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Tick-tock on the clock, but the glock doesn’t stop! The glockenspiel, or glock, is the most freely used tuned percussion instrument. That’s why you can hear it in the music of Handel, Mozart, Bruce Springsteen, and Childish Gambino!
Howdy, howdy, howdy! I’m Solomon Reynolds, and this is: Saturday Morning Car Tunes! This morning… The glockenspiel, or glock, is the most freely used tuned percussion instrument. That’s why you hear it with Bruce Springsteen and… Handel. You might have seen a glockenspiel in music class at school. It looks like a small xylophone, except its bars are made from metal instead of wood. It sounds bright, piercing, and delicate. Handel was the first composer to write for the instrument almost 300 years ago. There are two types of glockenspiels in an orchestra: the open type, played with mallets (or sticks); and the closed type, played with a keyboard (like a piano). This is the second one, from Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute.
The mallet glockenspiel might have come from German military bands. An instrument like that would have been played in the opera If I Were King by Adolphe Adam. Same thing in "Forest Murmurs" from Wagner’s opera Siegfried.
Glocks are an obvious choice for light footsteps, like from Ponchielli’s ballet "Dance of the Hours." Or from Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Sleeping Beauty.
Léo Delibes thought the glockenspiel was the perfect duet partner for a coloratura soprano in “The Bell Aria” from his opera Lakmé.
Mahler used the glockenspiel in his Tragic Symphony No. 6. Do they sound happy or sad?
Debussy saw the glockenspiel playing in the waves from his work The Sea. And Paul Dukas saw a wizard’s intern! ...wait, that’s not right. Was it a Sorcerer’s Apprentice? [trailing off]
Looking up into the night sky, Gustav Holst saw the glockenspiel right next to the planet Jupiter. Ottorino Respighi, when thinking about his hometown, heard the glockenspiel rustling through the pine trees.
Rolling Stone magazine ranked "Redbone" by Childish Gambino among the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. If you listen closely, you can hear the Oscar-winning composer Ludwig Göransson playing the glockenspiel. Tick-tock on the clock, but the glock doesn’t stop.
I’m Solomon Reynolds. I write and produce Saturday Morning Car Tunes with research assistant Carolina Correa and audio engineer Stephen Page, only on Classical California. Tune in—or out of your car—next Saturday morning!
