The abbey church of Sts Lawrence and Stephen stands in the Wilten district of Innsbruck. It is part of a large monastery of the Premonstratensians, an order of Canons Regular founded by St. Norbert in the 12th century. The present Baroque building dates back to 1665, but a church had already been founded in the Middle Ages. The abbey possessed bells since its foundation, but the first concert (eight bells, with baroque castings by Zach, Reinhart and Grassmayr and a gothic bell) was requisitioned for the war in 1916; the five new bells cast by Grassmayr (1927) were also requisitioned (1941) for the Second World War. The abbey did not have a bell concert until 1976, when five bells were ordered from Grassmayr Bell Foundry; it was expanded in the 2000s to its present number of eleven bells. The bell logs and castle, initially made of iron, were rebuilt entirely of wood and inaugurated in 2005.
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The complex has three towers, two of which are used as bell towers.
☛ Bell tower, main bells:
1st Resurrection, as° kg4168 - Grassmayr (Innsbruck), 1995;
2nd Mary, c' kg 2150 - Grassmayr (Innsbruck), 1995;
3rd Norbert, es' kg1241 - Grassmayr (Innsbruck), 1976;
4th Augustine, f' kg887 - Grassmayr (Innsbruck), 1976;
5th Trinity, g' kg635 - Grassmayr (Innsbruck), 2002, rif. 2012;
6th Laurentius, as' kg524 - Grassmayr (Innsbruck), 1976;
7th Nicholas, b' kg376 - Grassmayr (Innsbruck), 2002;
8th Barbara, c'' kg263 - Grassmayr (Innsbruck), 1976;
9th Michael, es'' kg156 - Grassmayr (Innsbruck), 2002;
10th Holy Cross, f'' kg101 - Grassmayr (Innsbruck), 2002;
11th Christ, as'' kg100 - Grassmayr (Innsbruck), 2004.
A miniature replica of the wooden castle with bells is also on display in the tower, as are several bells from the Maria Laach foundry in Glees. At the top of the tower is an anonymous Gothic bell from 1444 of known size and weighing 100 kg.
In 2021, a new bell peal was inaugurated, called the choir peal, which is used mainly for the duties of the monastery and is placed in the left tower of the cloister, the so-called stair tower.
☛ Stair tower, choir bells:
1. Holy Cross, c sharp'' kg275 - Ecat (Mondovì, Cuneo), 2020;
2. Mary, e'' kg164 - Ecat (Mondovì, Cuneo), 2020;
3rd Nicholas, f#'' kg116 - Ecat (Mondovì, Cuneo), 2020;
4th Aloisius, gis'' kg82 - Ecat (Mondovì, Cuneo), 2020;
5th Francis, a'' kg70 - Ecat (Mondovì, Cuneo), 2019;
6th Peter, h'' kg50 - Ecat (Mondovì, Cuneo), 2019;
7th Andrew, c sharp'' kg34 - Ecat (Mondovì, Cuneo), 2020;
8th Christ, as'' kg80 - Grassmayr (Innsbruck), 2005.
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The video consists of two parts devoted respectively to the sounding of noon, performed about half an hour before the actual noon (11:36) with the plenum of the choir bells, and to the announcement of Sunday, performed at 12:01 with the main bells; the latter consists of three signs, for the first two of which we have chosen a C minor chord and an A flat major chord in the style of Cortina D'Ampezzo. The last sign is the plenum of all eleven bells of the Glockenturm.
I would like to thank Fr Nikolaus Albrecht OPraem., sub-prior of the Wilten monastery, who gave us the opportunity to witness the ringing of the bells up close and to record them, and my travelling companions Umberto and Tommaso, without whom this 'Glockentour' would not have been the same!
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Official site of the Abbey: stift-wilten.at/
Italian Bell Association website: www.campanologia.org
For further information: bellsalerno@gmail.com
Cover photo: Pierre Bona - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
Basilica from above: N p holmes - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
©Ermenegildo Guerra, 20/08/23
USE PROHIBITED: the multimedia material in this video is the intellectual property of the author