NEW YORK – Wall Street heard the sound of 12 bells on Saturday – announcing God, not money.
The landmark Trinity Church at the top of the street rang $1 million worth of new chimes, pealing for 31/2 hours according to a mathematical formula dating to the 17th century.
“Iconic sonic booms echoing through the corridors of commerce” is how Trinity’s rector, the Rev. James Cooper, describes the “change-ringing” bells – the only 12-bell set in the United States – which were installed five years after the terrorist attack on the nearby World Trade Center. The historic church, with Alexander Hamilton buried in its graveyard, was closed for two months after the attacks.
“I am delighted to continue the tradition begun in the 18th century when the British introduced change bell ringing to the Colonies,” said Martin “Dill” Faulkes, a British high-tech entrepreneur who worked on Wall Street in the 1980s and financed the project. “The glory of change bell ringing is perhaps even more resonant in today’s stressful environment.”
Starting at 1 p.m. Saturday, a “band” of British ringers pulled the sallies at the Episcopal church for a full peal of at least 5,000 “changes” – each a mathematically calculated sound sequence for all dozen bells, instead of a particular melody. The rich cascade of sound was to be heard again this morning.
The Rev. Mark Sisk, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, was at the altar to bless the ringers, including Faulkes, himself a change-ringer since he was 12.
He first contacted the church about the project before the terrorist attack. Last year, Faulkes donated $1 million to refurbish the bell tower and 10 older chime bells, and to install 12 new swing bells that were created at the Taylor Foundry in Loughborough, England.
The bells – ranging in weight from a few hundred pounds to more than a ton – were cast by pouring a molten bronze alloy into molds that were hand-crafted using a mixture of sand, water, chopped hay and horse manure.
The inaugural chime was rung Friday, but not a full peal.
“I had a rope-handling lesson, and it was quite humbling,” Trinity’s vicar, the Rev. Anne Mallonee, said after a practice session earlier in the week. “You think you just pull the rope and the bell rings, but there’s a rhythm to it and you have to pay attention. It’s not as easy as it looks.”
The bells swing 360 degrees from their frames as they’re rung using 30-foot ropes, producing the shimmering sounds whose patterns change hour after hour. The more bells are involved, the longer they can be rung without repeating a pattern. For instance, six bells have 720 permutations, while 12 can go through 479,001,600.
In 1668, Fabian Stedman of England published “Tintinnalogia – or the Art of Change Ringing,” containing all the available information on systematic ringing. The theory of change ringing set forth by Stedman has been refined but remains essentially unchanged today.
The first change ringing bells rung in North America – in Philadelphia in 1850 – had fewer bells than those at Trinity. They were rung by a band that included ringers brought to the United States by P.T. Barnum for his circus.
“The hardest part is learning to control a half-ton of metal with a rope,” said parishioner Tony Furnivall, who is organizing Trinity’s own “band” of ringers. “The way you control it is by pulling not too hard. The bell does the work.”
At the end of 31/2 hours – as long as the dozen-bell peal usually takes – “many of the ringers will be in a trance,” he said.
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