Glocken der Heimat: German Church Bells

Glocken der Heimat: German Church Bells

This LP is a presentation of the recorded sounds of bells from churches within Germany. The narration is in German as are the liner notes.
I would like to thank H.C. Earwicker for translating the liner notes. The liner notes provide a small amount of background on each church represented on this album as well as general background information about church bells. The liner notes in German and H.C.'s translation are included in the file. Apparently, this album was put out by German-Americans as my copy was printed in the U.S.A. There's not any other information about this record to be found on the internet.

Here's the background information from H.C.'s translation of the liner notes:

Bells of Home - the bells of our cathedrals and churches in East-, West- and Middle-Germany sounding on this long-playing record direct the thoughts to past times, recollections from the history of these venerable houses of God, but also recollections of one's own experiences, the stations of our lives, to whom the sound of the Bells of Home is closely tied - baptism and benediction, wedding and death, the bell at clerical feasts or in times of trouble as a storm- or firebell.
In older times everybody in town knew if sorrow or joy were the cause when the bells started to ring. But since the bells are set into motion by electric energy and not by human hands, the merry "belern" and "kleppen" (as it was called in older German dialects) has come to an end. The force of the clanging bells can still capture us today, but it has lost a lot of its almost magic powers.
Originally, the casting of bells was practiced by monks in monasteries, but as early as in the 8th Century there were wandering casters. They were going from town to town, producing their work under close observation by the curious and watchful township. By this means, the perilous and costly transportation of the bells could be avoided.
Many legends were woven around the casting of certain bells. The most known is the story of the meddlesome apprentice who casts a bell of his own and is beaten to death by his angered master. Legend also tells of buried and sunken bells. Thus their ringing is said to come out of the earth, out of mountains, out of dark woods and from the depths of the waters. They were buried or sunken for some reason - perhaps because they were not consecrated and therefore flew away at their first ringing, or they got taken by the devil, or because they didn't want to be stolen by enemies and bandits.
Many of these legends are still alive today. Yet many old bells of whose creation and odysseys they tell are gone for a long time. They were molten down in times of war, shattered or carried off.



Listing of churches in order of presentation on each side:


Side A
St.-Petri-Cathedral in Bremen
Bamberg Cathedral
Maria-Magdelena Church of Breslau
Sankt-Marien Church in Luebeck
Cathedral of Trier
Jakobi Church of Stettin
Freiburg Minster
Cologne Cathedral
Cathedral of Limburg by the Lahn
Kaiserdom (Imperial cathedral) of Speyer
Cathedral of Worms
Cathedral of Erfurt
Minster of Ulm
Cathedral of Magdeburg


Side B
Minster of Aachen
Cathedral of Regensburg
Thomas-Church of Leipzig
Cathedral of Wuerzburg
The Mainz Cathedral
Sankt Peter of Munich
Kaiser-Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin
Sebaldus Church of Nuremberg
Benedictine Abbey Ettal
Cathedral of Koenigsberg
Muenchner Frauenkirche (Munich)

Tracklisting:

Side A

1. side A {18:58}

Side B

1. side B {16:10}

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