The fifty-six bell Leonidas Polk Memorial Carillon, costin $65,000
and ranging nearly five octaves, is the largest in the world and is
unique in that the tower housing it was designed especially for it (caril-
lons are more often installed in existing towers), thus permitting the
maximum tonal quality of the bells to be heard when they are played.
Shapard Tower, rising 134 feet into the air and the gift of the Robert
P. Shapard family of Griffin, Georgia, received its bells as it grew, the
first being installed during the summer of 1958 and the last during the
fall. The tower and carillon are a part of Sewanee's new $1,200,000 All
Saints' Chapel, even in its former state considered the most use Episco-
pal Church in the South.
Just what is a carillon? Bellmaster and designer Arthur L. Bigelow
uses the definition drawn up at the Carillon Guild Congress at Prince-
ton in 1946: it is "an instrument of at least two octaves of cup-shaped
bells arranged chromatically and so tuned as to produce, when many
such bells are sounded together chordally, varied and concordant har-
mony; normally played from a keyboard for variation of touch."
How does Sewanee's carillon compare with this? Bigelow comments
that its bells are as perfect as it is possible to make them. Their
tuning is even closer than the tuning prescribed in the American Stand-
ard (a measuring stick for those purchasing bells and carillons). Their
proportions allow an even timbre from the bass to the treble, so that
there will be a constant intensity throughout. This means the high
bells are just as important, acoustically, as the lower ones, not losing
any of their tonal effect just because they weigh less.
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