Word: bellman
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Sweden's greatest song writer was Carl Michael Bellman (1740-95). To Swedes Bellman's ballads are as familiar as Stephen Foster's are in the U. S. Year ago Hendrik Willem van Loon, literary journeyman, heard some, resolved to investigate the "Anacreon of the North," the "Last of the Troubadours." Last year van Loon and Grace Castagnetta, U. S. pianist spent five months in Sweden, acquainting themselves with Bellman's background and with the Swedish language which, in his songs, is almost untranslatably idiomatic. This week they published the result: 20 songs, with piano accompaniment...
...Carl Bellman was an amiable, unpractical tosspot who spent most of his life in government sinecures, under the patronage of art-loving, fun-loving King Gustavus III. When the King was murdered. Bellman lost his last job, was put in debtors' prison, got out just in time for a last party before he died. Bellman played the lute, consciously or unconsciously drew upon Bach, Mozart, Scarlatti for melodies. He seldom wrote a song down, let his friends transcribe, collect and publish part of his output. The "Last of the Troubadours" sang of tavern life, of trips to the country...
When Steve Stanko took his turn last week he made the judges' eyes pop. In the press, he lifted 270 Ibs., for a new U. S. record. In the snatch, he raised 280 Ibs., for another U. S. record. When his score was tallied, Bar Bellman Stanko not only won the U. S. heavyweight championship but broke a third U. S. record with a total...
Alfred's biggest bell, weighing about a half ton, is also its oldest, cast in 1674 by Pieter Hemony of Amsterdam, ablest bell founder of his time. The youngest bell in the collection was cast in 1784 by another famed bellman, Van den Gheyn of Malines. The 35 assorted bells were assembled and tuned-by scraping metal from the lower "lip" and the inner surface-by Jef Denyn, director of the Belgian National School of the Carillon. The carillon, housed temporarily in a wooden tower on the Alfred campus, was played publicly for the first time last week...
When ears had been plugged with cotton, a signal was given--and some thousand students jolted in their beds. With their heads projecting inside the bass bell, the pair swinging the clapper have never been able to hear the tinkling syncopation of their rival bellman. Hence the regular bass booming is completely divorced from the higher pitched trills...