"Basso" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are bending over a basso-relievo with a Greek inscription, when the king enters; he is accompanied by a gentleman, who has on either arm a fair young girl in the spring of her youth and beauty. The king invites M. von Humboldt to explain the inscription, and the gallant old man goes straight ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... should be required to clear out, and give up the best room to the official and his aide-de-camp, but unfortunately the inquirer did not improve the situation by persisting in the foolish belief that the foreigner was hard of hearing. He shouted his request into my ear in a stentorian basso, he waved his hands, he pointed, he made signs. The Chinese langage and manner, however, are difficult to an addle-pated foreigner. I, poor foolish fellow, endeavoring to treat the Chinese in a manner identical to that which he would have employed had conditions been reversed, stared ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... you are much given to this sort of singing,) I can make no more of it than that the fleshy man you call the tenor, and who you say is no scaly fellow, but a man with whom several damsels have become enamored, is outdoing the big man you call the basso, in telling his troubles to the audience, who, I take it, care not a whit about them, seeing that most of them are keeping up a loud conversation on matters concerning their neighbors, which is a proof of their resolution not to let the bawling fellows upon the stage have it all their own way. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... than enough to produce a deep sleep. You will take care to prepare me a good ladder for to-night; after which you will go and wait for me in my boat, where you will find Numa and Bonaroux. They have my orders. I shall not want you in scaling the fortress; I have my Campo Basso dagger." ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... all, lost nothing of The Princess Pattie except half of the overture—a loss that, as operettas go, might indeed be counted a gain; but the succeeding activities of the prima donna, the ponderous basso and the brace of "comedians" were subject to a series of very sensible impediments and interruptions. Several times—and often at the most inopportune of moments—a swarthy, earnest young man walked across the stage, throwing out big sheets of brown paper right and left and looking at her ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... panto, he thought panto, and he talked panto. No one, according to him, had a more abysmal knowledge of principal boys with adequate legs, principal (if that is still the word) girls with sufficient voices, contralto fairy queens with abundant bosoms, basso demon kings, Prince Dandinis, Widow Twankays, Ugly Sisters, and all the other personages of this strange grease-paint mythology of ours. Listening to him, I learned—as those who are humble in spirit may learn of all men. I learned, for example, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... occur on a meridional line east of the eastern trough. The eastern depression, known as the East African trough or rift-valley, contains much smaller lakes, many of them brackish and without outlet, the only one comparable to those of the western trough being Lake Rudolf or Basso Norok. At no great distance east of this rift-valley are Kilimanjaro—with its two peaks Kibo and Mawenzi, the former 19,321 ft., and the culminating point of the whole continent—and Kenya (17,007 ft.). Hardly less important is the Ruwenzori ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... sufficient to have enabled skilled antiquaries to reconstruct the entire litter and the entire chariot. The latter is very specially interesting. The plates of embossed and chiseled bronze which encased the body of the chariot are figured with admirably-worked subjects in basso-rilievo, many of them relating to the "wondrous tale of Troy." This invaluable specimen was the gift to the museum of that eminent and liberal archaeologist, Signor A. Castellani, of whose matchless ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... Hail-mist—Torre del Greco—bright amid darkness—the mountains above it flashing here and there from their snows; but Vesuvius, it had not thinned as I have seen at Keswick, but the air so consolidated with the massy cloud curtain, that it appeared like a mountain in basso relievo, in an interminable wall of ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... poet? received with acclamation G.C.M. A great painter? oh! certainly, G.C.M. If a great painter, why not a great novelist? Well, pass, great novelist, G.C.M. But if a poetic, a pictorial, a story-telling or music-composing artist, why not a singing artist? Why not a basso-profondo? Why not a primo tenore? And if a singer, why should not a ballet-dancer come bounding on the stage with his cordon, and cut capers to the music of a row of decorated fiddlers? A chemist puts in his claim for having invented ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and for the little church that stands today covered with ivy, planted when Mrs. Boston and I sang together in the choir. On high days we were able to procure the assistance of some fine voices of the men singers, Samuel Sharp, basso; Rollins Case, tenor; Charles Metti, tenor soloist. There was no salary in those days for our services. We did it all as God's work and it mattered not what creed. Wherever we were needed our services ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... heaped high with immense fragments of masonry, some of which were evidently portions of a boldly moulded cornice that had once adorned the inner walls of the structure, while others bore upon their faces signs of having been exquisitely sculptured in alto or basso rilievo. It was a melancholy sight, even to the unimpressionable Dick, this irreparable ruin of a once noble and surpassingly beautiful building; but Phil, as he gazed round him in silence, was so deeply moved that, for the moment, ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... Prima Donna Soprano, from Grand Opera House, Paris. Signor Bombastani, Basso Buffo, from Royal Italian Opera. Carl Schneiderine, First Baritone, of His ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... roof, under which is kept a library of several thousand volumes. It possesses an artistic treasure of no ordinary value in a font by Thorvaldsen, whose parents were natives of Iceland, though he himself was born in Denmark. Captain Burton describes it as the ancient classical altar, with basso-relievos on all four sides—subjects of course evangelical; on the top an alto- relievo of symbolical flowers, roses, and passiflorae is cut to support the normal "Dobefal," or baptismal basin. In the sacristy are preserved some handsome priestly robes—especially the velvet vestment ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... fresh, universally admired baritone, Gassier; and there is our old buffo friend, Rocco, and many more. Besides whom are two famous announcements, yet to come from Europe: the French tenor, Roger, and the German basso, Formes. The orchestra and chorus are, we suppose, as usual; the conductor better; he is Herr Anschtz, who has had experience in London, and who subdues his orchestra to sympathetic support of the singers. With Max it is the other way; he loves to ride full swing upon the top of his forces, brass ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... Grisi, Mario, Sontag and Persiani with voices but a little the worse for wear, can sadly contrast the vocal glories of the past with those of the present. Who are the great singers of to-day? Two or three prime donne and as many baritones. There is not a single basso living to suggest Lablache, not a tenor to revive the triumphs of Rubini, Mario, Giuglini or the subject of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... these appear to be by Beethoven, but unluckily the pencil marks are so much effaced that it is difficult to decide as to the writing. In the scene "By the Rivulet," where the 12/8 time begins (in B flat major), these words are written, "Violoncelli tutti con Basso." The B especially recalls his mode of writing. Moreover the tempo at the beginning of "The Shepherd's Song," (in F, 6/8 time,) allegretto, is qualified by the same hand in pencil thus, Quasi allegro. No direct proof exists of ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... got himself into a decidedly hilarious condition, and not only moved with his organ into the centre of the greensward, where he placed it on one of the benches, but accompanied its shrill and squeaking notes with a mellow basso of ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... of his pocket a sort of basso relievo carved in pine. It represented Neptune armed with a harpoon instead of a trident; the captain always contending that the god of the seas should never carry the latter, but that, in its place, he ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of fairy bands and the whirr of fairy machinery were the incessant voices of frogs. Especially if it had rained or were going to rain, the little frogs in trees and ponds sang their love songs in chorus, silenced, at times, by the deep basso of a bull frog. And often, as our heads ached and throbbed with fever at night, we felt a very lively sympathy for the French noblesse of the eighteenth century, who are said to have kept their peasants up at night beating the ponds with sticks to still the strident voices ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... the church Corinne pointed out to Nelville Ovid's Metamorphoses, which were represented on the gates in basso-relievo. "We are not scandalised in Rome," said she to him, "with the images of Paganism when they have been consecrated by the fine arts. The wonders of genius always make a religious impression on the soul, and we make ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... of the action, Wagner is above all an actor. The first thing that occurs to him is a scene which is certain to produce a strong effect, a real actio,(10) with a basso-relievo of attitudes; an overwhelming scene, this he now proceeds to elaborate more deeply, and out of it he draws his characters. The whole of what remains to be done follows of itself, fully in keeping with a technical economy which has no reason to be subtle. It ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... helplessly on a flight of steps. "Ve-ni-te a-do-re-mus!" he croaked in a quavering basso. And his tangled mind went through strange processes. Suddenly, there came to him in a flash of exaggerated memory the figure of the Christmas Angel which not ten minutes earlier he had kicked into the street. A ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... huge gaps from the dull routine of every-day life. All of us listened attentively, and presently on all sides the fierce music of the long Chinese trumpets blared out uproariously—blare, blare, sobbing on a high note tremulously, and then, boom, boom, suddenly dropping to a thrilling basso profondissimo. Even the children know that sound now. Louder and louder the trumpet-calls rang out to one another in answering voice, imperatively calling off the attacking forces. Impelled to retire ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... boy with amazement and joy; "Basso-Narok! That in our language means, great and black water. ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... stars have given very interesting accounts of their experiences. Signor Caruso, the famous tenor and one of the principals of the company, had one of the most thrilling experiences. He and Signor Rossi, a favorite basso, and his inseparable companion, had a suite on the seventh floor and were awakened by the terrific shaking of the building. The shock nearly threw Caruso out ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... had been laid on yesterday. Again, an apartment was discovered among the stupendous ruins at Carnac, on the site of ancient Thebes, one hundred paces wide and sixty deep, completely crowded with pillars, which, together with the ceiling, roof, and walls, were decorated with figures in basso-relievo, and hieroglyphics—all marvellously beautiful and finely painted, and as fresh, splendid and glorious, after so many ages, as if they had just ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... of bronze: the general to be represented in a Roman dress, holding a truncheon in his right hand, and his head encircled with a laurel wreath. The statue to be supported by a marble pedestal on which are to be represented, in basso relievo, the following principal events of the war, in which General Washington commanded in person: the evacuation of Boston:—the capture of the Hessians at Trenton:—the battle of Princeton:—the action of Monmouth:—and the surrender of York.—On the upper ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... charming bowers. The monks called it the San Antonio; and on its banks they built three noble Missions. The shining white stone of the neighborhood rose in graceful domes and spires above the green trees. Sculptures, basso-relievos, and lines of gorgeous coloring adorned the exteriors. Within, were splendid altars and the appealing charms of incense, fine vestures and fine music; while from the belfreys, bells sweet and resonant called to the savages, who paused ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... re-echo with yells like the terrific war-whoop of the Indian: and onward, still onward rolled the dumpy Tarpaulin, hanging on to the doublet of his more active companion, and far surpassing the latter's most strenuous exertions in the way of vocal music, by bull-roarings in basso, from the profundity of his ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... rather coolly. A temporary boarder from the country, consisting of a somewhat more than middle-aged female, with a parchment forehead and a dry little "frisette" shingling it, a sallow neck with a necklace of gold beads, a black dress too rusty for recent grief and contours in basso-rilievo, left the table prematurely, and was reported to have been very virulent about what I said. So I went to my good old minister, and repeated the remarks, as nearly as I could remember them, to him. He laughed good-naturedly, and ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... when Cleofonte grew weary, Hermia brought forth her orchestre and played for them; first the tunes she had practiced and afterward, as she gained new confidence in their appreciation, "Santa Lucia" and "Funiculi, funicula," to which Cleofonte, who had a soul for concord, roared a fine basso. It was a night for vagabonds, carefree, a night of laughter, of mirth and of song. What did it matter what happened on the morrow? Here were meat, drink and good company. Could any mortal ask ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... Devil is moving very fast; for all the boys are running;—the pattering of bare feet upon the pavement sounds like a heavy shower.... Then the chanting grows fainter in distance; the Devil's immense basso becomes inaudible;—one only distinguishes at regular intervals the crescendo of the burden,— a wild swelling of many hundred boy-voices all rising together,— a retreating storm of rhythmic song, wafted to the ear in gusts, in raifales ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... which we often find in the tympanum at the back of the head of the arch, is generally covered with rude sculpture in basso relievo, sometimes representing a scriptural subject, as the temptation of our first parents on the tympanum of a Norman doorway at Thurley Church, Bedfordshire; sometimes a legend, as a curious and very early sculpture over the south door of Fordington Church, Dorsetshire, ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... her blue and scarlet vest. High throned on a pyramid of knapsacks, canteens, and rugs, toasted a thousand times in all brandies and red wines that the stores would yield, sung of in improvised odes that were chanted by voices which might have won European fame as tenor or as basso, caressed and sued with all the rapid, fiery, lightly-come and lightly-go love of the camp, with twice a hundred flashing, darkling eyes bent on her in the hot admiration that her vain, coquette spirit found delight in, ruling as she would with jest, and caprice, and command, and ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... cui ho tutta mia speranza Che possi e vogli al gran bisogno altarme; Non mi lasciare in su l'estremo passo; Non guardar me, ma chi degno crearme; No'l mio valor, ma l'alta sua sembianza; Che in me ti mova a curar d'uorm si basso. Medusa, e l'error mio lo han fatto un sasso D'umor vano stillante; Vergine, tu di sante Lagrime, e pie adempi 'l mio cor lasso; Ch' almen l'ultlmo pianto sia divoto, Senza terrestro limo; Come fu'l ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... on hearing the guttural salutation. It was Captain Hegermann, the commander of the ship, a big florid Saxon with great bushy golden whiskers and a basso voice like Edouard de Reszke. He was imposing in his smart uniform and gold braid and his manner had the self-reliant, authoritative air usual in men who have great responsibilities and are accustomed to command. He was taking his afternoon stroll ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... returned," she said in a hoarse basso voice. "And I was sure she would be set right. She must ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... killed him, singing in his highest register, very red in the face, continually striking his hand upon his breast and pointing with his sword toward his fallen enemy. Next him on the extreme left was his friend the basso, in high leather boots, growling from time to time during a sustained chord, "Mon honneur et ma foi." In the centre of the stage, the soprano, the star, the prima donna chanted a fervid but ineffectual appeal to the tenor who cried, "Jamais, jamais!" ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... mirth he merely muttered his basso-profundo thankfulness that we had not found her anywhere about there. Having grown extremely sensitive (an effect of irritation) to the tonalities, I may say, of this affair, I felt that it was only ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... learner had liberty to draw, or make models, under the eye and instructions of two eminent artists and twice a year the munificent founder bestowed premiums of silver medals on the four pupils who excelled the rest in drawing from a certain figure, and making the best model of it in basso-relievo. [479] [See note 3 R, at the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... came voices; the grinding of chains lifting cargo; a great basso from a smoke-stack; more voices. "All off! All off!" Feet scurrying over wooden decks! "All off! All off!" A second steam-blast that ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... Duval, the great basso of the Opera, accompanied at the piano by one of the unclassified ladies, was just finishing Mephistopheles' drinking song out of Faust when ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... Thomason's, who manufactures an endless variety of articles, for several of which he has obtained letters patent. The royal series of medals, and various others, are exclusively of his manufacture. Persons of rank who are curious may there see the art of chasing, or sculpturing in basso and alto relievo, together with various operations in the art ...
— A Description of Modern Birmingham • Charles Pye
... as he rose and stood before Alice, "King Canute as a heavy-voiced basso. How he would bring out ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... Basso-Profondo (varicose veins and flat feet), respectfully informs his extensive clientele that he has a few vacant dates at the end of 1917. Comings-of-Age, Jumble Sales and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol 150, February 9, 1916 • Various
... A duel followed between the baritone and tenor, and the latter, mortally wounded, fell into the arms of his friends uttering broken, vehement notes. The chorus—made up of the city watch and town's people—crowded in upon the back of the stage. The soprano and her confidante returned. The basso, a black-bearded, bull necked man, sombre, mysterious, parted the chorus to right and left, and advanced to the footlights. The contralto, dressed as a boy, appeared. The soprano took stage, and abruptly the closing scene of the ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... was rich and full. As she came to the [Greek: anastaseos haemera]—Resurrection Day—it took up a tone of indescribable exaltation, blending with the triumph peal of the organ. Despard added his own voice—a deep, strong, full-toned basso—and their blended strains bore aloft the sublimest of utterances, "Christ ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... loveliness but her voice. Her beauty was so remarkable that the Sunday papers were giving full pages to her face and torso alone. There were to be several light opera and stage beauties there also, a basso profundo to sing, writers, ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... upon the Bayeux tapestry.—This coincidence is interesting, as deciding a point of some moment towards establishing the antiquity of that celebrated relic, by setting it beyond a doubt that such helmets were used anterior to the conquest; for it is certain that these basso-relievos are coeval with ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... it came through the organ. Some of the rattling panels, in spite of every effort to make them fast, rattled the more. One night when the servants were alone in the house, of its own volition the organ sent forth, to break the still hours, a blood-curdling basso-profundo groan that suggested ghosts to their superstitious minds. The housemaid came to regard the instrument as something uncanny, and, even as the cook had done before her, shook the dust of the house of Carson from ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... the Arctic had taught Philip the science by which a man may become acquainted with himself, and in moments like the present, when both his mental and physical spirits overflowed, he even went so far as to attempt poor Radisson's "La Belle Marie" in the Frenchman's heavy basso, something between a dog's sullen growl and the low rumble of distant thunder. It made him cough. And then he laughed again, scanning the narrowing sweep of the lake ahead ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... vertebrae are absolutely undeveloped skulls. But the curious external resemblance, I take it the Germans were not the first men to perceive. A foreign friend once pointed it out to me, in the skeleton of a foe he had slain, and with the vertebrae of which he was inlaying, in a sort of basso-relievo, the beaked prow of his canoe. Now, I consider that the phrenologists have omitted an important thing in not pushing their investigations from the cerebellum through the spinal canal. For I believe that much of a man's character will be found betokened in his backbone. ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... distinct trio, the golden yellow in the sky, the blue in the sea, and the red in the figures in the boats,—as in a vocal trio we have the only three possible musical sounds of the human voice, the soprano, the basso, and the falsetto of the child's voice. All these colors are distinctly asserted and perfectly harmonized in a most exquisite play of tints, but it is still no more like Nature than the trio in "I Puritani" is like conversation. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... of admission would be proportionately lowered, and the numbers admitted, in all probability, would be trebled, on which hypothesis a calculation may be based. What an exercise it would be for the imagination of the audience, were the Statue Scene from Don Giovanni to be given with the Basso Profondo in evening dress, who represents the Stony Commendatore, seated astride a plank resting on tressels placed on a table which would have been substituted for the stone pedestal, while the Don or Leporello (it doesn't much matter which) sings his asides to the audience! Here is novelty, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 11, 1893 • Various
... in silent awe; The fiddlers trembled as he looked around, For fear of some false note's detected flaw; The "Prima Donna's" tuneful heart would bound, Dreading the deep damnation of his "Bah!" Soprano, Basso, even the Contra-Alto, Wished him five ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... are any such beings nowadays as the great Eliphalet, with his large features and conversational basso profundo, seemed to me. His very name had something elephantine about it, and it seemed to me that the house shook from cellar to garret at his footfall. Some have pretended that he had Olympian aspirations, and wanted to sit in the seat ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... is one of the symptoms of a tsetse bite—had considerably improved in condition. There were three different species of flies which sought shelter in my tent, which, unitedly, kept up a continual chorus of sounds—one performed the basso profondo, another a tenor, and the third a weak contralto. The first emanated from a voracious and fierce fly, an inch long, having a ventral capacity ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... better known by his splendid work, the "Museum Worsleianum; or, a Collection of antique Basso-relievos, Bustos, Statues, and Gems; with views of places in the Levant, taken on the spot, in the years 1785-6-7;" in two volumes, folio. Sir Richard sat many years in Parliament for the borough of ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... Only one real! Ladies' and gents' hosiery at a real a pair! Look-a-here now! A real a pair!" Then, lowering his register, he would continue, gravely: "A nice Bayonne waistcoat. A splendid bargain!" And as a finale, he would add in a basso profundo: "Only twenty pesetas!" ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... smooth paste, and boil it gently. It answers all the purposes of wheat flour paste, while it is far superior in point of transparency and smoothness. This composition, made with so small a proportion of water as to have it of the consistence of plastic clay, may be used to form models, busts, basso-relievos, and similar articles. When made of it, they are susceptible of a very high polish. Poland starch is a nice cement for pasting layers of paper together, ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous
... to make me feel a chum of his. I warmed to him and he reciprocated my feelings. He took me to his bosom. He often offered to go over my lesson with me, and I accepted his services with gratitude. He spoke in a warm, mellow basso that had won my heart from the first. His singsong lent peculiar charm to the pages that we read in duet. As he read and interpreted the text he would wave his snuff-box, by way of punctuating and emphasizing ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... hunger of the spirit, and argued of fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute, wandering through eternity without lighting on any fresh discovery of importance in that extensive field—Fan not infrequently found herself taking part in a somewhat monotonous trio, with the Captain, baritone, or basso rather, for he was rather depressed in mind, and Tom, tenor, an artist who sang with feeling, but with insufficient control over ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... said. "Which Paderewski didn't have to tune pianos on the side to make a living over here, neither, Abe, and, besides, Abe, if they would let Caruso have a free hand in the formation of his Cabinet, he would probably get a good barytone for Secretary of State, a basso for Secretary of Commerce and Labor, De Luca for Secretary of the Treasury, Martinelli for Secretary of War, and draw on the Chicago Opera Company for Secretaries of the Navy, the Interior, and Agriculture. ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... afterwards of a noisy Mass,—Mass which had been "performed" with perhaps the bulky tenor giving the "Agnus Dei," with as sensually dramatic an utterance as though it were a love-song in an opera, and the "basso," shouting through the "Credo," with the deep musical fury of the tenor's jealous rival,—with a violin "interlude," and a 'cello "solo,"—and a blare of trumpets at the "Elevation," as if it were a cheap spectacle at a circus fair,—after ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... hopes of Miss Travers yet," boomed Royce, in his ponderous basso,—"not personal hopes, Foster; you needn't feel for your pistol,—but I believe that her heart is with the army, like the soldier's daughter she is." And, audacious as was the speech and deserving of instant rebuke, Mr. Royce was startled ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... voices, some bringing one verse or no verse, in unison or alone, the least expected doing what was most awaited, which was to surprise us and call forth gay peals of happy laughter, while the "La, la, la—la—la!" was kept up continuously, like an accompaniment. And still the voices, basso, soprano, tenor, baritone, contralto, rose and fell, the moment's inspiration telling how, till at last all blended in a locomotive-paced La, and in a final roar ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... The cafe, Basso and Bregaillon, has a "vue splendide" (in the daytime), so the bill says. What you see at night is a well lit quay with the cafe lights shining out across the dark water in the dock on to some white steam yachts. After getting rid of a uniformed interpreter, whose one idea was to give ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... Strides even with my own, nay, flies before. Thou art a brother to the wind and wave; Have they not music for thine ear as mine, When the wild tempest makes thy ship his lyre, Smiting a cavernous basso from the shrouds And climbing up his gamut through the stays, Through buntlines, bowlines, ratlines, till it shrills An alto keener than the locust sings, And all the great Aeolian orchestra Storms out its mad sonata in the gale? Is not the scene a ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... three different kinds. Basso profundo is the lowest bass; basso cantante is a flexible bass usually unable to sing quite as low as basso profundo; baritone is the highest bass—a voice midway between bass and tenor and partaking somewhat of the quality of both. The bass compass parallels that for contralto and ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... evening of the 7th of July. General Burnside and his wife had one of the proscenium boxes, and my wife and I were their guests. The second act had just closed with the famous trumpet song, in which Susini, the great basso of the day, had created a furore. A messenger entered the box where the general was surrounded by a brilliant company, and gave him a dispatch which announced the surrender of Vicksburg and Pemberton's army. Burnside, overjoyed, announced ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... champagne-cork popping of the rifles and the basso profundo of the guns, it was a scene of ordered, yes, almost peaceful industry which in no way suggested war but reminded me, rather, of the Panama Canal at the busiest period of its construction (I have used ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... A. has the best judgment in Rome, but you see how he is deceived." I bought of the same man a small engraved emerald, which he had just purchased of a peasant, and, without much examination, sold me for one scudo, as a basso-impero of ordinary quality. My eyes were better, and had seen, in what he thought a handful of flowers, a cross; and on cleaning it we found it to be an early Christian stone of much greater value than he supposed, to his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... possibly, were slightly jealous of his social prowess, and yet none pooh-poohed him openly, for only a short time before he had broken a sword in a street duel with a brother musician, and once had thrown a basso profundo, who sang off key, through a closed window—all this to the advantage of a passing glazier, who, being called in, was paid his fee three times over for repairing the sash. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... piano, requisitioned by me for some special purposes of musical caricature, detracted somewhat from the restfulness of the haven. However that may have been, such intrusion was never resented; my Swedish prima donna, or my qualifications as a basso profondo, or a brass-bandsman, were always treated with the greatest indulgence by the ladies, and my high soprano flourished and positively reached unknown altitudes under the beneficent sunshine of their applause. (For all that I never attempted ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... her singing treble rather than bass was purely a matter of accident at first. All analogy teaches me that if she had begun on bass, and the other part had been given to man, we should be hearing today of Ma'lle Patti, "the charming new baritone," and "the magnificent basso," Madame Jenny Lind Goldschmidt, while admiring crowds would toss flowers to Carl Formes, "the unapproachable soprano," or ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... of violin playing can also be judged somewhat by the compositions written for the instrument. Of these the earliest known is a "Romanesca per violone Solo e Basso se piaci," and some dances, by Biagio Marini, published in 1620. This contains the "shake." Then there is a "Toccata" for violin solo, by Paolo Quagliati, published in 1623, and a collection of violin pieces by Carlo ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... old artists in the vocation. He also wrought in niello, and executed several figures which were highly commended, particularly two figures of Prophets, for an altar in the Cathedral of Pistoja. Filippo next turned his attention to sculpture, and executed works in basso-relievo, which showed an extraordinary genius. Subsequently, having made the acquaintance of several learned men, he began to turn his attention to the computation of the divisions of time, the adjustment of weights, the movement of wheels, etc. He next bent his ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... chance, With music and the more voluptuous dance, The hollow paths of vanity pursued, Laughed, jested, swore, drank, danced, and even wooed; No tongue more prone to questionable wit, Nor chaste, when time and place demanded it; His basso voice, both voluble and strong, Excelled in wassail mirth and ribald song; He swore with oaths most impious and unblest; Ate much, drank more, on these lines did his best; Caroused by day, caroused by candle light, In fact ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... found inspiration in a Venetian song—"Ogni fumo viene al basso"—which he rendered in the following lines, alluding to the legend of the Moro's fresco in the Castello ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... and rose-coloured marble, were brought from various parts of Africa. Among the principal ornaments were two fountains brought from Constantinople, "the larger of gilt bronze, beautifully carved with basso-relieve representing human figures,"—the smaller surrounded by twelve figures, made of red gold in the arsenal of Cordova: they were all ornamented with jewels, and the water poured out of their mouths. The famous fountain of quicksilver, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... follows: The manager is frequently one of the most wealthy and considerable persons of the little town he inhabits. He forms a company consisting of prima donna, tenoro, basso cantante, basso buffo, a second female singer, and a third basso. The libretto, or poem, purchased for sixty or eighty francs from some lucky son of the muses, who is generally a half-starved ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... years T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., had gayly pursued the even tenor (or basso, since he possessed a foghorn, subterranean voice) of his Bannister career. He absolutely refused to take life seriously, and he was forever arousing the wrath—mostly pretended, for no one could be really angry with the genial ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... in the very thick of the fleet. His communicator spouted voices whose tones ranged from basso profundo to high tenor, and whose ideas of proper astrogation seemed to vary ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... indirect allusions to death, veiling its painful recollections. They did not pollute their imagination with the contents of a charnel-house. The sarcophagi of the ancients rather recall to us the remembrance of the activity of life; for they are sculptured with battles or games, in basso relievo; a sort of tender homage paid to the dead, observes Mad. de Stael, with her peculiar ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... especially the Basso Profundos, will be glad to know that Dickens pays more attention to them than to the other voices, though it must be acknowledged that the references are of a humorous nature. 'Bass!' as the young gentleman in one of the Sketches remarks to his companion ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... in one piece, about fifty feet high, terminating in a point, and charged with hieroglyphics. The Greek and Latin inscriptions on its base show that it was erected by Theodosius. The machines that were employed to raise it are represented upon it in basso-relievo. We have some vestiges in England of the hippodromus, in which the ancient inhabitants of this country performed their races. The most remarkable is that near Stonehenge, which is a long tract of ground, about three hundred and fifty feet, or ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various
... ring &c v.; ringing, tintinabulation &c v.; reflexion [Brit.], reflection, reverberation; echo, reecho; zap, zot [Coll.]; buzz (hiss) 409. low note, base note, bass note, flat note, grave note, deep note; bass; basso, basso profondo [It]; baritone, barytone^; contralto. [device to cause resonance] echo chamber, resonator. [ringing in the ears] tinnitus [Med.]. [devices which make a resonating sound] bell, doorbell, buzzer; gong, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... bayonets glittering in the sun filled the Place with brilliant flashes like miniature lightning. In the centre of the facade of the building a platform was erected, over which presided a statue of the Republic, wearing a Phrygian cap. The bronze basso-relievo of Henry IV. had been carefully hidden with clusters of flags. Each window was alive with faces. I saw several women on the roof, and the gamins were everywhere, hanging on to the sculptured ornaments, or riding fearlessly on the shoulders ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... begin to think I'm boring you. Couldn't we do something desperate—dine at a Latin Quarter restaurant for instance? What was that place you were telling me of, where the waiter has a wonderful voice and makes the orders he shouts down the tube sound like the recitative of the basso ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... melodious and far-reaching, and it was not an acquired "bishop's voice"—it was his own. The biggest basso I ever heard was just five feet high and weighed one hundred twenty in his stockings; Brignoli, the tenor, weighed two hundred forty. Avoirdupois as a rule lessens the volume of the voice and heightens the register—you can't have ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... hour-glass, filled with sand from the dreary valley of El Ghor. A huge plaster Trimurti stood close to the wall, on a triangular pedestal of black rock, and the Siva-face and the writhing cobra confronted all who entered. Just opposite grinned a red granite slab with a quaint basso-relievo taken from the ruins of Elora. Near the door were two silken divans, and a richly carved urn, three feet high, which had once ornamented the facade of a tomb in the royal days of Petra, ere the curse fell on Edom, now stood an in ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... altri, che ascoltate giuso al basso, Chiedete, se volete alcuna cosa, Prima ch' io parta, ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... me," said the judge in a covert tone to his daughter, and with a glance at the parlor window, whence now issued the rumble of Warren Smith's basso. "I tell you that girl would ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... rustle of satisfaction, while the friends of the contralto exchanged civilly significant glances; and on the way home the solo in question was disposed of in a manner at once thorough and final. The same thing occurred when the contralto was prominent, or the tenor, or the baritone, or the basso, each of whom it was confidently asserted by competent Delisleville judges might have rendered him or herself and Delisleville immortal upon the lyric stage if social position had not placed the following of such ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... correspondent style with the wings; and consists of a splendid colonnade of twelve columns and an entablature. Above the attic story rises a pediment surmounted with figures of Painting, Architecture, and Sculpture. This pediment is filled with a basso-relievo, executed by J.H. Bubb, and representing Britannia crowned by Fame, and seated on a throne, the basis of which represents Valour and Wisdom. On one side, Literature, Genius, Manufacture, Agriculture, and Prudence, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829 • Various
... early forms deserve a passing mention because, notwithstanding a certain rigidity of structure, they have been used by the great masters for the expression of sublime thoughts. These are the Ground Bass (or, as it is sometimes called, the Basso Ostinato), the Chaconne and the Passacaglia[82] which, in modern literature, is well represented by the magnificent "tour de force" that serves as the Finale to Brahms's Fourth Symphony. By a Ground Bass is meant a theme, continually repeated, in the lowest ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... Rosina Andrien. The young husband felt a high esteem for his father-in-law (primo basso cantante at the Opera); but we must not suppose that this consideration influenced his choice. He made a love marriage such as one makes at the age of twenty-two, with such a nature as his. Moreover, reason was never in closer ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... striking character of any description. Some of the oldest parts of the cathedral appear to belong to the porch of the eastern end. As you walk round the church, you can not fail to be struck with the great variety of ancient—and to an Englishman, whimsical looking mural monuments, in basso and alto relievos. Some of these are ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... Disappointment? In his opium dreams he had seen his own ships on the sea; commerce bustling in his warehouse; money overflowing in his bank; babies crowing on his knee; a wife nestling at his breast; a basso voice of tremendous natural power and depth scientifically cultivated to its utmost power of pleasing artists or friends; a country estate on the Hudson, or at Newport, with emerald lawns sloping down ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... to the Goddess of Good; the celebrated Mithras with a serpent coiled round him, between the folds of which are sculptured the signs of the zodiac; Medea and her children; a mile-stone, bearing the names of the Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian; a basso-relievo of the Muses; several sarcophagi, votive altars, cornices, pillars, mutilated statues, and inscriptions, are here carefully preserved: but nothing in the collection equals the statue known by the title of the Venus of Arles, found here, and which ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... the Cathedral of Milan is perhaps the most numerous assemblage of beauties in stone which the world contains. Impossible it were to enumerate the elegances that cover it from top to bottom,—its carved portals, its flying buttresses, its arabesque pilasters, its richly mullioned windows, its basso-reliefs, its beautiful tracery, and its forest of snow-white pinnacles soaring in the sunlight, so calm and moveless, and yet so airy and light, that you fear the nest breeze will scatter them. You can compare it only to some Alpine group, whose flashing peaks shoot up by hundreds around some snow-white ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... Hart struts about like a young game-cock at his first fight," he observed. He broke into an infectious laugh, which would have been a fine basso for ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... now God has halved them,—much as the Lacedaemonians have cut up the Arcadians,—and if they do not behave themselves he will divide them again, and they will hop about with half a nose and face in basso relievo. Wherefore let us exhort all men to piety, that we may obtain the goods of which love is the author, and be reconciled to God, and find our own true loves, which rarely happens in this world. And now I must beg you not ...
— Symposium • Plato
... reformers included also the invention of thorough bass, or the basso continuo, as the Italians call it. Ludovico Grossi, called Viadana from the place of his birth, seems to have been the first to use the term basso continuo and on the authority of Praetorius and other writers was long credited with the invention ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... Switzerland, extraordinary pay. He thus obtained auxiliaries to the number of eight thousand fighting men. He had, moreover, in the very camp of the Duke of Burgundy, a secret ally, an Italian condottiere, the Count of Campo-Basso, who, either from personal hatred or on grounds of interest, was betraying the master to whom he had bound himself. The year before, he had made an offer to Louis XI. to go over to him with his troops during a battle, or to hand over to him the Duke of Burgundy, dead or alive. Louis mistrusted ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... boarder from the country, consisting of a somewhat more than middle-aged female, with a parchment forehead and a dry little "frisette" shingling it, a sallow neck with a necklace of gold beads, a black dress too rusty for recent grief, and contours in basso-rilievo, left the table prematurely, and was reported to have been very virulent about what I said. So I went to my good old minister, and repeated the remarks, as nearly as I could remember them, to him. He laughed good-naturedly, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... whole thing is absurd; that people do not carry on the business of life in song, nor expire in recitative. That is true, but even fairy tales have their consistency. Every part is adapted to every other, and, in the key, the whole is harmonious. Hermann, for instance, the basso, who sang Mephistopheles, would have been quite perfect if he had only remembered this. But he forgot that Mephisto is a sly and subtle devil. He caricatured him. He made him a buffoon and repulsive. Such extravagance could ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... complete individual: and the relief of poetry and sympathy being wanting, the detestation she inspires is so unmixed as to be almost intolerable: consequently the character, considered in relation to the other personages of the story, is perfect; but abstractedly, it is imperfect; a basso relievo—not a statue. ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... manor (Vicomte Vaufreland, basso) makes love to a humble village maiden (myself, soprano); the lady of the manor (Madame Conneau, contralto) becomes jealous and makes a scene with her husband; the friend and adviser (Count d'Espeuilles, tenor) steps in and takes his friend's part and kindly ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone |
