Maria Gloriosa

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Maria Gloriosa
The Erfurt bell (1497)[1] or any well-tuned bell:[2] strike note on E with hum note, minor third, fifth, octave or nominal, and major third and perfect fifth in the second octave.

Maria Gloriosa, or the Erfurt Bell, is a well-known bell of Erfurt Cathedral, cast by Geert van Wou in 1497. The world's largest medieval free-swinging bell,[3] it is now swung electrically. It was welded in 1985 to repair a crack, then, on August 2004, the bell was refused due to another crack not repaired in 2001.

Diameter: 8 feet 5 3/4 inches [2584mm], weight: 13 tons 15 cwts. [12555 kg], note: E [1497 standard].[1] Alternately: 2570mm, 11450 kg, note by today's standards: F-.[4] It is about 2 meters tall.[5]

As with any well-tuned bell the hum tone is near an octave below the strike tone, and all other notes are in tune including the minor third, fifth, octave, and major third and fifth in the second octave that may be heard in large bells.

Sources

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Musical Association (1902). Proceedings of the Musical Association, Volume 28, p.32. Whitehead & Miller, ltd.
  2. ↑ John Alexander Fuller-Maitland (1910). Grove's dictionary of music and musicians, p.615. The Macmillan company. Strike note shown on C. Give's Erfurt bell on p.614.
  3. ↑ "Erfurt Cathedral", Sacred-Destinations.com.
  4. ↑ "Great Bells of Germany", GCNA.org at the Wayback Machine (archived June 25, 2011)
  5. ↑ "Erfurt Cathedral, Germany, (Gloriosa)", The Sound of Bells.
Background and terminology
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