"Bassoon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wind instruments are the flute, oboe, bassoon, and clarinet. It is as well to say at once that their particular qualities of tone do not absolutely depend upon the materials of which they are made. The form is the most important factor in determining the distinction of tone quality, so long as the sides of the tube are equally elastic, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... 'still lagoon' Passed the golden afternoon, The preposterous bassoon, Growling deep, Saved the King and knelled the day As the crimson changed to grey And the little ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... followed by a passage of martial character which bursts triumphantly into C major. There is an orchestral touch of great beauty and originality in the first and second variations (beginning in measures 49 and 98 respectively), where a solo clarinet—later a flute, oboe and bassoon—prolongs a single tone which seems to float above the melody like a guiding star.[156] A passage of special significance is that in measures 123-146, where Beethoven indulges in a touching soliloquy upon his main theme. It is mysteriously ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... is scored for three flutes, one piccolo, one bass piccolo, seven oboes, one English horn, three clarinets in D flat, one clarinet in G flat, one corno de bassetto, three bassoons, one contra-bassoon, eleven horns, three trumpets, eight cornets in B, four trombones, two alto trombones, one viol da gamba, one mandolin, two guitars, one banjo, two tubas, glockenspiel, bell, triangle, fife, bass-drum, cymbals, timpani, celesta, four harps, piano, ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... or seventy, was thinking and doing; what were his feelings about life; what changes the years had wrought in his body, his mind, his feelings, his companionships, his reputation. It was for me a kind of unison between two instruments, both playing that old familiar air, "Life,"—one a bassoon, if you will, and the other an oaten pipe, if you care to find an image for it, but still keeping pace with each other until the players both grew old and gray. At last the thinner thread of sound is heard by itself, and its deep accompaniment rolls out ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... this way. The Bassoon in the orchestra died. That was the curious way they expressed it. The instrument had not died, but the man who played it. He left a widow and one child, and no money. Nobody had ever heard of an orchestral player who had left much. The pay was too small ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... is of course acquainted with the vigorous and bracing pages of Sir John (2 vols., London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown). Sir John, who plays but a tooth-comb in the orchestra of this historical romance, blows in his own book the big bassoon. His character is there drawn at large; and the sympathy of Landor has countersigned the admiration of the public. One point, however, calls for explanation; the chapter on Grunewald was torn by the hand ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... another Indian blew with his nose, a song which was no doubt anacreontic. It was a charming scene, worthy of the pencil of Boucher. Four natives came with great confidence to sup and sleep on board. We had the flute, bassoon, and violin played for them, and treated them to fireworks composed of rockets and serpents. This display excited ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... on the 21st October 1801, at Treves, of parents in the middle rank of life. When quite a child, the predominating taste of his life was so strongly developed, that in spite of harsh masters he learned to play on the piano, violin, bassoon, and several wind-instruments; and at the age of twelve could read at sight the most difficult music, and even attempted composition. Music, however, was not intended to be his profession, and was only carried on as a relaxation from the severer studies to which Mainzer devoted ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... roses heard the flute, violin, bassoon, none in all the gay company had been gayer than Sharlee. Past many heads in the dining-room, West had watched her, laughing, radiant, sparkling as the wine itself, a pretty little lady of a joyous sweetness that never knew a care. In the dance, ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... a sinister theme, Lento misterioso, con tristezza, given out by bassoon and celli, accompanied by a soft drum roll. This motive is the main one of the work, and may be regarded as that of Lamia. After some impassioned development, the music leads quietly into an Allegro con fuoco. This opens with a strong tune, ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... and dresses are brilliant, but probably you would not like them particularly, and I, for my part, think them mannered and pretentious. In the orchestra the wind (especially flutes, clarinets, and bassoon) is excellent. The violins and double basses (six in number) are a little hazy, and lack the necessary energy, both in bowing, which is short and easy-going, and in rhythm. The PIANOS and CRESCENDOS are insufficient, and for the same reason there is no fulness in the FORTES. ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... in the physical and spiritual sense a cooled red. It is consequently rather sad and ailing. It is worn by old women, and in China as a sign of mourning. In music it is an English horn, or the deep notes of wood instruments (e.g. a bassoon). ...
— Concerning the Spiritual in Art • Wassily Kandinsky
... every day, Till over the mast at noon'— The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast, For he heard the loud bassoon. ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... stars, a slate appeared in front of the gallery, advertising in bold characters the psalm about to be sung, lest the sonorous announcement of the clerk should still leave the bucolic mind in doubt on that head. Then followed the migration of the clerk to the gallery, where, in company with a bassoon, two key-bugles, a carpenter understood to have an amazing power of singing 'counter', and two lesser musical stars, he formed the complement of a choir regarded in Shepperton as one of distinguished attraction, occasionally known to draw ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... be well acquainted with the characters of Mr Fiery and Mr Stiff, and Mrs Dashington, and her niece Miss Squeaker, and Colonel Blare who played the cornet, and Lieutenant Limp who sang tenor, and Dr Bassoon who roared bass, and Mrs Silky, who was all things to all men, besides being everything by turns and nothing long; and Lady Tower and Miss Gentle, and Mr ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... I once found George Bassoon weeping profusely over a dish of artichokes. I was a little surprised, for there was a bottle close at hand and he had a book in his hand. I took the book. It was not Boccaccio; it was not Rabelais; it was not even Swinburne. I ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... one that would disturb The fairy architects, or curb The wild creations of their mirth, All that would wake the soul to earth. Choose ye the softly-breathing-flute, The mellow horn, the loving lute; The viol you must not forget, And take the sprightly flageolet And grave bassoon; choose too the fife, Whose warblings in the tuneful strife, Mingling in mystery with the words, May seem like ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... that there is in it for tired, healthy children. In the room below, her father and the eldest boy were resting; and through the rafters of the flooring she could hear them both: her father a large, fluent, well-seasoned, self-comforting bassoon; and her brother a sappy, inexperienced bassoon trying to imitate it. Wakefulness was a novel state for Pansy herself, who was always tired when bedtime came and as full of wild vitality as one of her young guineas in the summer wheat; so that she sank into slumber ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... artless way, paying no heed to what I have foolishly written about his shortcomings. As for the thrasher's smile-provoking gutturals, I recall that even in the symphonies of the greatest of masters there are here and there quaint bassoon phrases, which have, and doubtless were intended to have, a somewhat whimsical effect; and remembering this, I am ready to own that I was less wise than I thought myself when I found so much fault with the thrush's performance. ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... Earth's magnetic field, using the fabric of space itself as the fulcrum against which it applied its power, was like the vibration of a note struck somewhere near the bottom of a piano keyboard, or the rumble of a contra bassoon. ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... which they know nothing. Why should a brass and a wooden instrument—a bassoon and horn—have so little identity of tone, when they act on the same matter, the constituent gases of the air? Their differences proceed from some displacement of those constituents, from the way they act on the elements which ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... of flutes; A bassoon grunted, and an oboe wailed; The 'celli pizzicato-ed like great lutes, And mutterings of double basses trailed Away to silence, while loud harp-strings hailed Their thin, bright colours down in such a scatter They lost ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... enjoyed extremely. As an example I may mention that finding the cotyledons of Biophytum to be highly sensitive to vibrations of the table, he fancied that they might perceive the vibrations of sound, and therefore made me play my bassoon close to a plant. (This is not so much an example of superabundant theorising from a small cause, but only of his wish to test ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... day is closing cool, The woods are dim before us, The white fog of the wayside pool Is creeping slowly o'er us. The cricket to the frog's bassoon His shrillest time is keeping; The sickle of yon setting moon ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... wicket, Marcellina expresses no sympathy for his sufferings, but ecstatically proclaims her love for Fidelio as the reason why she must needs say nay. And this she does, not amiably or sympathetically, but pettishly and with an impatient reiteration of "No, no, no, no!" in which the bassoon drolly supports her. A second knocking at the door, then a third, and finally she is relieved of her tormentor by Rocco, who calls him out into the garden. Left alone, Marcellina sings her longing for ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... easily taken up, and easily set down, and is carried through the streets without the distressing floundering and shuffling that we see at home. A dirty priest or two, and a dirtier acolyte or two, do not lend any especial grace to the proceedings; and I regard with personal animosity the bassoon, which is blown at intervals by the big-legged priest (it is always a big-legged priest who blows the bassoon), when his fellows combine in a lugubrious stalwart drawl. But there is far less of the ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... correspondence to the notes given out at Soissons for a Kaiser and his Pragmatic Sanction. Poor Prussian Household, poor back, and heart, of Crown-Prince; what a concert it is in this world, Smoking Parliament for souffleur! Let the big Diplomatist Bassoon of the Universe go this way, there are caresses for a young Soldier and his behavior in the giant regiment; let the same Bassoon sound that way, bangs and knocks descend on him; the two keep time together,—so ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... been produced[740].' BOSWELL. 'The truth is, it is impossible perfectly to translate poetry[741]. In a different language it may be the same tune, but it has not the same tone. Homer plays it on a bassoon; Pope on a flagelet.' HARRIS. 'I think Heroick poetry is best in blank verse; yet it appears that rhyme is essential to English poetry, from our deficiency in metrical quantities. In my opinion, the chief excellence of our language is numerous prose.' JOHNSON. ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... in crimson trouserloons? Does Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT cantillate his "copy" into the horn of a graphophone or use a motor-stylus? Does Mr. SIEGRIED SASSOON beat his breast with one hand while he plays the loud bassoon with the other? Does Mr. ALEC WAUGH use sermon-paper or foolscap? Does Mr. ALDOUS HUXLEY keep a tame gorilla? These are the really illuminating details that we hunger for. Without them it is impossible to appreciate the artistry of our young Masters. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... or Contrabassoon (Fr. contrebasson; Ger. Kontrafagott), a wood-wind instrument of the double reed family, which it completes as grand bass, the other members being the oboe, cor anglais, and bassoon. The contrafagotto corresponds to the double bass in strings, to the contrabass tuba in the brass wind, and to the pedal clarinet in the single reed ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... colored glass, and all more or less out of the perpendicular; a worm-eaten oak-screen separating the chancel and a solemn enclosure, erst a chapel, now the Fairfax pew; a loft where the choir sat in front for divine service, with fiddle and bassoon, and the school-children sat behind, all under the eye of the parson and his clerk, ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... the Huntsmen and a Pack of Hounds, a Sham Doctor, an old Woman, the Bells, the Flute, the Double Curtell (or bassoon) and the Organ,—all with his own Natural Voice, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the profound truth conveyed by this finale, at the instant when the composer delivers his last note and the author his last line, when the orchestra gives the last pull at the fiddle-bow and the last puff at the bassoon, when the principal singers say "Let's go to supper!" and the chorus people exclaim "How lucky, it doesn't rain!" Well, in every condition in life, as in an Italian opera, there comes a time when the joke is over, ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... charmed us in the field was there with his German flute, a venerable looking man, who is their steward, played on the violincello, a lame youth on the French horn, another, who seemed very near blind, on the bassoon, and two on the fiddle. My cousin had no share in the performance except singing agreeably, wherein she was joined by some of the ladies, and where the music could bear it, by ten of the young girls, with two ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... the roses heard The flute, violin, bassoon; All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd To the dancers dancing in tune; Till a silence fell with the waking bird, And a ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... diversion by challenging Father Smith to make additional reed-stops within a given time. The challenge was accepted; and forthwith the Father went to work and made Vox Humana, Cremorne, Double Courtel, or Double Bassoon, and other stops. A day was appointed for the renewal of the contest; but party feeling ran so high, that during the night preceding the appointed day a party of hot-headed Harrissians broke into the Temple Church, and cut Smith's bellows—so ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... the oddest of answers: A hollow wind, like a bassoon, And headstones all ranged up as dancers, And cypresses droning a croon, And gurgoyles that ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... instrument, yet every instrument has a well-defined characteristic timbre, which justifies us in speaking, for instance, of the majestic, solemn trombone, the serene flute, the amorous violoncello, the lugubrious bassoon, and so on. The human voice, on the other hand, is much less limited in its powers of tonal and emotional coloring. It is not dependent for its resonance on a rigid tube, like the flute, or an unchangeable ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... shrill, sharp pipe, screaming with gusts of horror, split my unexpectant ear. With this wrangled fitfully the cracked clarionet of some peevish brother. Ever and anon some vast nostril, punctually thundering, hurled forth the relentless growl of the bassoon,—a very mountain of sound, which crushed all before it, and made the shuddering timbers crack and reel. A pensive flute vainly poured, in swift recurring gushes, its rhythmic oil upon the roaring billows. From some melodious swain came a freakish fiddling, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... under way. From the bright-lit mansion came the evocations of a loud bassoon. Ulick Guffle, in whom the thought of matrimony always produced a bitter nausea, glowered upon the house and spat acridly upon the pave. "Imbeciles! ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... captivating dance-music, or in some less heated and crowded room, or cool conservatory, listened to the voice of the siren who walked by his side, "while the sweet wind did gently kiss the flowers and make no noise," and the strains of "flute, violin, bassoon," and the sounds of the "dancers dancing in tune," coming to them on the still air of night, seemed like the sounds from another and a far-off world,—listened, listened, listened, while his silver-tongued enchantress builded castles in the air, or beguiled his thought, ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... your window-seat, Beneath a cloudless moon; You hear a sound, that seems to wear The semblance of a tune, As if a broken fife should strive To drown a cracked bassoon. ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... French-horn, violin, and bassoon, rose a silvery confusion of voices and laughter and the sound of a hundred footfalls in unison, while, from the open windows there issued a warm breath, heavily laden with the smell of scented fans, of rich ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... the neighbouring hamlets, used occasionally to meet at his house; where they exercised themselves in singing, from the works of Croft, Green, Boyce, Purcell, Handel, and such authors as they possessed. One of them played the bassoon, another the flute, and a third the violin, I had a quick ear, was attracted by their harmony, and began to join in their concerts. A treble voice was a great acquisition; I was apt and they encouraged me, by frequent praise and admiration. My uncle gave me Arnold's Psalmody, in which I eagerly ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... character, clear and picturesque, without pretense of elaboration. The latter not only relieved and sustained the voice, but were full of original effects, novel to his time. He was the author, too, of important improvements in instrumental composition. He introduced the viola, clarinet, and bassoon into the orchestra of the Italian opera. Though, voluminous both in serious and comic opera, it was in the latter that he won his chief laurels. His "Pazza per Amore" was one of the great Pasta's favorites, and Catalani added largely to ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... and reaching to the ground. They dance, they sing, and jingle rattles and other toys, and are followed by a band of music of the legitimate kind. In it are violins, a double-bass, a clarionet, a French horn, a bassoon, a brace of tambours, and the indispensable nutmeg-grater, performed upon with a piece of wire exactly as the actual grater is by the nutmeg. The musicians, who are all respectably dressed blacks, hired for the occasion, ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... the gay company had entirely dispersed, the lights in the Castle were extinguished one by one, and silence reigned where, only half an hour before, light feet beat time to the soft music of viol and bassoon, and the echoes of merry ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... "falling in." They are properly sized, and form a "squad with intervals." In the rear stands a mash-tub with a sheepskin stretched over it for a drum, and near it is the drummer-boy, a child of six; a bugle, a cornet and a bassoon are laid in a corner, and two or three ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... BASSOON or Contrabassoon (Fr. contrebasson; Ger. Kontrafagott), a wood-wind instrument of the double reed family, which it completes as grand bass, the other members being the oboe, cor anglais, and bassoon. The contrafagotto corresponds ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... in their surplices, with a missal in one hand and a lighted wax taper in the other, chanting the funeral dirge at intervals—now pausing, and then again taking up the mournful burden of their lamentation, accompanied by others, who played upon a rude kind of bassoon, with a dismal and wailing sound. Then followed various symbols of the church, and the bier borne on the shoulders of four men. The coffin was covered with a velvet pall, and a chaplet of white flowers lay upon it, indicating ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... marched in full uniform, nine grenadiers two deep, the odd one last; two German flute players, two surpliced choristers with notes pinned to their backs, two more flute players, eleven singing men in surplices, two French horn players, two bassoon players, six fifers, and four drummers with muffled drums. Lord le Despencer, as chief mourner, followed the bier, in his uniform as Colonel of the Bucks Militia, and was succeeded by nine officers of the same corps, ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... his being unable to supply her with a sum of money which she had demanded, decamped from the lodgings which he had taken for her, carrying with her all the presents which at various times he had bestowed upon her, and had put herself under the protection of a gentleman who played the bassoon at the Italian Opera, at which place it appeared that her sister had lately been engaged as a danseuse. My friend informed me that at first he had experienced great agony at the ingratitude of Annette, but at last had made up his mind to forget her, and, in order more effectually ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... those first moments of the Reading, at the end of every sentence, there was simply no resisting. Had there been a wedding guest present, he would hardly have repined in not being able to obey the summons of the loud bassoon. The narrator had his will with one and all. However large and however miscellaneous the audience, from the front of the stalls to the back of the gallery, every one listened to the familiar words that fell from his lips, from the ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... which the Titanola Company are constructing for Mr. Boomer, the famous War lecturer, is approaching completion. This remarkable instrument, which roughly resembles a double-bassoon, stands about 45 feet high, and has a compass of 500 octaves, from the low B flat in profundissimo to the high G on the Doncaster St. Leger line. The use that Mr. Boomer makes of the Bombastophone ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 23, 1916 • Various
... continued Mrs. McGillicuddy, in a voice like a bassoon in a rage, "as the Colonel and Mrs. Fortescue trusted their innocent lamb, and when they are peacefully watchin' the show you take this pore baby out of his warm bed and brings him out here to catch his death of cold, and Patrick McGillicuddy, you'll laugh on the wrong side ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... has its own sphere, its own reason for being. So of the pen,—the piccolo flute of the artistic orchestra. Let it pipe its high treble as merrily as it may, but do not coerce it into mimicking the bassoon. ...
— Pen Drawing - An Illustrated Treatise • Charles Maginnis
... according to my present recollection.] With an albatross perched on his shoulder, and who might be introduced to the congregation as the immediate organ of his conversion, and supported by the droning of a bassoon, she represented the mariner lecturing to advantage in English; the doctor overhead in the pulpit enforcing it in Hebrew. Angry I was, though forced to laugh. But of what use is anger or argument in ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... might have said, but that my zone Unmanned me: then the Doctors! O to hear The Doctors! O to watch the thirsty plants Imbibing! once or twice I thought to roar, To break my chain, to shake my mane: but thou, Modulate me, Soul of mincing mimicry! Make liquid treble of that bassoon, my throat; Abase those eyes that ever loved to meet Star-sisters answering under crescent brows; Abate the stride, which speaks of man, and loose A flying charm of blushes o'er this cheek, Where they like swallows coming out of time Will wonder why they came: but ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... castle, where there were nothing but cats who were her servants. They leapt nimbly upstairs and downstairs, and were merry and happy. In the evening when they sat down to dinner, three of them had to make music. One played the bassoon, the other the fiddle, and the third put the trumpet to his lips, and blew out his cheeks as much as he possibly could. When they had dined, the table was carried away, and the cat said, "Now, Hans, come and dance with me." "No," said he, "I won't dance with a ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... scene of parting with her wedding-ring, all! what a sight was there! The fiddlers in the orchestra, 'albeit unused to the melting mood!' blubbered like hungry children crying for their bread and butter; and when the bell rang for music between the acts, the tears ran from the bassoon player's eyes in such plentiful showers, that they choked the finger-stops, and, making a spout of the instrument, poured in such torrents on the first fiddler's book, that, not seeing the overture was in two sharps, the leader of the band actually played in ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... she was so obtuse—for I couldn't blurt the truth right out—that, before she caught on, the procession arrived. The catechumen was seated upon an empty beer-barrel, placed upon a sort of float dragged by the boys. They had with them a big drum, that terrible bassoon of Uncle Jake's, and a cornet; the noise was something terrific. Well, Miss Birdie's a good plucked one! She stood on the steps and rebuked them. That voice of hers silenced the band. Before she was through talking you might have heard a pin drop. She rated them for a quarter ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... looked down, and there was the dwarf, slit and fanged from ear to ear at his expense, and laughing like a lion. Nature, relenting at having made Giles so small, had given him as a set-off the biggest voice on record. His very whisper was a bassoon. He was like those stunted wide-mouthed pieces of ordnance we see on fortifications; more like a flower-pot than a cannon; but ods ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... persons were forbidden to ascend, as the doctor was afraid that the sharp air at the top would do his patients harm. Of course, Frederick tried to make fun of everything and everyone—for instance, of the wretched wind-band, which consisted of about a dozen "caricatures," among whom a lean bassoon-player with a snuffy hook-nose was the most notable. To the manners of the country, which in some respects seem to have displeased him, he ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... constructed from broken-up ship timber, which is graced by the appearance of two or three rags of old tapestry. It is on this chicken coop that the music is perched: two clarinets, a hurdy-gurdy, a cracked trumpet, and a grumbling bassoon—five instruments whose harmonious movements are regulated by the crutch of Monsieur Double-Croche, a lame dwarf, who is called the leader of the orchestra. Here all is in harmony—the faces, costumes, the food ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various
... composed of strong cardboard, and dependent solely on the judicious application of the human lips and the skilful modulation of the human voice for their effect. These being produced, an impromptu band was formed: young Peregrine seized the bassoon, the carter took the clarionet, the shepherd the French horn, the cowman the trombone, and, seated at the piano, I myself conducted the orchestra. Never before have I been so astonished as I was by the unexpected musical ability displayed. ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... torches upon the steps of the entrance cast a strange glare upon the glittering windows and deep into the garden; the assembled servants were to serenade their master. In the midst of them stood the gorgeous Porter, like a minister of state, before a music-stand, working away busily at a bassoon. ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... second group (the wood-wind) are found the flute, piccolo, oboe, bassoon, English horn, double-bassoon, clarinet, and bass clarinet. The English horn, double-bassoon, bass clarinet, and piccolo are not called for in the older compositions, hence are not always ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... who delight in fantasias rather than concertos, and who play such tricks with the keyboards, that the performances have much more of the character of legerdemain than of art, arrive by scores; violinists, violoncellists, professors of the trombone, of the ophicleide, of the bassoon, of every unwieldy and unmanageable instrument in fact, are particularly abundant; and perhaps the most popular of all are the particularly clever gentlemen who, by dint of a dozen years' or so unremitting ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... this, however, down beyond the Austrian Legation came a flourish of hoarse-throated trumpets—those wonderful Chinese trumpets. Blare, blare, in a half-chorus they first hang on a high note; then suddenly tumbling an octave, they roar a bassoon-like challenge in unison like a lot of enraged bulls. Nearer and nearer, as if challenging us with these hoarse sounds, came a large body of soldiery; we could distinctly see the bright cluster of banners round the squadron commander. Pushing through the clouds of dust which floated high above ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... the bassoon and the key-bugles burst forth; the evening hymn, which always opened the service, had begun, and every one must now ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... languished a little when the present Duke in his youth insisted upon having his own operas played there, and it is said one day, in a fury, from his place in the orchestra, when he attended a rehearsal, broke a bassoon on the head of the Chapel Master, who was conducting, and led too slow; and during which time the Duchess Sophia wrote domestic comedies, which must have been very dreary to witness. But the Prince executes his music in private now, and the Duchess only gives away her plays to the foreigners of distinction ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... cacophony of smells, ranging from the heavily oppressive odour of the Dutch cheeses and the Gruyeres to the alkaline pungency of the Olivets. From the Cantal, the Cheshire, and the goats' milk cheeses there seemed to come a deep breath like the sound of a bassoon, amidst which the sharp, sudden whiffs of the Neufchatels, the Troyes, and the Mont d'Ors contributed short, detached notes. And then the different odours appeared to mingle one with another, the reek of the Limbourgs, the Port Saluts, the Geromes, ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... meridian of a warm summer's day, when from the inn of old Gaspar Varni, underneath the heights of Sorento, might have been heard the sound of viols, and the deep notes of the bassoon ringing clear from amidst the clash of merry voices. Music and careless mirth, the never failing concomitants of an Italian holiday, were here in full ascendency; for the birthday of the portly host happening to fall on the anniversary of St. Geronimo, the yearly ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... and a stop diapason, principal, 12th, 15th, ses-quialtia, cornet, clarion, trumpet. Choir organ, two diapasons, principal, 15th, flute, bassoon. Swell, two diapasons, principal, cornet, ...
— A Walk through Leicester - being a Guide to Strangers • Susanna Watts
... Their discordant symphonies roused me to desperation. I seized a bucket of slops, and; opening the window, dashed the contents in the direction of the music; the full force of the deluge striking a fat, froggy-looking little Dutchman, who was puffing and blowing at a bassoon infinitely larger than himself. He was just launching out into a prodigious strain, but it expired while yet in the bloom of youth. He remained for a short time in the famous posture of the Colossus ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... are crickets shrilling Beyond the deep bassoon of frogs. They cease for a moment As the rattling clangor Of the trolley Bumps by. I hear footsteps Hollow on the pavement Now deserted And blank of sound. They die. The crickets now are sleeping; Even the ...
— Spectra - A Book of Poetic Experiments • Arthur Ficke
... accordion, seraphina[obs3], concertina; humming top. flute, fife, piccolo, flageolet; clarinet, claronet[obs3]; basset horn, corno di bassetto[obs3], oboe, hautboy, cor Anglais[Fr], corno Inglese[obs3], bassoon, double bassoon, contrafagotto[obs3], serpent, bass clarinet; bagpipes, union pipes; musette, ocarina, Pandean pipes; reed instrument; sirene[obs3], pipe, pitch-pipe; sourdet[obs3]; whistle, catcall; doodlesack[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... women of La Paz. In another row are the dealers in Indian blankets; still another is devoted to such trinkets as one might expect to find in a "needle-and-thread" shop at home. There are stolid Aymara peddlers with scores of bamboo flutes varying in size from a piccolo to a bassoon; the hat merchants, with piles of freshly made native felts, warranted to last for at least a year; and vendors of aniline dyes. The fabrics which have come to us from Inca times are colored with beautifully soft vegetable dyes. Among Inca ruins one may ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham |
