Photos

It was a lovely sunny day today , so i went to take some shots in Graz & i took this one at the Glockenspielplatz.

The Carillon am Glockenspielplatz

In 1884 the spirits producer Gottfried Maurer bought a house in then "Fliegenplatzl" square. On his journeys to North Germany and Belgium the businessman got to know carillons and had one installed in his house in Graz.On Chrismas Eve in 1905, the 24 bells in the iron roof turrent chimed for the first time. In 1929 Gottfried Maurer bequeathed the carillon to the city of Graz, conditional on its continued existence. In World War II the bells stopped chiming. They were used for making arms and were renewed only in 1956.So the Graz carillon plays its three melodies again, three times a day. But they are not always the same. As the positions of the 800 steel pins on the barrel can be changed. Five times a year you can hear new melodies. Alpine folk and yodelling songs alternate with Christmas carols and pleasant melodies by contemporary composers. But always the arcaded windows in the gable open to show a dancing couple in traditional Styrian costumes. The crowing culmination of the show is the golden cock raising his wings. It is a copy of the cock Gottfried Maurer saw on the city hall in Munich.
In his time, Gottfried Maurer was quite a smart advertising strategist. Not only the carillon lured people into his wine shop. The art-nouveau facades of the house and the adjacent building also belonging to
the businessman in various subjects of the reliefs and mosaics stimulate the viewer to drink some wine. Even the dancer of the carillon raises his glass to the people.
That's just suitable for the so-called "Bermuda triangle" in which you find the carillon. Many a reveller has got lost there in one of the numerous restaurants, cafés and bars...