Word: johanne
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...German flimflam man named Johann Nepomuk Maelzel appeared in the U.S. and began wowing the natives with his traveling show of mechanical marvels. His treasures included an automated trumpet player, a device called the panharmonicon that could duplicate the sound of a 40-piece orchestra (playing Beethoven) and an elaborate diorama showing the burning of Moscow. But Maelzel's star attraction was a hoax: a chess automaton nicknamed the Turk that took on all comers-and was every bit as talented as the human player cleverly concealed within it. That role was filled by William Schlumberger, an Alsatian hunchback...
...voices, using as tools of his craft a pulsating rhythm, overlapping figures and a moving chromatic bass line. The overall effect is soothing, with strong yet not dogmatic liturgical overtones. Fans of German rock groups may spot similarities between Glass and Kraftwerk. Those classically oriented will think of Johann Pachelbel...
...evening began with a joke. Seven members of the orchestra played the Schleptet in E flat, S.O., by musicologist Peter Schickele, more familiarly known as P.D.Q. Bach (1807 -- 1742), the last and the least of Johann Sebastian's sons. Satirizing serious music, the Schleptet demands a wide range of comic effects, including a nose-dive by the French horn player, which sends fragments of a collapsible horn sailing across the stage into the audience, and woodwind burps usually reserved for a beginner's practice room...
CLOCKS & WATCHES by Johann Willsberger. Dial. $30. Telling the time was once a minor reason for looking at a clock. In ages more leisurely than the present, timepieces were objects of art as well as of utility, as this album of nearly 130 examples amply proves. Watches were decoratively (and ingeniously) grafted on to fans, necklaces, needle cases and hand mirrors. Clocks were emblazoned with statuary and paintings. Yet Photographer Willsberger presents more than just a collection of pretty faces. Even his earliest samples, dating from the 15th century, are marvels of mathematical complexity. One clock by Abraham Louis...
Every Sunday morning, live Bach Cantatas with chorus and orchestra in the liturgical context Johann took for granted are performed at the service at Emmanuel Church, 15 Newbury Street in Boston...