Lim Kang Ning (b. 1994)

All the bells at once, for solo piano

"Monday evening at nine o'clock a celestial hubbub took possession ofthe Capital. For sixty minutes musical notes struggled against the metropolitan noise, along the streets ofthe monumental city of Rome, between Piazza di Spagna and Santa Maria in Trastevere, San Lorenzo in Lucina and the Capitol, Piazza del Popolo and Saint Peter's Cathedral. One hundred churches and one hundred bell-towers were transformed, for one hour, in instruments ofan extraordinary orchestra."

This was how Roberto Monteforte described a bell concert that was held in June 1993 in Rome. The concert venue was the city of Rome itself, with more than 500 bells sounding off in co-ordination, in a specific sequence composed by Llorenc Barber. In order to compose a 'symphony of bells' like this, Barber had to study the sonic quality of each bell (e.g. pitch, resonance and decay), observe the urban soundscape of the city and consider how other elements such as wind and air-resistance could affect the overall sound world he was composing. Barber did many bell concerts in different cities including Innsbruck, Austria, where airplanes had to be redirected so as to not intefere with the concert and also in Poznan, Poland, where the concert had an interactive element and its citizens participated by playing all kinds of bells on their own.

My piano composition, All the bells at once, is inspired by bell concerts. It is my sonic imagination and interpretation of experiencing one, as the auditory soundscape blends and transforms when you walk from one point in the city to another. The music begins slow and stately, from the lowest tessitura on the piano around the pitch C. As the piece progresses, the music ascends in register as more pitches and rhythmic variety is introduced. The sequence of pitches in this piece also follows the plain-hunt pattern found in change-ringing. Change-ringing is the art of ringing a set of tuned bells in continually varying order. Change-ringing is also performed on handbells.

All the bells at once was premiered by pianist Mervyn Lee at Kris Foundation’s “RIPPLES” on 22 August 2023 at the Esplanade Recital Studio.