Word: zithers
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...most of British history, Englishmen have been able to take zither music-or leave it to the Tyrolese. Last week, nonetheless, the humble, lap-sized stringed instrument was the musical rage of London. Recording sales were rivaling such alltime British favorites as Gracie Fields and Vera Lynn...
...reason for the zither dither: the catchy, twangy background music that British Cinema Director Carol Reed (Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol) had worked into his new smash hit, The Third Man. The picture demanded music appropriate to post-World War II Vienna, but Director Reed had made up his mind to avoid schmalzy, heavily orchestrated waltzes. In Vienna one night Reed listened to a wine-garden zitherist named Anton Karas, was fascinated by the jangling melancholy of his music...
Wrote hard-to-please Critic William Whitebait in the New Statesman and Nation: "What sort of music it is, whether jaunty or sad, fierce or provoking, it would be hard to reckon; but under its enthrallment, the camera comes into play . . . The unseen zither-player ... is made to employ his instrument much as the Homeric bard did his lyre." Said Alan Dent in the Illustrated London News: "The real hero I should call the unseen zither-player...
...play Margaret's favorite (Harry Lime Theme) six times. Next night, with King George in the audience, he was introduced at the annual Royal Film performance to shrieks and applause. Said surprised Anton Karas: "I am so happy; I am so happy. Perhaps the sound of the zither is new. In Vienna, you hear zither music everywhere...
...Indonesia album is an aural education in itself. There is a Javanese war dance-written on the seven-tone pelok octave and played on bronze percussion instruments-which has the simple gravity of a Bach sarabande. A Sundanese love lament called Drizzling Rain, accompanied on a zither, carries its grief through a long series of delicate ornamentations. An ancient song of the Batak hill people, accompanied by a wooden xylophone and split cymbal, is strikingly like the melancholy music of Provencal shepherds...