) centuries.
The tower structure
The tower of the carillon was increased in 1701/1702, the costs were shared by the court chamber and the committee "Hohe Landschaft". The foundations and pillars of the tower had to be reinforced and the tower widened so that it could carry the weight of the bells. The tower tapers conclusively towards the top. The lower part is roughly square in plan, the top square floor (fourth floor) has the clocks belonging to the carillon and thus refers to the upper floors. The uppermost brick tower part with the mechanics of the carillon becomes much more delicate and dissolves the strict shape with its large oval windows, the top floor is made of wood for structural reasons and the floor plan is also octagonal. This floor dissolves in the strict design up through the large arcades. The arcades were very important for the audibility of the individual bells from all sides. The pilasters of the bricked octagonal storey can be found architecturally in the columns of the arcade storey above. The glockenspiel needed a wooden structure in order to be able to cushion the vibrations of the many bells and to prevent damage to the masonry underneath.
The armillary sphere
Archbishop Johann Ernst Graf Thun had a gold-plated astronomical device, a "sphaera armillaris" installed above the turmarkade and its copper-covered, baroque onion dome, which can describe the course of the planets, but does not allow very precise astronomical observations of the sun and planets. The invention is attributed to Archimedes, the device was first used as a didactic instrument, later also as a measuring instrument for determining the position of celestial bodies. This device, formerly z. Sometimes also called the “world machine” (controlled by God), is around four meters high, including the surrounding jewelry.
Restorations
In 1862 the Salzburg carillon was restored. In 2008 the bells were removed, and in spring 2009 the drive mechanism was removed and brought to a specialist workshop in Vienna. The restoration costs were over € 400,000. The historical mechanical drive was made usable again
Bells and pieces of music
The carillon has 35 bells and consists of around 3,500 individual parts. The bells alone weigh a good 1,600 kg, the large clay roller is 2.5 m long and 1.5 m wide. The 35 bells - distributed in rows of two and three in the eight round arches of the tower - and comprise a total of three chromatic octaves with all tones from c 2 (two- stroke c) to c 5 (five-stroke c).
- c 2 cis 2 ........... e 2 f 2 fis 2 g 2 g # 2 a 2 b 2 h 2 (d 2 and dis 2 is currently missing and not yet completed?)
- c 3 cis 3 d 3 dis 3 e 3 f 3 fis 3 g 3 gis 3 a 3 b 3 h 3
- c 4 cis 4 d 4 dis 4 e 4 f 4 fis 4 g 4 gis 4 a 4 b 4 h 4
- c 5
Around 50 pieces of music are played, sixteen of which are by Johann Michael Haydn or attributed to him. But pieces of music by Leopold and Wolfgang Amadé Mozart were also arranged for the glockenspiel in the 19th century. Since then, well-known melodies have been played such as “That sounds so wonderful” (Papageno's glockenspiel) from the Magic Flute , “Give me your hand my life” from Don Giovanni , as well as the folk songs In a cool ground , Come, dear May, and do , Ännchen von Tharau and Die Lore-Ley . The planed song from Ferdinand Raimund's Der Verschwender , a minuet by Leopold Mozart and the Christmas carol Silent Night, Holy Night can also be heard. However, pieces from more recent times have been and are played on special occasions. The Salzburg Glockenspiel has a mechanism that weighs over six tons and is controlled by a large cylinder. The unclean tuning was criticized several times in the past (but also the imprecise and fuzzy beginning of the chords). Hermann Spies pointed out that the bells were still cast in the old baroque mood and that the well-tempered mood only prevailed a little later. In addition, before the last restoration, there were also clear impurities from worn and therefore no longer properly tuned bells. In the course of the restoration, the greatest blurring of the old work was largely eliminated.
A 4 m high armillary sphere (Saphaera armillaris) is attached above the carillon roof, which is used to depict the movement of celestial bodies in a contemporary way and consists of several mutually rotatable metal rings that together describe the shape of a sphere.
Viewing times and game times
The carillon sounds daily at 7:00 am, 11:00 am and 6:00 pm, four minutes past the hour, and thus for a long time after the cathedral bells and before the "Salzburg bull".
From the end of March to the end of October, guided tours through the Salzburg Museum up to the carillon tower take place on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. and on Friday at 10:30 a.m.
literature
- Gerhard Ammerer , Ingonda Hannesschläger, Jan Paul Niederkorn, Wolfgang Wüst (eds.): Courts and residences of clergy princes. Structures, regions and Salzburg's example in the Middle Ages and modern times (= residence research, 24). Ostfildern 2010, ISBN 978-3-7995-4527-3 .
- Bernd Euler, Ronald Gobiet, Horst Huber: Dehio Salzburg - City and Country . Verlag Anton Schroll & Co, Vienna 1986, ISBN 3-7031-0599-2 .
- The new residence in Salzburg. From Palazzo Nuovo to the Salzburg Museum . Annual publication of the Salzburg Museum Carolino Augusteum. Salzburg 2003, ISBN 3-901014-96-9 .
- FW Zillner: History of the City of Salzburg . Special volumes of the Society for Salzburg Regional Studies. Salzburg 1885. (New edition: 1985, DNB 551619767 )
- Hermann Spieß: History of the Salzburg Glockenspiel ( online ).
- Ulrike Engelsberger: New historical research results on the beginnings of the Salzburg carillon ( online ).
- Peter Laub, Erich Marx, Gerd Pichler and colleagues: The Salzburg Glockenspiel in the New Residence - Report on the restoration, Volume 55 of the annual publications of the Salzburg Museum, publication issued by the Federal Monuments Office and the Salzburg Museum, Salzburg Museum Publishing House, 2013, 239 pages
Web links
Coordinates: 47 ° 47 ′ 54.4 " N , 13 ° 2 ′ 51" E