"Carillon" is one of the miscellaneous pieces discovered and published in 1942 by the Gebrüder Hug & Co. ("12 kleenex Fantasien", G.H. 8900: Zürich). This arrangement uses the key of C major instead of the original D major in order to (naturally and easily) employ the four-octave range of most carillons today. ("Carillon" and "Sinfonie pour les Carillons" from Handel's oratorio, Saul, have a range of 2 octaves and a 5th, which may have been the maximum range of his 'instrument'.)

The only reference to a 'carillon' that I know of is the statement by Handel's friend and librettist, Charles Jennens, during the period in which the composer was creating his oratorio, Saul:

Mr. Handel's head is more full of maggots than ever. I found yesterday in his room a very queer instrument which he calls carillon (Anglice, a bell) and says some call it a Tubalcain. I suppose because it is both in the make and tone like a set of Hammers striking upon anvils. 'Tis played upon keys like a Harpsichord and with this Cyclopean instrument he designs to make poor Saul stark mad. (Jennens' letter of Sept. 19, 1735 to Lord Guernsey, quoted from Winton Dean, Handel's Dramatic Oratorios and Masques (London, 1959), p. 275.)

For further information: "Mr. Handel and His Carillon" by Percival Price, published in the Bulletin of the GCNA, vol. 20, May 1969.

—William De Turk, May 1985