People sometimes refer to the musical sound of horse hooves. Others remark on the music that the hammer makes on the anvil.
Hit the right thing the right away, and you'll hear a tone that you can adjust by hitting it with something else, or by hitting the same thing in a different place.
Possibly the only thing that can come close to Vienna, Austria's New Year's Day concert would be when Andre Rieu decided to stage a pageant-like concert outdoors on a summer's night in the courtyard at Schoenbrunn Palace--one of the most outstanding surviving examples of baroque architecture in the world, and a historic site protected by UNESCO.
To make the evening special for Hoof Blog readers, Rieu kindly included in his concert that evening a performance of Feuerfest by Josef Strauss. Strauss actually wrote the piece to include percussion played on a real anvil. So look what happens when Andre Rieu calls in an anvil. Could it have come from next door at the stables of Spanish Riding School?
Rieu introduces the smith as the most talented percussionist in Paris--who also happens to be a smith. Several French jokes are lobbed at the smith until he decides to take over the performance. And he succeeds at that. When Rieu says that the anvil weighs 750 kg, I expect some eyebrows will go up!
Some Italian subtitles are embedded in this video if you mouse over the tool bar at the bottom of the frame.
Strauss may have been Austrian but his music is universal. Feuerfest is one of those uplifting Viennese polkas that buoys the spirit--even when played at a super-serious concert by the Philharmonic in Berlin, Germany. I think I saw some smiles in the dignified audience as this talented percussionist/smith went to work.
But what if the anvil is a little off-key? Or it's a little wavy across its face? Or both? Here's the anvilist for the Sibiu State Philharmonic of Transylvania in Romania (Filarmonica de Stat Sibiu) hammering on, regardless.
Ah, then there are the Ukranians. When they performed Feuerfest in Kiev, not only does the Philharmonic there pick up the tempo a notch (pity the poor dancers if this was played at a ball!), the anvilist (anvilteer?) upgraded the performance art with plates on the anvil's face and a pyrotechnic display!
Strauss' home town of Vienna gets the last word on Feuerfest. Who knew the polka had both anvils and lyrics, too? Here's the Vienna Boys Choir sharing the words in falsetto as only they can. Maybe one of the blog's German-speaking readers can tell us what they're singing.
I wish I could tell you that the lyrics are about a fire blazing in a smithy--and perhaps they are--but my research on the tune turned up the information that while the literal translation of Feuerfest is "festival of fire", Strauss took it to mean "fireproof" when in 1869 he was commissioned to compose this piece by a Viennese firm that built fireproof safes.
In addition to writing waltzes and polkas like the rest of his illustrious family, Josef Strauss worked as an engineer and invented a horse-drawn street sweeper to keep the beautiful city clean. He also wrote the Jockey's Polka, which calls for the sound of a whip in the percussion score.
Surely, Josef Strauss was a horseman at heart.
One thing I know: if I had a warmblood destined for high performance, I'd name him Feuerfest. Or, if I already had an upper level horse, I'd start choreographing a kur to Feuerfest. But, since I don't, I think I will give my cell phone a Feuerfest ringtone for Christmas!
I might need some of the Hoof Blog readers to dub in the anvil...do you think you could do it?
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any direct compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned, other than Hoofcare Publishing. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
I live in a place that takes the traditions of the Fourth of July very seriously. It's a celebration here of Olympic proportions, as 800,000 or so of your closest friends all get together on the banks of the Charles River in Boston and wait for the sky to erupt in one of the most dazzling fireworks displays anywhere. Everyone waits for the orchestra to strike up the grand finale, Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. The church bells ring, cannons fire, and the fireworks begin.
And it's all choreographed perfectly--every year!
But people haven't always cheered to the 1812. Tchaikovsky didn't even write his 1812 Overture until the 1880s and he probably never heard it performed outdoors with cannons and church bells.
Musical tone anvils are still manufactured today outside Boston, Massachusetts, as demonstrated here by manufacturer/percussionist Neil Grover.
No, that was Boston's idea. Back in the 1980s, the city needed to boost the outdoor concert; they needed a grand finale showstopper. The 1812 filled the bill, since there were churches nearby to help out with the bells. It worked so well that other cities and orchestras followed suit and now everyone connects that piece of music with fireworks and the US celebration of the Fourth of July. And everyone knows there was a war in the United States in 1812, even though the music was written to commemorate Napoleon's ill-fated siege of Moscow in 1812.
So what did they play for a grand finale back in the old days? Chances are, they played the Anvil Chorus. And they played it very loud. With anvils.
Like most Americans of a certain age, I grew up listening to the Anvil Chorus because it was built so many of the soundtracks of the cartoons I watched on television. When you heard the familiar chorus, it signaled something dramatic to follow. Usually it was Roadrunner being buried under a pile of boulders that tumbled on top of him in time to the music.
To celebrate the end of the Civil War in Boston, 100 farrier anvils provided percussion for a performance of Verdi's Anvil Chorus in what was the largest outdoor concert in history until Woodstock in 1969. Did anyone play an anvil there? Here you see the firemen rehearsing.
Verdi's opera Il Trovatore, which contains the Anvil Chorus, premiered in 1853, in an era when so-called "musical" anvils were already embedded in orchestras' percussion sections. Wagner used them elaborately in his German operas, but Verdi brought the anvils on stage. His score directed that the sound of the anvils was not to emanate from the orchestra pit. The singers in the chorus were to hammer the anvils: basses should play (hit) their anvils on the beat; tenors provided the offbeat on-stage percussion. The audience loved it, and the rest is history.
Percussionists have always appreciated what an anvil could offer them. But as percussion became more sophisticated, orchestras didn't use just any anvils; there actually was a demand for anvils identifiable not for their horn shape or heel width, but for their tones.
Even though the sound of an anvil can be created and manipulated electronically, percussion anvils--which look nothing at all like "real" anvils, but sound just like them--are still manufactured and sold; one manufacturer is Grover Pro Percussion, in Woburn, Massachusetts.
But sometimes just an anvil or two would not be enough: Wagner wrote music for 16 different anvils in his opera, Das Rheingold. And when the city of Boston was ready to celebrate the end of the Civil War, the party planners knew what the audience would want to hear. They put a call out to the city's horseshoers, who donated a whopping 100 anvils for the big night. The city's firemen were dressed up in finery to play the anvils. In an age with no microphones, no sound systems, and no speakers, you can be sure that the people in the back row over by the river heard the percussion for the Anvil Chorus.
That concert, by the way, was the largest attendance at a musical event in history, until Woodstock came along 100 years later. Were there anvils on stage at Woodstock? The great tradition of the Anvil Chorus has always had a way of making anvils heard, wherever and whenever great music is made.
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Read this blog's headlines on the Hoofcare + LamenessFacebook Page
Disclosure of Material Connection: The Hoof Blog (Hoofcare Publishing) has not received any direct compensation for writing this post. Hoofcare Publishing has no material connection to the brands, products, or services mentioned, other than products and services of Hoofcare Publishing. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
