By Paul F. South
NEW ORLEANS – The message and melody are unmistakable:
"Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light "
And while the messengers – bells ringing from the steeple at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary’s Leavell Chapel – produce a sound older than the Reformation, the deliverer is a product of the computer age.
Tucked inside a small cabinet in the upper reaches of the chapel is the seminary’s “carillon,” or at least a high-technology descendant of the 15th century bells, that serenade the seminary community’s bleary-eyed at 8 a.m., the worshipful after chapel, the hungry at lunch time and the weary at day’s end.
“In our setting, when I walk across campus and I hear a hymn that I recognize, I have a textual connection with it,” said Ken Gabrielse, chairman of the Division of Church Music Ministries at NOBTS. “That can be a very worshipful moment.”
Those worshipful moments inspired by the electronic bells have been part of the tapestry of life at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary since the school moved from Uptown New Orleans to the Gentilly campus in the 1950s, Gabrielse said. And their post-Katrina return to campus came thanks to the vision of the contractor charged with rebuilding the storm-shattered campus.
The first set of electronic carillon bells were installed in Sellers Music Building in 1956, Gabrielse said.
“They were basically recorded bells,” Gabrielse said. “We’ve never had a real set of bells. I don’t know of anyone in town who actually has a real set of carillon bells. They’re quite expensive and very limiting.”
The first Gentilly campus bells were a love story of sorts. As a testament to her love of God and for her husband, the electronic “bells” were given to the seminary on Feb. 2, 1956 by Marietta Carleton Webb in memory of her husband James, “for the glory of God.”
But when Gabrielse arrived at NOBTS as a student in 1988, the bells were silent. When he returned to the campus a few years later to teach, he found controls for the old “bells” in the recesses of a Sellers recital hall.
“There was a little room in the back of the recital hall. There were two big cabinets back there,” Gabrielse recalled. “They had large mechanical timing features where you set time manually. When I found them, they were not working at all.”
While the seminary’s carillon was silent, the Gentilly neighborhood was not without its bells. St. James Major Catholic Church nearby utilized its carillon, which could be heard on the seminary campus when weather cooperated, Gabrielse said. The bells at St. James have been silent since Hurricane Katrina.
“I always thought, ‘It would be nice if we had them,’” Gabrielse said. “But there were other things that were a priority.”
Then came Hurricane Katrina. In the aftermath, the seminary’s contractor hired A. E. Schlueter Pipe Organ Company of Lithonia, Ga. to work on the seminary’s organs and pianos damaged by the storm. The company, whose seal bares the Latin phrase “Soli Deo Gloria” (to God alone be the glory), is currently working on a new organ for Leavell Chapel, as well as additional instruments for the recital hall.
The contractor discovered the old carillon system. As a result, seminary leaders decided to replace the bells. Speakers were put in Leavell Chapel’s new steeple during the manufacturing process.
As soon as the steeple went up, the Schlueter company put in the digital system. When the new organ is installed, the two instruments will be able to work in tandem, Gabrielse said.
Currently, the system is pre-programmed, with some 1,500 hymns and songs.
“When the new organ goes in to Leavell Chapel, we will actually be able to program our own hymns and songs for use on the carillon bells, to store them digitally and play them,” Gabrielse said. “Right now, the selection of those hymns is fairly random, non-seasonal. We program when those hymns are played.”
But the technology will allow the seminary to program seasonal music. Christmas hymns and carols will be a mainstay on the playlist during the Advent season. And when the new organ is installed in January, selections will include traditional hymns and melodic contemporary praise songs.
Gabrielse believes the carillon has the potential for ministry, not only on campus but to the larger community.
“The carillon is a very individual thing,” Gabrielse said. “I think potentially it could be something the community could look to with pride. It can also be a wonderful ministry to the individual, walking to class, to just be encouraged.”
While the history of carillon bells at NOBTS is relatively young, the story of bells traces its roots to the Bronze Age, according to the Guild of Carilloneurs in North America (CGNA). However, the art of tuning bells was not perfected until the 15th century. The first tuned carillon was crafted by Pieter and Francois Hemony. The instrument was installed in Zutphen, The Netherlands in 1652. It was once said, according to the Guild website, “that good bells and good schools were the sign of a well-run city.”
But by the time of the French Revolution, changing tastes and the seemingly endless stream of wars across Europe triggered a decline in the carillon’s popularity. But by the dawn of the 20th century, the instrument enjoyed a resurgence, thanks to American William Gorham Rice. At the same time, discoveries in England rekindled interest in the art of bell tuning.
While most of the world’s carillons are concentrated in the Europe, there are carillons on every continent except Antarctica, according to the CGNA. Nearly 200 exist in North America, notably traditional carillons are found at Yale University and at Washington, D.C.’s National Cathedral.