Word: anvils
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Born François-Marie Arouet on Nov. 22, 1694-his father quite possibly not his mother's husband-Voltaire soon decided* that a man's main choice in life was to play the hammer or the anvil. Zozo, as he was nicknamed, had no doubts about which role he intended to take. Blessed with a middle-class background, a sound Jesuit education, a phenomenal memory and a wit to match his impudence, Voltaire hammered on every anvil in sight with an exuberance no enlightened common sense could quite explain...
...after Martin Luther King's murder exceeded anything in the American experience. By week's end, 168 towns and cities had echoed to the crash of brick through window glass, the crackle of the incendiary's witch's torch, the scream of sirens and the anvil chorus of looters. Yet one sound was remarkable in its very diminuendo. The fierce fusillades of gunfire that exacerbated the disorders of years past were heard only rarely last week. And considering the specter of anarchy looming over every U.S. city, the nation weathered its April agony with remarkable aplomb...
...most recently composed and the most colorfully exciting offering. Beginning with a stunning passage for bassoons, saxes, and solo horn, the composition also contains a lovely oboe solo, and an evocative passage for flute, piccolo, and bass drum side. In addition, Persichetti calls for hammer and anvil, four timpani, xylophone, sizzle cymbal, ratchet, marimba sticks on suspended cymbals, and bare hands on snare drum. At the end of the composition, all these returned in a brilliant overall unity...
...twoscore Representatives could say the same thing without making too much of a splash. But when New York's Senator Robert F. Kennedy accuses President Johnson of having muffed a chance to end the war in Viet Nam, his single, rather reedy voice has the volume of the Anvil Chorus in this year of presidential maneuvering...
...final act at Manhattan's old Metropolitan Opera House resounded to an anvil chorus performed by wreckers and an anguished lamento from civic-minded spear carriers who had campaigned to save the old firetrap as a city landmark. But the house, which for 83 seasons had provided an echo chamber for virtually all the world's great voices, was sort of a wreck already, with no rehearsal space, some acoustical dead spots, a dusty stage that choked the singers, and a dingy exterior. Besides, the Met, which moved last September to its new $45 million Lincoln Center home...