Dunbar Male Quartet and Bell Ringers

              Dunbar Male Quartet and Bell Ringers


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REDPATH






DUNBAR MALE QUARTET and BELL RINGERS



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For many years a Dunbar Quartet and Bell Ringers company was one of the most popular of Chautauqua and Lyceum organizations.  The present company was organized by Ralph Dunbar of the original Bell Ringers and is most worthy to bear the Dunbar name.  The members of the Dunbars appear in solos, quartets and readings and carry 150 hand bells upon which are played some of the best overtures and solo numbers.




In selecting the repertoire of the Dunbars due attention is paid to the selection of music which is appropriate for bells.  There is none of us but what has thought of the important place which bells hold in our mental activities, due to their association with so many epoch-marking events in our lives.  Perhaps no contributor to our literature has so vividly brought out the fanciful use of bells as has Edgar Allan Poe in his poem entitled 
The Bells.




The feature which characterizes the programs of the Dunbar Quartet is the absolute blending of their selections into a complete whole.  There is a consistency in these programs which has distinguished them among all the Lyceum and Chautauqua attractions of the last double decade.  No feature will be remembered longer than the beautiful chimes and harmonies which are introduced in their sacred selections.  Their original transcription in which are heard excerpts of beautiful songs sung by the players accompanied by the bells will be counted by many the most beautiful music they have ever heard.  The young men introduce a sufficient amount of humor to leaven the program properly and to sustain the reputation long held by the Dunbars as musical entertainers extraordinary.






Musical Bell Ringing




It is doubtful if any musical feature has ever been presented to the American public which has won greater favor or obtained a wider following than that of musical bell ringing.  The art was brought to America first in the '40s by the late P. T. Barnum.  While touring England he heard a group of a dozen church bell ringers practicing upon hand bells and he conceived the idea of using a large peal of bells and playing more elaborate music.




These bells were made in England, as the world's best bells always have been, but in conformity with his unfailing originality as an advertiser, he dressed the players, both men and women, in the costumes of Swiss peasants, and called the company 
The Swiss Bell Ringers.
  For many years this company toured the United States in wagons before railroads were at all general.  The art at that time was so successful that our grandfathers recall most vividly the visit of the Swiss Bell Ringers to their native towns.




It seems that thereafter the art fell into disuse and it was not really perfected or revived in any worthy way until 1898, when Ralph Dunbar and his brother founded the famous Dunbar Bell Ringers at St. Joseph, Mo. These brothers went to England and had made a peal of bells which was among the best ever cast.




These bells were made under their own personal supervision by the same bellfounders that cast the great bells of Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral in London, as well as practically all of the well-known church bells of the world.  The peal embraced more than five octaves chromatic and through the middle register there were as many as six bells of the same note.  The vogue of the Dunbar Bell Ringers was the most notable of any similar company which has appeared on the American concert platform.  They gave more than 2,800 concerts up to 1912 when both Harry and Ralph Dunbar resigned their places in the Quartet to others.  The company up to then had traveled 490,000 miles in America and Europe.  The Dunbar brothers collected hundreds of pages of newspaper material published regarding their tours, but the patrons of the Redpath Bureau are sufficiently familiar with this widely-known concert company to recall the marvelous musical effects which this quartet of players obtained from their splendid peal of bells.




It may be interesting to know that the largest of these bells weighed 25 pounds and measured 16 inches in diameter.