"Orchestral" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... take Christophe in: in vain did they muffle themselves up in a complicated language, and make superhuman and prodigious efforts, go into orchestral fits, or cultivate inorganic harmonies, an obsessing monotony, declamations a la Sarah Bernhardt, beginning in a minor key, and going on for hours plodding along like mules, half asleep, along the edge of the slippery ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... music this has been done by Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, and Wagner. The latter, who exercised a vast influence upon the manner of developing a musical thought and in the selection of the orchestral colors in which it can be expressed advantageously, powerfully stimulated all composers later than himself, nevertheless exerted this influence at second-hand, so to say, never having written purely instrumental movements, ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... periodically recurring sections, called the "tutti-passages," and by a "cadenza," occurring generally within the regular coda. In some concerto-allegros (for instance, in the classic forms of Mozart, Beethoven and others), the first orchestral tutti is a complete introductory Exposition, in concise form, of the thematic material used in the body of the movement. See the first piano-forte concerto ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... the relative place which a sovereign God has assigned them in the scale of intelligence, by holding that relation to the end of time. Of course it would cease to be a curse; it would become one of those subordinate parts in the great orchestral music of life which subdue and soften it for the highest effect. If any one gets angry at such an idea, I leave him to his folly; for he is angry without a cause at me, who have, in this idea, expressed no wish that ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... to sound the same note as the soprano and alto will in fact sound a note an octave below. Music may denote the simplest melody or the most complex and perfect harmony. A symphony (apart from its technical orchestral sense) is any pleasing consonance of musical sounds, vocal or instrumental, as of many accordant ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... requisites for a pyrotechnical display have been heaped up; it is from these that the rockets will ascend, it is here the blue and red Catherine wheels will revolve. The vaulted ceiling of the cavern is so high that the rockets in their highest flight will not graze it. An orchestral-like balustrade has been provided for the musicians. The shareholders themselves will do their best to enliven the festivities with fiddles, flutes and bagpipes. The guests are already appearing, singly and in groups, down through the machinery of the mill. ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... last notes of the orchestral intermezzo, as the little girl, clad now wholly in white, ran in upon the stage and coming again down the centre raised her hand as if to command silence. With the gallery to see was to obey; the floor and balconies having subsided the applause ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... before it can be fitted to the stage are but hindrances and disabilities to the writer of a book. Where can we find more spilt wealth than in the plays of Swinburne, where all the magnificent speech builds up no structure, but wavers in orchestral floods, without beginning or ending? It has been said that Shakespeare will sacrifice his drama to his poetry, and even "Hamlet" has been quoted against him. But let "Hamlet" be rightly acted, and whatever ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... reading of a song, for technical defects. We must all commend every evidence of intellectuality in music, but this does not imply that we should accept good intentions for execution—performance. Let us have every possible development of orchestral music; let every village have, if possible, its choral society, but let none enter it who have ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... yonder you showed no bigger than a carpet-tack. The whole performance now seemed to be worked by those tireless figures pumping at the organ, in obedience to signals from a very alert figure on the platform below. The choral and orchestral thousands sang and piped and played; and at a given point in the scena from Verdi, a hundred fairies in red shirts marched down through the sombre mass of puppets and beat upon as ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... "Gypsy Archduke," who has done more than anyone else in Europe to place on record, both in writing and in print, the weird music and extraordinary quaint melodies of the Tziganes, melodies which he has arranged exquisitely for orchestral use. True, there is not a single archduke or archduchess in Austria and Hungary, who does not play with taste and feeling. Indeed, music seems to be inborn in them, and while the widowed crown princess is devoted to her piano, on which her performances ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... away, a floating, palpitating spirit amid great spaces of mystery and dream. A universal music was swelling around him, a mighty concerto bursting full upon him from the stillness of infinite distances—the sobbing of violins, the blare of brazen instruments, an orchestral clash ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... itself at last, and that he was going to have a long holiday after his dry-nursing of it. We went first to Paris, where we heard all the classical concerts that were given while we were there. I found that he never tired of listening to orchestral music; and yet he never ceased grumbling at it. He thought nothing of the great artists in Paris. Then we went for a tour through Brittany; and there, in spite of his classical tastes, he used to listen to the peasants' songs and write them down. He seemed to like ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... like the prelude to a grand orchestral performance. Beginning somewhat softly, Hodge fires away with a gravity and emotion which do him infinite credit, each succeeding repetition of the word "stwuns" being rendered with ever-increasing pathos and ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... Her meek brow bound with smooth unbraided tress? For Music knew not yet the stately guise, Content with simplest notes to touch the soul, Not from her choirs as when loud anthems rise, Or when she bids orchestral ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 366 - Vol. XIII, No. 366., Saturday, April 18, 1829 • Various
... occultism with music was recently discussed by Mr. CYRIL SCOTT in his interesting volume on Modernism in Music. It is satisfactory to know that the subject is not to be allowed to drop. Grave discontent is rife in orchestral circles at the monopoly enjoyed at spiritualist seances by the tambourine, and it is reported that Mr. ERNEST NEWMAN, the distinguished and outspoken musical critic, will shortly deliver a public lecture on behalf of the admission of other instruments to these mysteries, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... through—how shall I put it?—through seven-league glasses. I used to see life in its relation to me and mine. Now I see it in terms of my relation to it. Do you get me? I was the soloist, and the world my orchestral accompaniment. Lately, I've been content just to step back with the other instruments and let my little share go to make up a more perfect whole. In those years, long before I met you, when Jock was all I had in the world, I worked and fought ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... with infallible truth. The eye recomposes what the brush has dissociated, and one finds oneself perplexed at all the science, all the secret order which has presided over this accumulation of spots which seem projected in a furious shower. It is a veritable orchestral piece, where every colour is an instrument with a distinct part, and where the hours with their different tints represent the successive themes. Monet is the equal of the greatest landscape painters as regards the comprehension of the true character of every soil he has studied, which is ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... "consciousness" is the sum total of the feelings and consciousness of millions of cells, just as an orchestral harmony is a composite of the sounds of all the ...
— Psychology and Achievement • Warren Hilton
... prays the forest, and these orchestral sounds rise at every sunset from earth to heaven—and float high, high, reaching where there is no creature, where there is nothing only the silvery dust and the milky way of the stars, and ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... well as pieces by Weber, Hummel and Czerny, were played almost daily. The greatest ecstasy was caused by the arrival of a Steck piano at the Schumann home, which showed that father Schumann endeavored to further his boy's taste for music. About this time Robert found by chance, the orchestral score of an old Italian overture. He conceived the bold idea of performing it. So a bit of an orchestra was gathered among the boys he knew, who could play an instrument. There were two violins, two flutes, a clarinet and two horns. Robert, who conducted with great fervor, ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... been than that in which Beethoven was now placed. While Neefe took care that he continued his study of the great classic models of organ and piano-forte composition, he was constantly hearing the best ecclesiastical, orchestral, and chamber music, forming his taste upon the best models, and acquiring a knowledge of what the greatest masters had accomplished in their several directions. But as time passed on, he felt the necessity of a still larger field of observation, and, in the autumn of 1786, Neefe's wish that his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... socialism imbued by love." Rubinstein proceeded along the lines of history, or orthodox belief, as unreservedly in his "Christus" as he had done in his "Moses." The work may be said to have brought his creative activities to a close, although two compositions (a set of six pianoforte pieces and an orchestral suite) appear in his list of numbered works after the sacred opera. He died on November 20, 1894, without having seen a stage representation of it. Nor did he live to see a public theatrical performance of his "Moses," though he ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... flourished at a still earlier date, won reputation as an orchestral conductor. This work is hardly deemed to come within woman's sphere, but the many choral and orchestral festivals of England offered her a better chance in this direction than her sisters in other lands could obtain. ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... efforts to subdue itself, and the divine songstress, with that perfect bearing, that air of all dignity and sweetness, blending a child-like simplicity and half-trembling womanly modesty with the beautiful confidence of genius and serene wisdom of art, addressed herself to song, as the orchestral symphony prepared the way for the voice in Casta Diva. A better test-piece could not have been selected for her debut. Every soprano lady has sung it to us; but nearly every one has seemed only trying to make ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... has told me of, in a word—Helene!" The whole salon regards them, but what are the others but the due audience to this splendid couple taking the centre of the stage by the right divine of a love too great for drawing-room conventions, calling almost for orchestral accompaniment by friend Wagner! He talks no more save to her, he sups at her side, he is in boyish ecstasies over her taste in wines. And when, at four in the morning, he throws her mantle over her shoulders and carries her down the three flights of ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... sing one of their own Scotch songs—the enthusiasm, the applause—it is like fire going through the nerves. Well, it is very pleasant, but it is not enough employment, even though I get one or two other engagements, like the Edinburgh Orchestral Festival. No, it is not enough; but then I began to sing at musical evenings, in the fashionable private houses, and also to give lessons in the daytime; and then it was I began to know the kindness ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... was raging around the head of Ben Kyaw. Sheets of mingled spray and rain were driven in our faces. All round the isle of Aros the surf, with an incessant, hammering thunder, beat upon the reefs and beaches. Now louder in one place, now lower in another, like the combinations of orchestral music, the constant mass of sound was hardly varied for a moment. And loud above all this hurly-burly I could hear the changeful voices of the Roost and the intermittent roaring of the Merry Men. At that hour, there flashed into ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... say, the natives received this with neither interest nor astonishment; the single voice did not seem anything out of the way to them. When, however, a cylinder with orchestral music, bugle calls, and a stirring march was put in place, their delight ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, April 22, 1897, Vol. 1, No. 24 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... extent with the imaginative faculty, must have at least once in their lives experienced feelings which may give them a clue to the exalted sensuous raptures of my triumphal march. The view of a sublime mountain landscape, the hearing of a grand orchestral symphony, or of a choral upborne by the "full-voiced organ," or even the beauty and luxury of a cloudless summer day, suggests emotions similar in kind, if less intense. They took a warmth and glow from that pure animal joy ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... sudden advances and regressions, their passionate surges that finally and after all their exquisite hesitations mount and flare and unroll themselves in fullness—they, too, seem to be seeking to distill some of the same brew, the same magic drugging potion, to conjure up out of the orchestral depths some Venusberg, some Klingsor's garden full of subtle scent and soft delight ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... was successful in bringing together an audience of eminently respectable dimensions. The occasion served for the launching under favourable circumstances of what constituted the chief landmark of the programme—a set of orchestral variations with the quaint title of "The Quangle Wangle," from the prolific pen of Mr. Carl Walbrook. It is satisfactory to be able to record the gratifying fact that this work met with cordial acceptance. In the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... rented a house for six months at Sydenham, close to the beautiful grounds of the Crystal Palace. This was a most happy episode in our lives, for, besides the great attractions of the place, both inside and out, there were the admirable orchestral daily concerts, at which we were constant attendants. We had the pleasure of listening to the noble compositions of the great masters of music, the perfectly trained band being led by Herr Manns, who throws so much of his fine natural taste and enthusiastic spirit into the productions ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... "The Messiah," of course, at Christmas; Costa's "Eli," or "Elijah"; the "Requiem" of Mozart, and the "Lobgesang" by Mendelssohn; and for the last, and we trust many last, "Israel in Egypt." All this will be but so much rehearsal for the grander Festival to follow. We have no organized orchestral or symphony society, as we should have; but we have with us always the elements of a good orchestra, who always work well together, and never better than last year under the enterprise and drill of Mr. Zerrahn. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... spree, taking advantage of my helplessness. I just lay in bed and watched it function. Besides, there was a great artillery racket all night long. It appeared to be coming from our sector, so you must have heard it as well. This hospital is not very far back and we get the full orchestral effect of heavy firing. The result is that I am dead tired to-day. I believe I can ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... of the largest of the London Music Halls. Gorman's play was, I suppose, to take its place in the usual way between an exhibition of pretty frocks with orchestral accompaniment and an imitation of ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... air, as if they had been going into church; yet the firing of a cannon or two more or less would hardly have disturbed the performers at the two pianos, so tremendous was their own uproar. They were taking the overture in what they called orchestral time; though it is doubtful whether even their playing could have kept pace with the hurrying of excited fiddles in a presto passage, or the roll of the big drum, simulating distant thunder. Be that as it may, the four performers were pounding along at a breathless pace; and if their pianissimo ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... instances which might be cited, a notable example to refute the assertion of the ancient poet. The place was principally devoted to the exhibition of musical talent, and opened at a period of the night when the performances at the theaters were over. The orchestral arrangements were comprised in one bad piano, to which were occasionally added, by way of increasing the attractions, performances on the banjo and guitar. All the singers were called "ladies and gentlemen;" and the one long room in which the performances took ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... opera has lately been given us by Mr. Anschuetz, with the best use of such means as were at his disposal. The orchestral, choral, and concerted vocal portions are grand and beautiful, highly characteristic and effective. The story is simple, pure, and deeply pathetic. The prison scene affords scope for the finest histrionic ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... an orchestral "bar" near by and supped. When I came back the porter asked quietly for the thousand, and gave me the key of "Number Five." "At ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... there, she would take Elizabeth for an hour, usually slipping out just after the favorite solo with noticeable loftiness, as if the orchestra were the common dust of the earth, and she only condescended to come for the soloist. So Elizabeth had scarcely known the delight of a whole concert of fine orchestral music. ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... Brantome, informing her that if she went to a certain orchestral concert she would hear a piece that David Verne had written at ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... nearly resembles that just related is the Scottish ballad of The Demon Lover, which inspired the late Hamish MacCunn, the gifted Scottish composer, in the composition of his weird and striking orchestral piece, The Ship o' ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... be left for old folks, "a leetle mite hard o' hearin'," or the unfortunates who were "not so fur-sighted" as we. So we seated ourselves in delight already begun, for was not Mr. Gad Greenfield performing one of the "orchestral pieces" which the programme had led us to expect? The piano was an antique, accustomed to serve as victim at Sudleigh's dancing-school and sociables. I have never heard its condition described, on its return to Sudleigh; I only know that, from some ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... Enderby, the Cockney butcher, and his wife and daughter, and as soon as Ringfield had made a few appropriate remarks, couched this time in safe and secular terms, the first number was given, consisting of an orchestral selection by four players belonging to St. Ignace and to the choir of Father Rielle's big church, St. Jean-Baptiste-on-the-Hill. A cornet, two fiddles and a flute rendered the music with good time and fair intonation, and as it was lighthearted, even gay in character, melodious and tripping, ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... campanella. Berlioz speaks in high praise of Paganini's genius as a composer. A volume would be required, he says, to indicate the new effects, the ingenious methods, the grand and noble forms which he discovered, and even the orchestral combinations, which before him were not suspected. In spite of the rapid progress which, thanks to Paganini, the violin is making at the present day in respect of mechanical execution, his compositions are yet beyond the skill of most violinists, and in reading them ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... the oldest of Mr. Punch's young men thought he would like to hear some orchestral music on Monday week last, so he dropped in at the Queen's Hall to assist at a concert of the new British Symphony Orchestra. The name of the founder and conductor, Mr. RAYMOND ROZE, was already familiar, for Mr. Punch's young man was old enough to remember Mr. ROZE'S mother, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... a quarter-past seven, and on two evenings a week those who wish to join the orchestral or choral societies have the pleasure of meeting together and practising under the direction ...
— The Eurhythmics of Jaques-Dalcroze • Emile Jaques-Dalcroze
... gleam of the afterglow had faded, and the glade had grown full of dim shadows by the time everybody was present in the grove. The gentle rustle of the leafy boughs overhead, and the persistent tumbling rush of the stream, seemed like a faint orchestral accompaniment of ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... with reverence before his name, and acknowledged in him the creative mind which not only placed music on a deep scientific basis, but perfected the form from Which have been developed the wonderfully rich and varied phases of orchestral composition. ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... orchestral leader, a friend of Liszt and Wagner, and of many other notable musicians of his day, has given in his reminiscences (which should have been translated long ago) a delightful glimpse of life at the Altenburg. He describes a dinner ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... afterwards served me as the theme for an orchestral composition (in the form of an overture) named Polonia; I shall recount the fate of this work later on. My friend Tyszkiewitcz's passport now arrived, and he made up his mind to go back to Galicia via Brunn, although his friends considered it was very rash of him ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... its lowest ebb. There were one or two ambitious orchestra conductors in America; one in Chicago trying to introduce the Wagnerian polyphonic school, and perhaps one or two in New York; but the public clamoured after divas, prima donnas and tenors with temperaments and vocal pyrotechnic skill. For orchestral music there was little demand. Wagner was as yet unknown to the public—certainly he was unheard except on the rarest occasions and the majority of musicians did not like him because he was difficult ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... 'Prometheus Unbound', which is, in the words of Todhunter, "to all other lyrical poems what the ninth symphony is to all other symphonies; and more than this, for Shelley has here outsoared himself more unquestionably than Beethoven in his last great orchestral work. . . . The Titan Prometheus is the incarnation of the genius of humanity, chained and suffering under the tyranny of the evil principle which at present rules over the world, typified in Jupiter; ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... library founded by the Education Bureau, and daily enriched by newly arriving chests of books, so that by the New Year it contained 18,000 volumes, which did not by any means meet the demand for reading, particularly during the hot midday hours; several new singing and orchestral societies; reading or debating circles; and two dozen pianos—these were all that had been added to the original stock of means of recreation. But there was frequent hunting in the splendid woods; and excursions to the more accessible points of view were the order ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... in fallow. Herbs in great variety were just emerging from the recently watered earth, and the splendid morning did ample justice to the vernal scene. The charm of a beginning seemed to pervade all nature, and the songs of many birds sounded like the orchestral music before the commencement of any theatrical performance. Such a morning, in such a place, was quite incompatible with the brow of care. Here was an almost boundless extent of the richest surface in a latitude corresponding to that of China, yet still uncultivated and unoccupied by ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... unsatisfactory performance of the "Dante Symphony" in Dresden (partly, moreover, the fault of the bad, incorrectly written orchestral parts, and my careless conducting), and without regard to the rapture of the spiritual substance (a matter which the general public tolerates only when demanded by the higher authority of tradition, and then immediately gapes ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... itself is 1,600 feet long and 380 wide, and at the transept is nearly 200 feet in height. Exhibition-rooms, reading-rooms, restaurants, and a vast orchestral auditorium were included under one roof, with bazaars and small ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... emphasis—and so persistent as to be quite overpowering. The horror of the Egyptians at the torrent of fire, the cries of vengeance from the Hebrews, needed a delicate balance of masses; so note how he has made the development of the orchestral parts follow that of the chorus. The allegro assai in C minor is terrible in the midst of ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... are arranged in steps, each slightly overhanging that below. Taken in order from the top, they are:—(1.) Echo organ, of stops of small scale and very soft tone, enclosed in a "swell-box." (2.) Solo organ, of stops imitating orchestral instruments. The wonderful "vox humana" stop also belongs to this manual. (3.) Swell organ, contained in a swell-box, the front and sides of which have shutters which can be opened and closed by the pressure ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... alternate pianissimo and forte phrases; and finally, changing to triple time, sings the third triumphant stanza, andante, through staccato and fortissimo. The shout in the last adagio, on the four final bars, "O Death! O Death!" softening with "where is thy sting?" is quite in the style of old orchestral magnificence. ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... school of orchestral music might be built on the Negro idea that some of the performers sing a sentence or so here and there, both to assist the hearers to a clearer musical understanding and to heighten the general artistic finish. The old Negro performers generally sang lines ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... follow, and in close relation to the pianoforte compositions of Beethoven, with and without the accompaniment of solo instruments; and to them others, which may just here be best brought under one general head for notice. From them we look directly upward to orchestral and symphonic works. To all these we give the general name of 'choral' works, for want of a better,—a term which in fact belongs but to vocal music, and is exceedingly ill adapted to a part of the compositions now under ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... capable of literary work. {240} The most impressive effect of the opium habit was seen in his dreams, in the unnatural expansion of space and time, and the infinite repetition of the same objects. His sleep was filled with dim, vast images; measureless cavalcades deploying to the sound of orchestral music; an endless succession of vaulted halls, with staircases climbing to heaven, up which toiled eternally the same solitary figure. "Then came sudden alarms, hurrying to and fro; trepidations of innumerable fugitives; darkness and light; tempest and human faces." Many of De Quincey's ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... the significance of such treatment, this reminiscence is one of the most sublime touches in all musical drama. The fascinating orchestral Scherzo of Richard Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks likewise ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... Child, when, in a word, art and life and religion went hand in hand, not sharply sundered by castes and professions. But we may not put back the clock, and, if by differentiation we lose something, we gain much. The old choral dance on the orchestral floor was an undifferentiated thing, it had a beauty of its own; but by its differentiation, by the severance of artist and actors and spectators, we have gained—the drama. We may not cast reluctant eyes backwards; the world goes forward to new forms of life, and ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... nodding his great head enjoyingly from time to time. When the people near him applauded the close of an air (as an English audience in such circumstances always WILL applaud), without the least consideration for the orchestral movement which immediately followed it, he looked round at them with an expression of compassionate remonstrance, and held up one hand with a gesture of polite entreaty. At the more refined passages of the singing, at the more delicate phases of the music, ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... musician, artiste, performer, player, minstrel; bard &c. (poet) 597; [specific types of musicians] accompanist, accordionist, instrumentalist, organist, pianist, violinist, flautist; harper, fiddler, fifer[obs3], trumpeter, piper, drummer; catgut scraper. band, orchestral waits. vocalist, melodist; singer, warbler; songster, chaunter[obs3], chauntress[obs3], songstress; cantatrice[obs3]. choir, quire, chorister; chorus, chorus singer; liedertafel[Ger]. nightingale, philomel[obs3], thrush; siren; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... melodies glowed within him. To create, to do, to accomplish; to know the white glory of mighty midnights and the pale Amen of dawns was his day of days. Songs, pianoforte and violin pieces, trios and quintets for strings, incidental music, symphony, orchestral, and choral works rushed from his fingers. Nor were they laboriously contrived or light, thin things made to meet sudden popularity. Rather they were the flaming bits that must be said and sung,—that could not wait the slower birth of years, so hurried to the world as though ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... of Haydn and Mozart are like toy-houses compared with the massive architecture of Beethoven's. He not only elaborated the forms, but varied the rhythms, broadened the melody, and deepened the expression of orchestral music. In his works, too, are to be found the germs of romanticism, which others, notably Mendelssohn and Schumann, developed so fascinatingly in their best works. Most of Mendelssohn's compositions have had their day; but Schumann is still a force in modern ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... haven, the profounder aspirations of man's heart are in solitude continually travelling. Obliquely upon our left we were nearing the sea; which also must, under the present circumstances, be repeating the general state of halcyon repose. The sea, the atmosphere, the light, bore each an orchestral part in this universal lull. Moonlight and the first timid tremblings of the dawn were by this time blending; and the blendings were brought into a still more exquisite state of unity by a slight ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... evening discussing the talents of a certain orchestral conductor, who also played the violin. I was talking to a member of his orchestra, a very genuine artist. We agreed that he had conducted badly; but, I said in his defence, "Anyhow his intentions are good. You must admit that he has a feeling for music." "My dear ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... know I can never be a composer until I have mastered all the branches of musical theory. I am now writing a symphony. I played some parts for Herr Nikisch and he has agreed to produce it. Of course, the orchestral parts will have to be written for me, but I know what instruments I ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... Orchestral concerts in those days did not exist; concerts of any kind were rare, and the best were to be heard in that historic room over Thomas Britton's small coal shop, in Clerkenwell, where Handel himself sometimes played ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... rocks, as punishment for misdemeanors). In every case I secured as many of each composer's works as could be had in print or in manuscript, and endeavored to digest them. Thousands of pieces of music, from short songs to operatic and orchestral scores, I studied with all available conscience. The fact that after going through at least a ton of American compositions, I am still an enthusiast, is surely a proof of some virtue ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... again; and every one said: "There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy." Several other things happened also, but the Religion never seemed to get much beyond its first manifestations; though it added an air-line postal service, and orchestral effects in order to keep abreast of the times, and ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... stage, however, was Mozart's 'G minor Symphony.' 'One can hear the angels singing in it,' he used to say. But he revelled also in the overtures to 'Figaro' and the 'Zauberfloete,' and, indeed, the orchestral music to which he was now introduced opened up to his mind a vista of ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... friend's face, the actual presence of your friend would be more satisfactory, just as a sensory experience. You may be able to run over a piece of music "in your head", and if your auditory imagery is strong you may even run over an orchestral piece, and get the tone quality of the various instruments; but, after all, such a mental concert is an imperfect substitute for a real orchestra. You enjoy a real whiff of the sea more than the best olfactory image you can summon. There is something lacking in these recalled sensations, and the ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... his friend Julius Fontana, who was a daily visitor at his parents' house. We have a Polonaise (D minor) and a Nocturne (E minor) of 1827, and another Polonaise (B flat) and the Rondo for two pianos of 1828. The Sonata, Op. 4, and La ci darem la mano, varie for pianoforte, with orchestral accompaniments, belong also to this time. The Trio (Op. 8), although not finished till 1829, was begun and considerably advanced in 1828. Several of the above compositions are referred to in a letter ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... school' of violin playing. Look at his seven concertos—of course they are written with an eye to effect, from the virtuoso's standpoint, yet how firmly and solidly they are built up! How interesting is their working-out: and the orchestral score is far more than a mere accompaniment. As regards virtuose effect only Paganini's music compares with his, and Paganini, of course, did not play it as it is now played. In wealth of technical development, in true musical expressiveness Vieuxtemps ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... coolest corner in Port Said, their table commanding both the cross-way of Chareh Sultan el Osman, and the short, glaring vista of desert dust and starved young acacias which led to the black hulks of shipping in the Canal. From the Bar la Poste came orchestral strains—"Ai nostri monti"—performed by a piano indoors and two violins on the pavement. The sounds contended with a thin, scattered strumming of cafe mandolins, the tinkle of glasses, the steady click of dominoes and backgammon; then were drowned in the harsh ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... continually travelling. Obliquely we were nearing the sea upon our left, which also must, under the present circumstances, be repeating the general state of halcyon repose. The sea, the atmosphere, the light, bore an orchestral part in this universal lull. Moonlight, in the first timid tremblings of the dawn, were now blending: and the blendings were brought into a still more exquisite state of unity, by a slight silvery ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... and returned to Frankfort. Here he divided his time between his private teaching and his composition. He was ambitious also to secure some profitable concert engagements as a pianist. He had made occasional appearances at orchestral concerts in Wiesbaden, Frankfort, Darmstadt, but these had yielded him no return save an increase ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... Berlin journal, about 2,000 players of orchestral instruments have been thrown out of employment by the war. It is suggested that, with a view to providing them with more employment, reverses as well as victories should be ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various
... century was a most remarkable period for achievements in the composition of orchestral, oratorio, and operatic music,—the same being finely interpreted by vocal and instrumental ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... like eager, melodious hosts, charging in thickening ranks and columns, beating impetuous retreats, and again uniting with one grand emotion the wide-spreading army of sound for the final victory. Besides these, there was one of Liszt's "Rhapsodies Hongroises," an impromptu by Schubert, and several orchestral pieces; but the greater part of the programme was devoted to Chopin, because Halfdan, with his great, hopeless passion laboring in his breast, felt that he could interpret Chopin better than he could any ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... where he acquired a great reputation by his refined and classical rendering of the compositions of the great musicians; but the Revolution of 1843 drove him to England, where he has ever since resided. He soon established himself at Manchester, and as the founder of the annual series of orchestral and choral concerts there and in London, which have become, perhaps, the most important series in Europe, he has rendered the most valuable ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... sweet perfume of Latin adulation despite the fact that he scarcely knew the language. A sonnet by Illica moved him actually to tears. Other inscriptions were meaningless to him—the lines from Hans Keller, especially, the great orchestral conductor, disciple and confidant of Wagner, the artistic executor, charged with watching over the master's glory—that Hans Keller of whom Leonora was speaking all the time with the fondness of a woman and the admiration of an artist—all of which did ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... made of stone; it is large and splendid. The divine service is celebrated in it according to the ceremony of bishops; our priests, our seminarists, as well as ten or twelve choir-boys, are regularly present there. On great festivals, the mass, vespers and evensong are sung to music, with orchestral accompaniment, and our organs mingle their harmonious voices with those of the chanters. There are in the sacristy some very fine ornaments, eight silver chandeliers, and all the chalices, pyxes, vases and censers are either ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... the members of the company should work towards a common end, with the nicest subordination of their individuality to the general purpose. Without this method a play when acted is at best a disjointed and incoherent piece of work, instead of being a harmonious whole like the fine performance of an orchestral symphony. The root of the matter is that the actor must before all things form a definite conception of what he wishes to convey. It is better to be wrong and be consistent, than to be right, yet hesitating and uncertain. This is why great actors are sometimes very bad ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... If the most exquisite orchestral music could be continued without a pause for a series of years, and children were brought up and educated in the room in which it was perpetually resounding, I believe their enjoyment of music, or understanding of it, would be very ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... than a valuable hint that the round may be more than a jeu d'esprit; and, unless he be an adequate exception, the unaccompanied rounds of Mozart and Brahms stand alone as works that raise the round to the dignity of a serious art-form. With the addition of an orchestral accompaniment the round obviously becomes a larger thing; and when we consider such specimens as that in the finale of Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, the quartet in the last act of Cherubim's Faniska, the wonderfully subtle quartet "Mir ist so wunderbar" in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... should they be a thicket in the way of his work for Christ? The betrothal was sealed in a religious ceremony. Young Zinzendorf composed a cantata for the occasion {March 9th, 1721.}; the cantata was sung, with orchestral accompaniment, in the presence of the whole house of Castell; and at the conclusion of the festive scene the young composer offered up on behalf of the happy couple a prayer so tender that all were moved to tears. His self-denial was ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... Journal introduced its readers to all the great instrumental and vocal artists of the day through articles; it offered prizes for the best piano and vocal compositions; it had the leading critics of New York, Boston, and Chicago write articles explanatory of orchestral music and how to listen ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... is lack of solemnity in a service outside of a church and lacking the accompaniment of the organ. It is almost impossible to introduce orchestral music that does not sound either dangerously suggestive of the gaiety of entertainment or else thin and flat. A quartet or choral singing is beautiful and appropriate, if available, otherwise there is usually no ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... organ graced the center of the apartment, and the musicians gathered about it. Fred was surprised and delighted to find that the young Bartons were all really accomplished musicians, and their instruments blended in sweetest harmony. So they played a number of orchestral pieces that were received with great applause by the audience. Then solos, duets, trios, quartettes, choruses, etc., were sung, and it is not probable that the Barton family ever spent so delightful an evening ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... immortals—the overture to the "Midsummer Night's Dream." Full of lovely imaginings, with a wonderful fairy grace all its own, and a bewitching beauty, revealing not only the soul of the true poet, but also the musician profoundly skilled in all the art of orchestral effect, it is hard to believe that it is the work of a boy under twenty, written in the bright summer days of 1826, in his father's garden ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... air. It has even its own weird harmony—for I have often heard a low, whistling hum as the air rushed through the cordage mesh. In a sudden tropical gale every taut strand of my hamaca has seemed a separate, melodious, orchestral note, while I was buffeted to and fro, marking time to some rhythmic and reckless tune of the wind playing fortissimo on the woven strings about me. The climax of this musical outburst was not without a mild element ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... conductors and orchestral players were extraordinarily sensitive to sartorial influences. Unfortunately the force of tradition was so strong that he found it impossible to indulge his tastes. It was de rigueur to conduct in either a frock or an evening coat, but if he had his own way he would vary his garb for every composer. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... Mozart married. The father of Mozart's wife was the older brother of Franz Anton von Weber, father of Carl Maria. This Franz Anton was a strange mixture of stalwart and shiftless qualities. He gave up his orchestral position to fight against Frederick the Great, and brought home a red badge of courage. It is wonderful, by the way, how many musicians have earned distinction as soldiers—what, indeed, would ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... Being a traveller of years' experience, I was not to be outwitted. As he would not stop the music, I stopped hearing it by stuffing my ears tight with cotton-wool. So I slept soundly enough, notwithstanding the orchestral entertainment. At sunrise, when I opened my eyes again, the boy was still at it. I removed the cotton from my ears ... yes, indeed, the identical ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... apprenticeship. However, the audience, which was growing larger every minute, seemed to find the bellowing enjoyable and applauded loudly. Then a feminine person did a Castilian dance between the tables. I was ready to declare a second war with Spain when she had finished. Then there was an orchestral interval, during which the ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... And yet it is consoling to know that the germ of the old powers is always there ready to sprout forth if they be nourished and cultivated. If our cathedral choirs were the best in the old Catholic days, it is equally true, I believe, that our orchestral associations are now the best in Europe. So, at least, the German papers said on the occasion of the recent visit of a north of England choir. But one cannot read Pepys without knowing that the general musical habit is much less ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... ideal for so many years. Whilst battling, with somewhat less of reckless high spirits and humour, against the embarrassments and pecuniary difficulties which he had to encounter during these ten months, he was also dreaming of an appointment as Kapellmeister (orchestral director) or as musical composer to a theatre. He says upon this point in a letter to Hippel, of date March 12, 1815, "I cannot anyhow cease to interest myself in art; and had I not to care for a dearly beloved wife, and were it not my duty to try ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... have been dust a thousand summers, But my dear unprofitable dreams Shall be part of all the good that thrills you In the oversoul's orchestral themes. ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... yielding to the claims of the cathedral on my wonder and reverence when now for the second time we came to it. The funeral ceremony of the dean was still in course, and after listening for a moment to the mighty orchestral music of it—the deep bass of the priests swelling up with the organ notes, and suddenly shot with the shrill, sharp trebles of the choir-boys and pierced with the keen strains of the violins—we left ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... revealed by gaps in the scudding clouds, the gleaming wake of the ship, and the faint white of the life-belts, that showed dimly where little groups of two or three stood or sat together, made a fitting scene for such an orchestral accompaniment. ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry
... admirable moral grandeur. Tolstoi and Dostoievsky are world-geniuses. What names can the Germany of William II put ahead of these? . . . His country was the country of music, but the Russian musicians of to-day are more original than the mere followers of Wagner, the copyists who take refuge in orchestral exasperations in order to hide their mediocrity. . . . In its time of stress the German nation had men of genius, before Pan-Germanism had been born, when the Empire did not exist. Goethe, Schiller, Beethoven were subjects of little principalities. They received ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... function as chiefly a means of bringing young people together and providing innocent opportunities for courtship; two extremes differing as widely as the coarse drum accompaniment of a primitive dance from the sentimental melodies, soulful harmonies, and exquisite orchestral colors of a Strauss waltz. A remark made by Taine on Burns suggests how even acquired coarseness in a mind naturally refined may crush the capacity ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... is devoted to the voyage. Mr. Pratt has here endeavored to picture in a symphonic prelude "the peaceful progress upon the waters, the jubilant feeling of Columbus, and a flight of birds"—subjects dissimilar enough certainly to lend variety to any orchestral composition. The part, in addition to this prelude, contains the recitation by a sailor of "The Legend of St. Brandon's Isle"; a song by Columbus; the mutiny of the sailors, and Columbus' vain attempts to quell it; his appeal to Christ and the holy cross for ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... Massa Jawns'n and the rest. And yet the present might have seemed more emphatic and more poignant. One felt, rather than saw, an audience of several hundred persons in the dim rows of chairs. And laughing at the broad witticisms of the niggers, or enjoying their choruses and orchestral accompaniments, one forgot just what that half-glimpsed audience consisted of; what it meant, and how it came to be ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... and everyone said: "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy." Several other things happened also, but the religion never seemed to get much beyond its first manifestations; though it added an air-line postal dak, and orchestral effects in order to keep abreast of the times, ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... I The faded voices she had heard that morning singing dreary hymns were more wonderful than his orchestral dreams. Nor did she find the spiritual stimulus she needed in Pater's Imaginary Portraits. Some moody souls reflecting with no undue haste, without undue desire to arrive at any definite opinion concerning certain artistic problems, did not appeal to her. She put ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... to accompany himself upon the lyre (the poorest of all stringed instruments). That was as far as any one could go without incurring the risk of popular disapproval. The Romans on the other hand had loved orchestral music at their dinners and parties and they had invented most of the instruments which (in VERY modified form) we use to-day. The early church had despised this music which smacked too much of the ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... a stole worn over my cassock. Helmet and mask lay easily within reach at one side. The firing, meanwhile, was terrific—high explosive shells shrieking overhead and bursting on every side. Rifle and machine-gun bullets added their shrill tenor notes to the orchestral wail of ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... baron may well do such a thing) to give him a good box on the ear. How gladly would I work and work, if it were only left me to write always such music as I please, and as I can write; such, I mean to say, as I myself set some value upon. Thus I composed three weeks ago an orchestral symphony, and by to-morrow's post I write again to Hoffmeister (the music-seller) to offer him three pianoforte quatuors, supposing that he is able to pay. Oh heavens! were I a wealthy man, I would say, 'Mozart, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... defect, one must admit that the requisite amount of rehearsal is out of the question when one's choir is in Portland and one's orchestra in Boston; besides which the parts had been inaccurately copied. For a moment, at the beginning of the orchestral lament, there was risk of disaster, the wind instruments failing to come in at the right time, when Mr. Paine, with fortunate presence of mind, stopped the players, and the movement was begun over again,—the whole ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... all its spirit, this is generally dry—awkward without the excuse of learned pedantry—sometimes grand, very seldom tender—the rhythm more decided than the melody, which is often frivolous, often flat, rarely vocal. He has been accused of shallowness in the orchestral treatment of his operas,—in which noise is often accumulated to conceal want of resource. But allowing all these objections to be generally true to the utmost, the finale to the second act of La Vestale still remains—and ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... at this place of worship has been considerably improved during recent times; but it is nothing very amazing yet. There is a curtain amount of cadence, along with a fair share of power, in the orchestral outbursts; the pieces the choir have off go well; those they are new at rather hang fire; but we shall not parry with either the conductor or the members on this point. They all manifest a fairly-defined devotional ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... not until they had reached the Inn of Monsieur Duchanel some time later that Hermia, having divested herself of the orchestral adjuncts of her costume, confided to Markham the stroke of good fortune which had put her into possession of this providential accoutrement. She had confessed her predicament to Madame Bordier, who, after assuring ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... and Caffyn were in a corner of the exhibition of carved work at the lower end of the town, she took advantage of the blaring of two big orchestral Black Forest organs, each performing a different overture, and of the innumerable cuckoo cries from the serried rows of clocks on the walls, to go back to their conversation at the table d'hote. 'Have you asked ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... if we could. A few possess the power even now, and are looked upon with friendly contempt by their more cultured, and therefore more tortured, musical acquaintances, whose dream it is to be torn to very rags in the delirium of orchestral passion. ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... bank of flowers; there was a fountain; there were the huge crimson-domed lamps that poured down their radiance; and there was the packed crowd of straw-hatted and floral-hatted erect figures gazing with upturned, intent faces at the immense orchestral machine. Then came a final crash, and for an instant the thin, silvery tinkle of the fountain supervened in an enchanted hush; and then terrific applause, with yells and thuds above and below the hand-clapping, filled and inflamed the whole ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... Blair couldn't be anything to the superintendent of the broadcasting station. Oh, Jessie! What a wonderful program he had arranged for to-day. I am coming over to-night to listen in on that orchestral concert and hear Madame Elva sing. I would ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... addition to the variations in tempo more or less definitely indicated by the composer there are (particularly in modern music) innumerable tempo fluctuations of a much subtler nature; and since these are now recognized as a part of really artistic choral and orchestral interpretation, (as they have long formed an indispensable element in expressive piano performance) a brief discussion of their nature will be included before closing ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... slippers, though fitting easily; stockings had to be drawn off violently by another person, and they had given up changing their chemises during the period because the linen became so glued to the skin. An orchestral performer on the double-bass informed Laurent that whenever he left a tuned double-bass in his lodgings during his wife's period a string snapped; consequently he always removed his instrument at this time to a friend's house. He added that the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... especially enjoyed the orchestral concerts, and I attended a large number of them. I formed the acquaintance of a good many musicians, several of whom spoke of my playing in high terms. It was in Berlin that my inspiration ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... erections, and the whole was filled with twenty acres of exhibits. A similar show, held in 1888, was much larger, and helped, by its fine collection of pictures, its grand displays of machinery, its educational courts, its fine orchestral music, and so on, in a hundred ways to stimulate and develop the minds of the people. During recent years Victoria has been very busy in social legislation. While enjoying peace under the direction of a coalition Government with Mr. Duncan Gillies and Mr. Alfred Deakin at its head, the colony ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... ground covered thick with dying leaves, I thought of what a gallant display of autumnal colors we had on that morning. Our little friends of the summer time are flitting here and there through the naked branches in silent confusion. There are no green boughs behind which to conceal their orchestral moods. Besides, their inspiration is gone, their singing hearts are benumbed by the cold. But for your letter thrust somewhere I could not have escaped the ghost of sadness that seemed to haunt the earth and sky. Suddenly, ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... afternoon's fatigue, rather than miss hearing the Orpheus of Andalusia,—the "Endymion out of Spain," as one of our latest and best poets has aptly called him. Only a languidly tolerant interest was shown in the orchestral performance,—the "Italian" Symphony is not a really great or suggestive work, and this is probably the reason why it so often fails to arouse popular enthusiasm. For, be it understood by the critical elect, that the heart-whole appreciation of the million is by no means so "vulgar" as it ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... the world grew weary of them. And then the faint, fading flowers of romanticism were put into albums where their purple harmonies and subtle sayings are pressed into sweet twilight forgetfulness. Berlioz, mad Hector of the flaming locks, whose orchestral ozone vivified the scores of Wagnerand Liszt, began to sound garishly empty, brilliantly superficial; "the colossal nightingale" is difficult to classify even to-day. A romantic by temperament he unquestionably was. But then his music, all color, nuance, and brilliancy, was not genuinely ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... emerged the desert, still gray and vague and without detail. The day's work was astir once more. With the nickering of horses, the bawling of cattle, and the shouts of men as an orchestral accompaniment, light filtered into the valley for the drama of the new sunrise. Once more the tireless riders swept into the mesquite through the clutching cholla to comb another segment of country in search of the beeves not ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... of Tartini's. In the forenoon he gave a lesson on the violin to the youngest son, Carl, and I chanced to come in at the time, I never gave him credit for much talent, but I saw that he took great pains in giving his lesson; and when we entered into conversation about violin, concert, and orchestral playing, he reasoned very well, and was always of my opinion, so I retracted my former sentiments with regard to him, and was persuaded that I should find him play well in time, and a correct violinist in the orchestra. I, therefore, invited him to ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... since then that the French horn has a compass of only four octaves and is principally useful as an orchestral adjunct; that, in short, its ability is limited and its use as a solo instrument slight. All I can say is that the person who said that doesn't know a French horn; anyway, he doesn't know McTurkle's French horn. ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... similar illustration from a somewhat higher form of art, you would not be likely to succeed in awakening enthusiasm in any one for orchestral music by giving him his individual part of the score to study and play over by himself. No matter what his instrument might be, the solitary performance of the part assigned to it would be the dryest possible business. You could not convert ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... the vote, and he naturally depicted them with the man-engendered vices that were then a part of their unhappy heritage. This "NeugierdeMotiv" (Curiosity Motive) is made up of agitated, sharply accentuated sixteenth notes played with incredible vivacity and culminating in a terrifying orchestral crash where entrance is made into the hidden chamber, with its famous tableau so eloquent of the polygamous instinct of man; an instinct only kept in subjection by the most stringent laws and ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... in a way, that the rule might be proved, the greater part of this bumptious paragraph was true. Furthermore, as had not been said, Ivan's name was to appear twice on the programme of the first orchestral concert of the season, over which the two Rubinsteins were now working busily. It had been by main force that Nicholas kept two spaces blank till the return of Ivan from his holiday. But Anton, who was in a dejected mood, made no great objection when ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... Lohengrin (A major) perhaps a little piu moderato.) The slow movement in E flat 3-4 (ensemble) in the finale of the first act you will, I presume, not take too slow, but with solemn emotion. The last bar of the orchestral ritornel must be played a good deal ritardando, so as to make the tempo of this postlude even more majestic where the trumpets enter, by which means also the violins will be enabled to bring out the lively staccato figures ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... sublimity would vanish, ma'am, both from the notes and from the structure, because accessories and circumstances produce its chief effects. Say that an organ is a despotism, just as your piano is the Constitutional bourgeois. Match them with the trained orchestral band of skilled individual performers, indoors or out, where each grasps his instrument, and each relies on his fellow with confidence, and an unrivalled concord comes of it. That is our republic each ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... could have heard his own composition so well understood and so magnificently performed!" By thus giving alternately praise and blame, as required, spurring the slow, checking the too ardent, he obtained orchestral effects seldom equaled in our days. Need I add, that he was able to detect at once, even among a phalanx of performers, the slightest error, either of ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... Mr. ARTHUR BROCK, the well-known pyrotechnist, to express his opinion of STRAVINSKY'S orchestral fantasia, "Fireworks," on the occasion of its second performance at Queen's Hall on the 28th inst., has, we are delighted to learn, been fruitful of a series of similar invitations, not only in the sphere of music but also in the domain of art ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... frequently used; but an illuminated garden fete such as the Emperor of Austria gave for the Shah of Persia at Schoenbrunn would at that time have been impossible. The same might be said of certain forms of musical entertainment; for example, concerts. Society in that age would have shuddered at the orchestral music of to-day, and the ear-splitting drums would have appeared barbarous to the Italians of the Renaissance, just as would the military parades, which are still among the favorite spectacles with which distinguished guests are either honored or intimidated at the great ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... bursting of a shell immediately overhead, and the rattle of its fragments on the roof of the bomb-proof dug-out. Think what it must have meant to this eager, ardent, pleasure-loving spirit to sit out, day after day, in a chill, sodden, verminous trench, a grand orchestral concert of ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... of her eyes, her hair, she emerged to a grand orchestral flare. The same obsequious hands that applauded her helped her from the gold coping. Waiters dared to smile behind their trays. Up to her knees her dark-cloth skirt clung dankly. Water glistened on her shoulders, spotted her blouse. Mr. Jimmie Fitzgibbons lay ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... fingers were rigid at their task of lace making, the scraping of the orchestral violin tearing the roaring noises in her ears into ribbons of alternate sound and vacuum, as if she were closing her ears and opening them, ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... nature, and more than once during his stay I have caught myself regretting you for him, and regretting him for you. Last Monday he was good enough to play, in his usual and admirable manner, at the concert for the Orchestral Pension Fund. The pieces he had selected were his new 'Concerto Pathetique' (in F sharp minor) and an extremely piquant and brilliant 'Caprice on Hungarian Melodies.' (This latter piece is dedicated to me.) The public was in a good humour, even really warm, which is usually ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... struck us forcibly that the science of melo-dramatic music has been hitherto very imperfectly understood amongst us. The art of making "the sound an echo of the sense"—of expressing, by orchestral effects, the business of the drama, and of forming a chromatic commentary to the emotions of the soul and the motions of the body, has been shamefully neglected on the English stage. Ignorant composers and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... had gone on. Not for nothing had he said "crocodiles" to those orchestral scramblings in the bass of an imperially inspired oratorio; and Schafs-Kleider, receiving certain mysterious grants in aid (for its own funds were nil), had started to sink shafts at a lower level on the outskirts of the town; and after many failures had secured at one point a trickle ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... twenty-eighth week of its age. He then published the tragedy of "Remorse," which dragged out a miserable existence of twenty nights, on the boards of Drury-Lane, and then expired for ever, like the oil of the orchestral lamps. He then forsook the stage for the pulpit, and, by particular desire of his congregation, published two "Lay Sermons." He then walked in broad day-light into the shop of Mr. Murray, Albemarle Street, London, with two ladies hanging on each arm, Geraldine ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... our review of the chief figures among contemporary Irish poets that the jolly, jigging Irishman of stage history is quite conspicuous by his absence. He still gives his song and dance, and those who prefer musical-comedy to orchestral compositions can find him in the numerous anthologies of Anglo-Irish verse; but the tone of modern Irish poetry ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... each. The conductor, Joseph Reicha, had a nephew, Anton Reicha, whom he adopted, who played the flute in the orchestra. He and Beethoven were intimate, and the prominence which Beethoven gives to the flute in his orchestral works may in part be explained by this intimacy. Reicha afterward joined Beethoven at Vienna, remaining there until 1808, when he took up his residence in Paris. He was a prolific composer and the author of numerous theoretical works. Many of his ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... an advance in material complexity is obvious, even though the complexity may often enough be one of accidentals rather than essentials. An orchestral score of Wagner is relatively simple in comparison with one of Delius or Ravel or Scriabin or Stravinsky or Schoenberg; and the demands on performers' technique and also on their intelligence have steadily increased to heights ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... pure music above impure, i. e., instrumental above mixed. I dislike grand opera as a miserable mishmash of styles, compromises, and arrant ugliness. The moment the human voice intrudes in an orchestral work, my dream-world of music vanishes. Mother Church is right in banishing, from within the walls of her temples the female voice. The world, the flesh, and the devil lurk in the larynx of the soprano or alto, and her place ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... At a great orchestral rehearsal, which Sir Michael Costa was conducting, the man who played the piccolo stayed his fingers for a moment, thinking that his trifling contribution would never be missed. At once Sir Michael raised his hand, and said: "Stop! Where's the piccolo?" He missed the individual ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... What an orchestral crash bursts upon the ear in that all-shattering question! And one syllable of apologetic preparation, so as to meet the suggestion of Horace, would have the effect of emasculating the whole tremendous alarum. The passage in Phaedrus differs thus far from that in "Macbeth," that the first line, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... delivered her balsam to the faithful Gurnemanz, and thrown herself exhausted upon the grass—where she lies gnawing her hair morosely—than a change in the sound atmosphere, which never ceases to be generated in the mystic orchestral gulf, ...
— Parsifal - Story and Analysis of Wagner's Great Opera • H. R. Haweis
... member of the legal firm of Beale, Marigold, and Beale. Mr. Beale's chief public service was rendered in connection with the General Hospital and the Musical Festivals. He was for many years a member of the Orchestral Committee of the Festivals, and in 1870 he succeeded Mr. J.0. Mason as chairman; retaining this position until after the Festival of 1876. His death took place in July, 1880, he then ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... musician—an artist. Where Mr. Travis could not dance without stepping on everybody in the room, Mr. Raffin was a veritable Mordkin. Where Mr. Travis hung out with a bunch of no-good crap-shooting black buck niggers, Mr. Raffin's orchestral duties brought him into the most cultured s'ciety. In short, the yellow man from Haiti was a gentleman; the black man from Texas was ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... my song, and we decided on Alabieff's "Rossignol," for which he had written the cadenza. He composed a chorus for a few amateurs and all the orchestral parts. ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... | [7] Musicians often 'dot' a note for the sake of emphasizing | | the accent, especially in orchestral music and with such | | instruments as the flute, where variations of stress are | | difficult ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... "Carol, Brothers, Carol," is to be sung behind the curtains, just before they are drawn for the second picture. A harp, violin, and triangle would assist the piano in making an orchestral effect. A solo voice supplies the closing air, "My Ain Countree." The piano may be played very softly whenever the reader pauses ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg |
