Carillon Nocturne and the Bell-Like Sound at the Piano Prior to 1916
Carillon Nocturne and the Bell-Like Sound at the Piano Prior to 1916

Summary/Abstract: George Enescu’s Carillon nocturne Op. 18 (1916) reimagines the sound of bells on the acoustic piano, but so far there has been little analysis of exactly how it accomplishes this. Scholars have not discussed details about the context in which Carillon nocturne was created, the influence of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, and how Enescu’s notation builds upon an idea from Camille Saint-Saëns’s Fifth Piano Concerto. Situated against a background of bells that ring out across the nineteenth and early twentieth century piano repertoire, this study analyses Enescu’s writing as a play with selected overtones of the Pythagorean series and with timing and dynamics borrowed from the rope-activated bell and the wooden simantira, two outdoor sound sources specific to the local Orthodox church rite.

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