Listen to “At Rain-Starred Windows” by Tom Gurin:
Rain . . . rain . . . rain . . . we are buried in rain,
It will rain forever, the swift wheels hiss through water,
Pale sheets of water gleam in the windy street.
The pealing of bells is lost in a drive of rain-drops.
Remote and hurried the great bells beat.The wind hurls blows at the rain-starred glistening windows,
The wind shrills down from the half-seen walls.
We flow on the mournful wind in a dream of dying;
And at last a silence falls.
Conrad Aiken, The House of Dust: A Symphony, Part VI
A new composition, “At Rain-Starred Windows” by Tom Gurin, has received a performance award through the Johan Franco Committee of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America. The competition received a record fifty-eight submissions this year. In addition to publishing the work, the GCNA will premiere it at their virtual congress in June 2021 at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.
Who was Johan Franco?
Johan Franco was born in Zaandam, Holland, in 1908, but lived the majority of his life in the United States. The son of an architect and an artist, Franco studied composition at the Amsterdam Conservatory from 1929-34 with the same Willem Pijper who taught Henk Badings about the octatonic scale. In 1934, three years after Henk van Wezel premiered Badings’ first cello concerto with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic successfully premiered Franco’s Symphony No. 1. That same year, Franco moved to New York City, where he would live for fourteen years. He became a U.S. citizen in 1935 and served with the U.S. Army and Air Force during World War II. He married in 1948, and he and his wife settled in Virginia Beach, where he would live for forty years until his death in 1988.
Johan Franco: Carillon Composer
Franco occupies an interesting middle ground between European and American carillon cultures. Although he was born, raised, and educated in Holland, and was therefore accustomed to hearing carillons, he only began to appreciate the instrument after settling in America. In his own words,
I was born in Holland where there are lots of carillons. They were all out of tune when I lived there, but after the War, they practically revived the carillons. They put new bells in them, and tuned some of the old bells, and put some of the historical bells in museums. So now the carillons are really first rate again, and I’m sure I would like ‘em now. But when I lived there, I didn’t care at all for carillons. Then one day I came here in Luray [Virginia], and I listened to the carillon there, and Charles Chapman played some of my pieces on it. This was in the middle of the ‘50s, and I was absolutely overwhelmed by it. It was so beautifully done, and they were so well tuned. These bells were superb.
To an equal if not greater degree than Henk Badings, who was born in Java, Johan Franco grew up with the sound of the carillon as part of his daily life. But, it was never a part of his musical life until he became involved with the American carillon culture around 1950. Interestingly, he singles out “Summer Fanfares” by Roy Hamlin Johnson as one of his favorite pieces for carillon. “It’s a fantastic piece,” he says. “I first heard it in 1956 when it was brand new then. It kind of bowled everybody [at the GCNA Congress] over, but me in particular. [Chuckles] I would say I’m very impressed by it, and that’s his masterpiece.”
Bearing in mind that Franco and Badings shared the same teacher, it is not surprising that they would employ some of the same compositional tools (like the octatonic scale) and share an interest in the carillon. However, it is important to note that Franco ultimately wrote much more extensively for carillon than Badings ever did. It is unknown exactly how many pieces Johan Franco wrote for the carillon, but some estimates are in the hundreds. John Gouwens calls Franco “almost certainly the most prolific composer of carillon music ever, with over 150 works to his credit.”
About Tom Gurin
Tom Gurin is a composer and performer. He studied music composition at Yale University and carillon performance at the Royal Carillon School “Jef Denyn” in Mechelen, Belgium. He is currently Duke Chapel Carillonneur in Durham, North Carolina. Contact him at thomas.gurin@aya.yale.edu.