Pummerin

Overview

The Pummerin (informally “Boomer”, formally Marienglocke, “Mary Bell”) is the bourdon — the largest, lowest-pitched bell — at St Stephen’s Cathedral (Stephansdom) in Vienna, Austria. It is one of the largest swung bells in Europe and one of the cathedral’s most famous landmarks. The current bell, the second to bear the name, was cast in 1951 to replace the original 1711 instrument destroyed during the Second World War.

The Pummerin rings on a small number of high feast days each year — including New Year’s Eve at midnight, when it is broadcast nationally as the official sound of the Austrian new year — and on certain civic and ecclesiastical occasions. Its deep tone is a recognised national sound of Austria.

Origin & History

The Old Pummerin (Josephinische Glocke), 1705-1945

The original Pummerin was cast in 1705-1711 by the Vienna bell-founder Johann Achammer. The bronze for the bell came from 208 of the approximately 300 Ottoman cannons that the Habsburg defenders had captured in the Second Turkish Siege of Vienna of 1683 — a literal recasting of weapons of war into a sacred instrument of peace. The casting cost 19,400 florins and the finished bell carried images of Saint Joseph, the Virgin Mary in her Immaculate Conception aspect, and Saint Leopold, bearing the arms of Bohemia, of Hungary, of the Holy Roman Empire, and of Austria.

The bell weighed 18,161 kg with a diameter of 3.16 m and was tuned to the pitch of B natural. the bishop, Franz-Ferdinand Freiherr von Rummel, consecrated the bell in December 1711, and it rang for the first time on the 26th of January 1712, marking the entry of Emperor Charles VI into Vienna after his coronation as Holy Roman Emperor. It took sixteen men, pulling the bell rope for a quarter of an hour, to swing the heavy bell into a sustained ringing motion.

The 1711 bell was rung infrequently — its mass made it dangerous to swing too often — and remained in service for over two centuries. It was destroyed in April 1945 in the closing weeks of the Second World War when fire spread through the cathedral; the bell fell from its tower and shattered.

The New Pummerin, 1951

The current Pummerin was cast in 1951 by the bell-foundry Johann Pfundner of St Florian (Upper Austria), with metal that included some of the surviving fragments of the original 1711 bell. The new bell weighs approximately 21,383 kg with a diameter of 3.14 m, making it slightly heavier than its predecessor and one of the largest swung bells in Europe. It was installed in the north tower of the cathedral (rather than the south tower where the original had hung, which was no longer structurally suitable) and consecrated in 1957.

Construction & Materials

The new Pummerin is a swung church bell of standard European cathedral design — a hollow tulip-shaped bronze body cast in a single pour, with the strike note tuned by careful inside-wall lathing after the initial casting. The alloy is the standard bell bronze of approximately 78% copper and 22% tin. The bell hangs from a wooden yoke supported by a steel headstock, swung by an electric motor; the original’s manual rope-and-team operation has been replaced by motorised swinging that brings the bell up to its operating amplitude in a few minutes.

The bell’s strike note is C4 (sometimes given as B3 in older sources). Its complex partial spectrum — the bourdon (an octave below the strike note), the fundamental, the minor third, the fifth, and the octave above the strike — is the standard major-third tuning of the European cathedral bell tradition.

How It Is Played

The Pummerin is rung on a small number of designated occasions each year. The standard schedule includes New Year’s Eve at midnight (Austrian national broadcast), Easter Vigil, Pentecost, the feast of Corpus Christi, the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, the cathedral’s own dedication feast on 23 April, and on the death of an Austrian president or significant ecclesiastical figure. The motorised swinging takes approximately three minutes to bring the bell to full amplitude; the ringing typically lasts ten to fifteen minutes.

The bell is not used for ordinary daily or weekly liturgical purposes — those are covered by the smaller bells of the cathedral’s main carillon. The Pummerin is reserved for the highest-significance moments.

Cultural Significance

The Pummerin’s New Year’s Eve broadcast — the bell ringing across Stephansplatz at the stroke of midnight, transmitted live by ORF radio and television — is one of the central recurrent sound-events of Austrian public life and has been broadcast nationally since the 1950s. Many Austrians associate the bell directly with the start of the new year.

Beyond the broadcast role, the bell has historical significance as a direct material connection to the Ottoman wars of the 17th century. The bronze of the original 1711 bell — captured Turkish cannon recast as a Christian cathedral bell — embedded the Habsburg-Ottoman conflict in the cathedral’s central liturgical instrument; the 1951 recasting carried surviving fragments of that original metal forward into the new bell, preserving the material continuity across the wartime destruction.

Notable Examples & Recordings

• The bell itself is housed in the north tower of St Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna; the tower visit allows close inspection.
• Recording: ORF’s annual New Year’s Eve broadcast is the standard recorded reference. The bell has also been recorded for ecclesiastical and bell-tower documentation projects by the European bell-research community.

Related Instruments

• Tubular bells — the orchestral imitation of cathedral bells.
• Carillon — the keyboard-controlled tuned-bell instrument of European church towers.
• Bonshō — the Japanese Buddhist temple bell, a different tradition of large struck bells.
• World Peace Gong — a comparable large symbolic struck-metal object of the contemporary peace-monument tradition.
• Bridge of Nations Bell — another major contemporary large bell.
• Sea organ — a comparably distinctive single-instrument architectural sound landmark.
• Singing bowl — a contemplative-tradition resonant struck-metal instrument from a different culture.

Where to Hear It

Live: at St Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna, on the designated annual ringing dates (New Year’s Eve, Easter Vigil, Pentecost, etc.). The cathedral’s tower visit allows close inspection of the bell outside of ringing times. ORF broadcasts the New Year’s Eve ringing nationally.

• Wikipedia: Pummerin
• Wikidata: Pummerin (Q686934)
• DBpedia: Pummerin
• St Stephen’s Cathedral Vienna

Learning Resources

Scholarly study of the Pummerin draws on the cathedral’s published history, the bell-research literature of the European Glockenmuseum community, and the published documentation of the Pfundner bell-foundry. Bell-research more generally is served by the Verband Deutscher Glockensachverständige (German bell-research association) and by the Beratungsausschuss für das deutsche Glockenwesen.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is it called the “Pummerin”?
Pummerin is Viennese dialect for “boomer” — a reference to the bell’s deep, sustained sound. The formal liturgical name is Marienglocke (“Mary Bell”).

How often does the Pummerin ring?
About a dozen times per year, on designated high feast days. The most famous ringings are New Year’s Eve at midnight (broadcast nationally) and Easter Vigil.

Where can I see it?
In the north tower of St Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna. The tower is open to visitors year-round and the bell is accessible by stairs and by lift.

Was it really made from Turkish cannons?
The original 1711 Pummerin was cast from bronze that included 208 Ottoman cannons captured in the 1683 Siege of Vienna. The current 1951 bell incorporates surviving fragments of the original, so a portion of the original Ottoman bronze continues to ring in the modern instrument.

Is the Pummerin the largest church bell in Europe?
It is one of the largest swung bells in Europe but not the absolute largest. The “Petersglocke” of Cologne Cathedral (24,000 kg) is heavier, and several Russian Orthodox bells (the Tsar Bell of the Moscow Kremlin at 201,924 kg, the Trinity Lavra bells) are vastly larger but are not swung. The Pummerin is among the largest bells in Europe in regular swinging service.