Carillon de Westminster - Origin and Inspiration

Origin and Inspiration

As indicated by the title, Carillon de Westminster is a fantasia on the Westminster chimes, played from the Clock Tower, Palace of Westminster, since 1858. The chimes play four notes in the key of E major, G#, F#, E, and B in various patterns every fifteen minutes.

Vierne's friend Henry Willis hummed the tune for the composer upon Vierne's request; apparently, either Willis hummed the tune incorrectly or Vierne misheard his friend upon transcription. Vierne misquoted the second quarter of the chimes. Instead of jumping up a third from the tonic, dropping down a whole step, and landing on the fifth, Vierne's version moves up in whole steps to the third before moving down to the fifth. Vierne then stays on the fifth, leaps to the second, then third note of the scale and ends on the tonic. There is debate among musicologists as to whether or not this rumor is true, or if Vierne altered the melody to suit his own purpose.