The ringing greeted traders come from Italy. The peal could be heard from the waters of Lake Lucerne to the snows of the Gotthard Pass. They were the Loudest Bells on Earth, all the Urners said, and though now I know a louder one, their place high above the Uri Valley made them very loud indeed. When she swung, her feet leapt from the polished wooden planks, so that when the mallet met the bell, it rang from the bell’s crown to the tips of my mother’s pointed toes. She was small enough to dance beneath them in the belfry. They were rough and black except along their silvery lips, where my mother’s mallets had struck a million strokes. Three of them, cast from warped shovels, rakes, and hoes, cracked cauldrons, dulled ploughshares, one rusted stove, and, melted into each, a single golden coin. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title.įirst, there were the bells. Recounting his birth in the 1700s in a belfry high in the Alps, to his appearance on Europe's greatest stages, this epic novel is the story of the greatest ears on earth - from a deaf mother's cries, to the beating of a forbidden lover's heart, to the arias of Vienna's greatest opera house, and the deadly booming of the world's loudest, most glorious bells. But in this letter he also reveals the astonishing secrets of his past and answers the question that has shadowed his fame: How did Moses Froben, world-renowned musico, come to raise a son he could never have sired? In a letter to his son, Moses recounts his humble birth in 18th-century Switzerland and his life as a novice monk, and he tells of the two noble friends - and a forbidden lover - whom he cherished during the chaotic years he spent in Mozart's Vienna as apprentice to the great Gaetano Guadagni.

Gall and becomes its star singer, only to endure the horrifying act of castration, meant to preserve his angelic voice and turn him into a musico. Cast into the world with only his ears to protect and guide him, Moses finds refuge in the choir of the historic Abbey of St. His life is simple but content, until the day his father recognizes Moses' singular sense of hearing and its power to expose his sins. Moses Froben was born in a belfry high in the Swiss Alps, the bastard son of a deaf-mute woman, banished to the church tower to ring the Loudest and Most Beautiful Bells in the land each day. Dazzling, enchanting, and epic, The Bells is the confession of a thief, kidnapper, and unlikely lover - a boy with the voice of an angel whose exquisite sense of hearing becomes both his life's tragic curse and its greatest blessing.

The bells by richard harvell