…excavating a landmine, lived a miner, eighteen-twelver, and his daughter, Clementine.
The last live performance I saw of the 1812 Overture did the church bells with, well, church bells. It was in Cleveland’s Public Square downtown, and there’s an old church on the Square whose bells they wired in to the percussionists’ control. I don’t remember what the cannons were, but I think they might have been the WWII-era anti-air guns guarding the city.
Why are you intolerant of violins? 
Because, as everyone knows, there’s just too much sax and violins on television these days.
Cute.
Actually, with the possible exception of as combo organized by Joe Venuti, I would be hard put to imagine one with violins and saxophones at the same time. 
Incidentally, at www.classmates.com I am the Royal Punster on my high school’s Message Board. So there.
The saxophone made it as a standard member of the symphony orchestra in France, though not, as a rule, elsewhere, except in jazz-oriented works.
I don’t follow this. The presence of a saxophone is dictated by the repertoire, not the locality of the orchestra. Sure, les six used saxophones a fair bit. But it’s hardly a main feature of other French composers such as Messiaen.
To do this, of course, one would need music written specifically for the sax. (I once had a music teacher who deplored the endeavor of Mozart’s pupil Sussmayr to complete Mozarts’ music–after his death; Stanze was broke–to rewrite the cello part so a trombone could play it! (Dr. Greer said “any musician knows Mozart wouldn’t have done that.”)
The old Canadian government Dictionary of Occupations had a listing for Gunner for the workers who operated these. 