*Location:

   Benedictine Abbey
   Highway L113
   Maria Laach, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany
   LL: N 50.40234, E 7.25209

Site locator map
City locator maps and gazetteer page

*Player:

   (unknown)

*Contact:

   Benediktinerabtei Maria Laach
   D-56653 Maria Laach
   T: 02652 59-0
   E: abtei/@/maria-laach DOTde

*Schedule:

   (unknown)

*Remarks:

   21 old bells destroyed in 1892.
   Replaced by 7 bells cast 1894 & 1899
   by Adrien Causard, Tellin, Belgium.
   Treble taken 1943.  New bells cast
   in Karlsruhe by Mrs. Karin Schneider-
   Andris, advised by Peter Schilling of
   Apolda.
   Range A#, C#-diatonic-D#, F#, G#.

*Technical data:

   Chime-sized instrument or collection of 12 bells
   Pitch of heaviest bell is A# in the bass octave
   Transposition is unknown
   Keyboard range:     ----  /    ----  
   The arrangement of tones and/or semitones
     is non-standard; see Remarks above.
   The instrument was enlarged in 1991
     by the maker cited in Remarks above
   No auxiliary mechanisms known
   Tower details not available
   Year of latest technical information source is 1991

The German Wikipedia article about the abbey has photos of this building and a section about the bells.  Additional photos of the building are in the associated Wikimedia Commons category.

The abbey Website (in German) reports that it once had a bellfoundry, but it was closed at the end of March 2016.  Had opened in July 1999, and eventually occupied four men, resuming the ancient tradition of the abbeys of Erfurt, Fulda, St. Gallen, Tegernsee and above all Reichenau, which were important centers of bell foundries from the 8th to 12th centuries.  This foundry had cast over 2000 bells in that 17-year period.

Where this work lies in the sequence of output of miscellaneous bellfoundries, in this region and in the world.

Ranking among all German chimes by pitch (weight).
Ranking among all German chimes by size (number of bells).
Ranking among all German chimes by year of completion.

Index to all tower bell instruments in Germany/Rhineland-Palatinate.

   This page was built from the database on  7-May-21
   based on textual data last updated on 2021/05/05
   and on technical data last updated on 1992/03/04