"From the fury of the Norsemen, O Lord, deliver us!" A thousand years ago, tower bells served as emergency broadcast systems for coastal communities in northern Europe. Today, the memory of those warnings informs Tocsin: An Alarum for Carillon. This is a highly kinetic piece whose opening gestures are [0.1.2.5] sonorities followed by jagged disjunct seconds and repeated major sevenths. Near the end of the piece, these gestures return with increased frenzy: the sonorities have become [0.1.3.4] and the disjunct seconds now involve crossing of hands.

A central theme at a much slower tempo establishes a tonality of D. The accompanying sotto voce sixteenth notes (which may be executed rapidly, out of tempo) will reappear in many guises and expansions later in the piece. The central theme itself will go through other iterations, culminating with an augmented statement at measure 151.

Neither mere speed nor strict tempo are requisite when performing this piece, but a feeling of liveliness and urgency is encouraged.

—David Maker