Anvil Chorus

The Anvil Chorus is the English term for the Coro di zingari (Italian Gypsy chorus), a piece of music from Act 2, Scene 1 of Giuseppe Verdi's Il trovatore (The Troubador, 1853) which depicts Spanish Gypsies striking their anvils at dawn – hence its English name – and singing the praises of hard work, good wine, and their Gypsy women. Most recordings will list this as Vedi! Le fosche notturne.

Translation

See how the clouds melt away
from the face of the sky when the sun shines, its brightness beaming;
just as a widow, discarding her black robes,
shows all her beauty in brilliance gleaming.
So, to work now!
Lift up your hammers!
Who turns the Gypsy's day from gloom to brightest sunshine?
His lovely Gypsy maid!

Fill up the goblets! New strength and courage
flow from lusty wine to soul and body.
See how the rays of the sun play and sparkle
and give to our wine gay new splendor.
So, to work now!
Who turns the Gypsy's day from gloom to brightest sunshine?
His lovely Gypsy maid!

In popular culture

• Only a quarter-century after the premiere of Il trovatore, W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan musically spoofed the Anvil Chorus in their 1879 operetta The Pirates of Penzance. Portions of the pirates' boisterous number "With Cat-Like Tread" copy the melody of the Anvil Chorus almost note-for-note, although with deliberately ironic lyrics such as "A fly's footfall would be distinctly heard."
• In American sporting events of the early twentieth century, the Anvil Chorus was commonly sung by the spectators or played by a band when a player, especially an opponent, committed an error, or to "rub it in" to the losing side. References to this occur frequently in the sports verse of Grantland Rice.
• In the 1929 Marx Brothers film The Cocoanuts, Harpo and Chico play the Anvil Chorus on a hotel's cash register. In their next film, Animal Crackers, in 1930, Chico plays a segment on the piano while Harpo clangs two horseshoes together. Later, in 1935's A Night at the Opera, the chorus is sung as part of a performance of Il trovatore as the police and the opera's general manager chase after Harpo and Chico backstage and onstage.
• Glenn Miller and his orchestra recorded a big band jazz version of this chorus.
• In the 1950s, a home permanent by the brand name "Toni" used the Anvil Chorus as a jingle in its television commercials: "The wave (clang) that gives (clang) that natural look is T-O-N-I Toni!"
• In the film Bad Santa, Billy Bob Thornton and Tony Cox bludgeon a safe and a mannequin, with Thornton using a sledgehammer on the safe and Cox a golf club on the mannequin, along to the Anvil Chorus.
• The chorus is often parodied in the Tiny Toons cartoons.
• An Easter Egg in Pixar's The Incredibles DVD contains the Anvil Chorus, as the soundtrack to a bonus video featuring every button push, door opening, and explosion in the film.
• In an episode of M*A*S*H (TV Series), when Major Charles Emerson Winchester III's life is save by Corporal Max Klinger (when a sterilizer over-pressures and explodes), Winchester performes some of Klinger's daily labors in appreciation for Klinger risking his life on his behalf. While using a rubber stamp on multiple papers (in quick succession), he hums the Anvil Chorus, striking each page at the same time an anvil is struck in the piece.

External links

• Anvil Chorus on YouTube