Christ Church Bells: A Song History

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"Christ Church Bells" is best known as a catch for three voices credited to Henry Aldrich, the Oxford scholar and musician who became Dean of Christ Church in 1689.[1][2] The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography places its composition in 1673 and suggests it may be the best known of his catches.[1] Its words call the listener to hear the bells of Christ Church and end by naming Tom.[2] Great Tom, the college's great bell, was recast by Christopher Hodson in 1680 and afterwards installed in Tom Tower, the gateway tower to which Christopher Wren added a cupola in 1682.[3][4] Percy Dearmer, in his guide to the cathedral, observed that the bells brought over from Oseney Abbey owed their renewed fame to Aldrich's catch.[3] The catch lived on in later song collections, among them a tenth edition of The Pleasant Musical Companion, a book of catches for three and four voices.[2][5]

Old photograph of a domed gate tower above a long college front, with a large crowd in the street below

Christ Church College gate-tower whose bell, "Big Tom," rings the curfew, Oxford, England, stereograph (one half shown), 1907.

A separate English country dance called "Christchurch Bells" appeared in Playford's The Dancing Master; the Traditional Tune Archive dates its first printing to a 1679 supplement to the sixth edition.[6] Cecil Sharp took the dance from the seventh edition of 1686 for Part IV of The Country Dance Book, published in 1916.[7] The Tune Archive notes that the dance tune has been described as a three-part round, but the sources consulted here do not establish whether it shares a melody with Aldrich's catch.[6]

Mark Gilston includes "Christ Church Bells" in Playing-A-Round With Dulcimers, a book of rounds, canons and circular songs meant for several players starting the same piece at different times, published by Mark Gilston.[8]

Our book that contains the song "Christ Church Bells"

Sources

  1. MacTutor, University of St Andrews: "Aldrich, Henry (1648-1710)" (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Stuart Handley).
  2. University of Glasgow, To Your Rude Health: "Hark, the bonny Christchurch bells" (Henry Aldrich).
  3. Project Gutenberg: "The Cathedral Church of Oxford" (Percy Dearmer).
  4. Christ Church, University of Oxford: "Bell ringers and bells".
  5. University of Glasgow, To Your Rude Health: "UofG Library ASC R.b.1" (The Pleasant Musical Companion, tenth edition).
  6. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Christchurch Bells".
  7. Library of Dance: "The Country Dance Book, Part IV" (Cecil J. Sharp, 1916).
  8. Mark Gilston: "Playing-A-Round With Dulcimers".
  9. Image: Christ Church College gate-tower whose bell, "Big Tom," rings the curfew, Oxford, England, stereograph (one half shown), 1907. Library of Congress.

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