Word: rataplan
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...composer Carl Nielsen's Helios Overture, Opus 17, led by assistant conductor Daniel Altman. HRO's command of dynamics is spectacular, and the various crescendos and decrescendos were subtle and nuanced, yet vivid and exciting as the orchestra swelled and faded dramatically. The violins shimmered over the rapid-fire rataplan of the brass as the overture progressed. Dancing staccato strings quickly relinquished prominence to legato passages for a fuller ensemble, until finally the hall exploded with a burst of trombone fanfare. A subdued orchestra, with piccolo decoration, receded once again into the portentous moodiness of the opening as gruff cellos...
...staccato of pneumatic drills, thump of pile drivers, cries of hawkers, click of mah-jongg tiles behind shuttered doors, the shouts of coolies dancing under the weight of bamboo shoulder poles. Brass bands sound funeral dirges in the narrow streets; radios whine the cacophony of Cantonese music; the rataplan of $1,000 worth of firecrackers announces a wedding, a birth, or the grand opening of a new noodle store...
...National People's Congress in Peking last week, a new Chairman of the Republic took office: dour, self-effacing Liu Shao-chi (see box). With the announcement, Peking's vast Square of Heavenly Peace resounded to the beating of gongs, the clash of cymbals, the rataplan of exploding firecrackers. Demonstrators marched 110 abreast in a swirl of red banners and colored scarves. The usually gloomy and provincial streets blazed with electric lights strung on eaves and curving roofs; red stars and neon signs shone against the night sky; big, pumpkin-shaped lanterns dangled from the gates...
...humor springs out of and depends on idiocy. Last week Winters displayed his loony magic in Chicago's Black Orchid nightclub, racing hysterically through his varied roles-from a harassed father scared of his own kids, to the whole cast of a jail break complete with the rataplan of a Tommy gun, produced by his elastic larynx. "As long as someone laughs," says a friend, "Johnny is on. And someone is always laughing." Johnny was "on" the night he toured Manhattan bistros with an empty hand grenade (pulling the pin, he would cry: "Everybody goes when the whistle blows...
When the Nazi submariners emerged from the U-boat, they were greeted with a rataplan of small-caliber fire from encircling destroyers. Planes growled overhead, and depth charges still geysered around the stricken submarine. The Ger mans lost no time going overboard, and when Commander F. S. Hall, destroyer division commander, estimated that the entire crew had left, he ordered a ceasefire. From the Germans, bobbing in the waves, came three cheers for the sinking U-505. From the Pillsbury's loudspeakers came a rarely heard order: "Away boarding parties...