The bells, the bells!

[Dave2002]

I have a dim memory of reading that the Boston Symphony Orchestra took their own bells with them on tour so they could always fall back on performing the SF if other programming went awry.
Presumably they took the music too.

I guess they took fairly standard tubular bells. Otherwise they might have needed to use one of these: http://www.fi-aeroweb.com/Defense/C-5-Galaxy.html

[smittims]

I remember seeing Bernstein conduct Symphonie Fantastique on BBCTV around 1970 and he used 'bell plates' (rectangular pieces of bell metal). They didn't sound much like bells over the TV. They're also used in Webern's op.6 pieces, where they're described as Tiefes Glockengelaute, and meant to sound as if from the distance. Webern writes the part on one line, suggesting indefinite pitch, but there are clearly two bells implied as their crotchets have alternate stems up and stems down.

There was a 1939 Bruno Walter recording of Symphonie Fantastique which David Cairns claimed (in 1968) to be the only recording whose bells were deep enough. The score clearly indicates a bassy sound, but almost any bell also has high overtones.

Anvils are another problematic instrument. At Bayreuth in 1968, maybe connected with the stage representation, the famous Rheingold anvils sounded like the ticking of an old clock, disappointing to anyone used to the Solti/Culshaw recording. The anvil in the RCA recording of Bax' 3rd symphony sounds like a biro tossed into a jamjar ('clonk').