Tubular bells entered the orchestra in the 19th century, when composers wanted the voice of real bells but transporting huge cast-iron belfries into a concert hall was impossible. Long metal tubes (eighteen of them, spanning an octave and a half) offered an elegant solution.
Tubular bells are often used to create religious, funeral, or festive atmospheres: in Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique (the Witches' Sabbath), in Mahler's Second Symphony, the close of John Williams's Hymn to the Fallen (from Saving Private Ryan). In the Ukrainian symphonic tradition, bells carry particular meaning — they are linked to Orthodox bell-ringing; the bell-ringing tradition of St Michael's Cathedral in Kyiv is on Ukraine's National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
