Klok en beiaard in Vlaamse cantates en oratoria in de 19de en 20ste eeuw - Elke Ausloos

The thesis 'Bells and carillons in Flemish cantatas and oratorios in the 19th and 20th centuries' aims, on the one hand, to provide a non-exhaustive yet comprehensive overview of cantatas, oratorios and mass plays by Flemish composers in the 19th and 20th centuries in which bells, carillons or carillonneurs are involved in one way or another. On the other hand, the various forms of musical and extra-musical symbolism attributed to bell and carillon in these works will be explored in greater depth.

The final treatise is structured in three parts. The first part examines the period of 19th-century Romanticism, during which the carillon as a musical instrument went through a relatively dark period. Nevertheless, in this period an important extra-musical symbolism for the carillon comes to the fore: bell and carillon are used as a nostalgic reverberation of the past. Moreover, this aspect is used for both Belgicist and Flemish-national purposes. Works such as the Rubens Cantata and the Conscience Cantata by Peter Benoit, Klokke Roeland by Edgar Tinel are discussed from a historical, cultural and musicological point of view. The second part deals with the period at the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. The carillon flourishes: under the impulse of, among others, pioneer Jef Denyn in Mechelen, interest in the carillon grows. Witness to this are choral works that pay tribute to Jef Denyn and the revival of the art of carillon, or even to specific bells such as those of the Romboutstoren such as De Beiaardier by August De Boeck or Het Bronzen Hart by Gaston Feremans. The third part describes bells and carillons - mainly bells - in the Catholic Flemish landscape of the first half of the 20th century in the context of modernization, secularization and technologization. For example, Staf Nees wrote a Carillon Cantata for Postel Abbey, but Arthur Meulemans' Sacred Blood Play does not lack bells and carillons either.

This study illustrates the diversity of symbolism around bells and carillon in cantatas, oratorios and mass plays from the 19th and 20th centuries, and thus at the same time tries to disseminate beautiful but underexposed musical heritage of Flemish composers.