During preparations for the first German performance of "Noye's Fludde" in Ettal, planned for May 1959, the problem of the scarcity of handbells became acute. Britten suggested that in the absence of handbells a set of tubular bells in E flat in groups of twos and threes could be played by four or six children with two hammers each to enable them to strike the chords. Britten was not present in Ettal, but he learned from Ernst Roth, of Boosey & Hawkes, that the Ettal production had substituted glockenspiel and metallophone for the handbells; according to Roth the bells in Carl Orff's Schulwerk percussion ensembles were "too weak" for the purpose. Britten later wrote to a friend: "I am rather relieved that I wasn't there! – no church, no bugles, no handbells, no recorders – but they seem to have done it with a great deal of care all the same. Still I rather hanker after doing it in Darmstadt as we want it – even importing handbells for instance."