Changeringing
A
permanent soundscape and video installation in the highest chamber of the
Saint Rombouts Tower, Mechelen Cathedral, Belgium
2009
JEROEN D’HOE
(musical
composition & soundscape)
BRODY
NEUENSCHWANDER
(libretto and
video installation)
Els Van Laethem (solo soprano)
Clari Cantuli (children’s choir)
Otto Derolez (solo violin)
Toon Fret (solo flute)
Peter Vandendriessche (solo soprano saxophone)
Carl Van Eyndhoven (carillon)
Jean-Pierre Van Hees (Baroque musette)
Carlo Willems (percussion)
String quartet: Wietse Beels (1st violin), Eric
Baeten (2nd violin),
Tony Nys (viola), Martijn Vink (cello)
Brass quartet: Benny Wiame (1st trumpet), Gunther
Kerkhofs
(2nd
violin),
Sandor Hendriks (1st trombone), Axel Urlings (2nd trombone)
Jeroen D’hoe (soundscaping)
Recorded by Steven Maes at
www.motormusic.eu on 26-29/01/2009
Mixed by Steven Maes and Jeroen D’hoe Mixed at
www.serendipitous.eu on 10/02/2009
Mastered by Steven Maes at
www.serendipitous.eu on 12/02/2009
Recording supervision by Johan Favoreel
Produced by Jeroen D’hoe
www.jeroendhoe.org
CD cover & booklet designed by Brody Neuenschwander
www.bnart.be
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Changeringing is an ambitious and highly unusual installation in and on the cathedral of Mechelen, which is the seat of the Archbishop of Belgium. In 2009 the tower of the cathedral was permanently opened to the public. Two artistic projects were commissioned by the city to celebrate the restoration and opening of the tallest and grandest Gothic structure in the country.
The first project is a laser installation on the roof of the cathedral by Brody Neuenschwander. This is a temporary installation and forms an important part of the city’s Contouren arts festival. For three months texts scroll across the vast slate roof of the cathedral from dusk to dawn, interspersed with new constellations and geometric configurations. One text returns again and again, urging the viewer to consider his/her relation to the divine:
I BELIEVE I TRY TO BELIEVE I DO NOT BELIEVE
THEY BELIEVE THEY TRY TO BELIEVE THEY DO NOT BELIEVE
The second project is a permanent installation in the Askelder, which is a sublimely beautiful eight-sided vaulted chamber at the top of the cathedral tower, 100 meters above the ground. The dome of this chamber has a large oculus, which was originally intended to be open and give access to higher levels of the tower; but as these were never built it remains closed.
Brody Neuenschwander has installed a circular screen in this oculus, onto which a video loop is projected. The video virtually reopens the closed oculus, filling it with a figure who struggles to keep his place in the endless vertical space. This figure hefts an unwieldy book, writes on a disc of glass, bangs against his narrow prison with hammers and collapses into uneasy sleep. These video images alternate with images of a vast book, which hangs above our heads, slowly turning, surrounded by gently falling feathers.
The Askelder is filled with a musical composition by Jeroen D’hoe. The spiritual nature of the space is brought out strongly in D’hoe’s vocal and instrumental composition, which features unusual combinations of instruments, such as saxophone and bagpipes, brass quartet and carillon, soprano, children’s choir and Baroque musette.
Both the music (see libretto below) and the video consider the tower as a symbol of man’s striving for the divine, the transcendental, the majestic. The mystic nature of the space is strengthened by the soundscape and video, which are structured to coincide with the periodicity of the tower’s carillon and time-keeping bells. The eight modules of the music are played in a random sequence and change every 7.5 minutes, a concept drawn from medieval change ringing. The carillon has been incorporated, playing a new composition by Jeroen D’hoe. In this way the recorded soundscape and the actual bells form part of one musical experience.
The video divides the hour into sixteen parts. The sequence of images is fixed, whereas that of the music is randomly altered. In this way the images are constantly accompanied by different musical modules.
LIBRETTO PART ONE
A TOWER TO RING THE CHANGES
An eight-sided tower to
measure the winds
A tower at the center of the spheres
A tower to observe them from
A tower to ring the changes
The tower is silent
The clay core is covered in wax
A fire is built around the mould
The bronze is poured into the mould
The mould is broken away
The clapper is hung in the bell
A tower to ring the changes
I believe I try
To believe I do not believe
They believe they try
To believe they do not believe
A tower that believes in
nothing
With no doors or windows
A stairway into the void
From which a sharp voice cries to God
Hand raised to mouth he calls
Sharp tones cry
God is great
God is great
God is great
Heaven
Earth
Call
Answer
Body
Breath
Ascend
Descend
LIBRETTO PART TWO
TOWER TYPES
A tower of fire to challenge the
sun
A water tower to divide day from night
A tower to display your strength
This tower will fall it is only a question of when
A tower of silence to honor the dead
A tower to call them back to life
An eight-sided tower to measure the winds
A dark blue tower to climb to heaven
A tower at the center of the spheres
A tower higher than the others from which to escape your fate
A stump no higher than the
rooftops
A tower leaning far to the right
A tower in the desert built of mud
From which a sharp voice cries to god
A tower built to restrain a saint
A sacred mountain high in the clouds
A tower to dry your feet
To escape the eternal mud of Flanders
A tower to ring the changes
A mechanical tower
A crown of towers to defend the city one by one they fall
A white tower to silence dissent
A brooding tower on the shores of Asia
A tower that believes in nothing
A rickety platform lashed to stilts
A stairway into the void
Rising in the west, setting in the east
A clock running backwards
Filled with books chewed by worms
Truth and lies crowding the shelves
With no doors or windows
Built with the rubble of antiquity
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