Buzz
Readers Meg, Wayne, and Rajiv reached out to ask about the melody commonly played by clock chimes. What is it called? Where did it originate? How did it become so well-known? Here’s the full story.
In 1793, a new clock was installed at St Mary the Great, the University Church of the University of Cambridge. Rev. Dr. Joseph Jowett, the Regius Professor of Civil Law, was tasked with composing a chime. With help from Dr. John Randall, a music professor, and undergraduate student William Crotch, he created a melody thought to be based on a movement from George Frideric Handel’s oratorio Messiah.
The chime was initially called “Jowett’s Jig” by Cambridge students, later becoming widely recognized as “The Cambridge Chimes.” The tune was then replicated by the men who installed the clock and bells at the Palace of Westminster in the mid-1800s. (Although the clock, bells, and even the clock tower are commonly referred to as “Big Ben,” the name originally referred only to the 13½-ton hour bell, named after engineer Benjamin Hall, who supervised its installation.) The melody then came to be known as “The Westminster Chimes” or “Westminster Quarters.”
Edmund Beckett Denison, the engineer behind the Westminster clock's intricate mechanism, had this to say about the chimes:
"The repetitive four-ding sequence fails to provide any musical enjoyment. However, the Cambridge and Westminster quarter chimes, with their arrangement across four bells, offer a far more pleasing sound. The hourly chime, in particular, stands as the most harmonious and complete of them all. Interestingly, these melodious chimes were heard by thousands across England for seventy years before anyone thought to replicate them. Since being introduced in the Great Westminster Clock, albeit with slight differences in timing, they've been widely imitated and are now nearly as common as the outdated ding-dong chimes."
The tune's prominence at the iconic clock tower led to its adoption in clocks worldwide, from grand timepieces to doorbells and school bells. It's become so synonymous with clock chimes that it might be the first melody most people think of in this context. Daniel Harrison, a music theorist and Chairman of the Department of Music at Yale University, suggests that the tune's enduring popularity is due not only to its appealing melodic structure but also to its strong sentimental ties to British imperial grandeur. These associations were further reinforced by its regular use by the BBC World Service to introduce their top-of-the-hour world news broadcasts for many years."
