The Middletown Press - News - 12/19/2004 - New bells will be ringing at Wesleyan University

12/19/2004

New bells will be ringing at Wesleyan University

By SZYMON TWAROG , The Herald Press

MIDDLETOWN -- Wesleyan University announced this week that it will be acquiring and installing eight new bells for the South College belfry.

The additional bells will upgrade the Wesleyan bells from the status of a chime, 10 to 22 bells, to that of a carillon, 23 or more, and will provide the Wesleyan bell players with two full octaves and one additional note.

"Now I’ll have more notes, so I can play more songs, and more complicated songs," said six-year chimemaster Peter Frenzel, who is a professor Emeritus of the German Studies Department. "We’re moving out of the minor league of bell playing and into the major league."

The new configuration will also enable the school to play many new songs including Wesleyan’s school song, "Come Raise the Song."

Bells are played similar to a piano except the chimemasters push wood handles instead of keys. Some notes, such as a low C, can reverberate for 45 seconds and be heard for more than a mile away.

The bells are played nearly every weekday by members of the Wesleyan bell guild, Bell & Scroll.

The university has contracted the Verdin Bell Company of Cincinnati, Ohio for the casting and installation of the bells. The new bells will be cast by Petit & Fritsen, the Royal Dutch Bell Foundry in The Netherlands, and then will be shipped to Cincinnati via New Orleans and the Mississippi and Ohio rivers where they will be fine-tuned by the Verdin Bell Company.

Currently, the university has a total of 16 bells. The first set of 11 bells was shipped across the North Atlantic from England, while dodging German U-Boats in 1918 during World War I and were first played on campus during George Washington’s birthday in 1919. They were donated by the seven surviving members of the Wesleyan Class of 1863. The remaining five bells were donated to Wesleyan in 1966 anonymously. The donor was later revealed as Victor L. Butterfield, the then president of Wesleyan.

To contact Szymon Twarog, call (860)347-3331 Ext. 220 or email stwarog@middletownpress.com.