"What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!" - Edgar Allan Poe

I keep meaning to share these three silly videos for months. Since it was getting a little dusty in this here blog, I figured now was a great time! :)

I took these one day last September in Frankfurt, Germany. First one was taken walking down a little street, next was a couple hours later on a floating barge/biergarten, and the last an hour or so after that from my hotel room. (Don't mind the zoom-in on the Haribo Gummy Bears on my pillow instead of chocolate. I was a little giddy.)

They're each just a few seconds long and every time I hear them, my heart swells. The sound in person was almost overwhelming - I was totally overstimulated and didn't know where to look. If I could ever get back, I'd love to go during one of the 4 times a year they coordinate every church's bells to play together. (Große Stadtgeläut - "Great Peal of Bells") And in reading up on this, I discovered they are SERIOUS about their bells:

"Today, the sound characteristics of all bells present themselves as follows:
* Dom: nine bells (1877): E°, A°, C#', e', F#', G#', A', B', C#"
* Katharinenkirche (1954): four bells: B°, D', E', F#'
* Paulskirche: six bells (three: 1987): F#°, B°, C#', E', (G'), (B')
* Liebfrauenkirche (1954): five bells: E', G', A', C", D"
* Nikolaikirche: four bells (1956): G#', B', C#", E"
* Leonhardskirche: six bells (1956): F#', A', B', C#", E", F#"
* Dreikönigskirche: five bells (1956): E', F#', G', A', B'
* Peterskirche: four bells (1964): C#', E', F#', G#'
* Heiliggeistkirche: three bells (1958): A', B', C#"
* Karmeliterkloster5 : four bells (1995): (C'''), (D'''), (F'''), (G''')"

My favorite is the second video... could have been the apfelwein, too. :) Make sure your sound is on, because the videos are boring as sin.








Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And an in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells,bells,
Bells, bells, bells-
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
-Edgar Allan Poe