"Composer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Shakspeare, although his bones repose far away, in the little church at Stratford-on-Avon. Then I saw the tombs of David Garrick, the great actor and delineator of Shakspeare's characters; George Frederick Handel, the eminent composer, the author of that beautiful anthem, "I know that my Redeemer liveth;" the great Milton; rare old Ben Jonson; Edmund Spenser, author of the "Faery Queene;" and those of Southey, Dryden, Addison, Gray, Campbell, and other well-known ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... Telegraphs. A burly, jolly Dutchman stood drinks all round to members of the Russian and English Banks alike, and a French sage-femme just arrived discussed her prospects with the hotel proprietress. The Shah's A.D.C. and favourite music-composer and pianist came frequently to enliven the evenings with some really magnificent playing, and by way of diversion some wild Belgian employees of the derelict sugar-factory used almost nightly to cover with insults a notable "Chevalier d'industrie" ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... exclaimed Gluck, triumphantly, "it is not only the composer who forgets to sleep for the sake of this opera. And what said ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... any English composer who has not yet contributed to the wave of music and dance which is now sweeping the country the writer offers the following as the basis of an entirely new and original dance, strictly national in character and full of that quaint old rustic, not to say ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various
... was of some importance to her. Besides, by craning her neck a little to avoid the hat of the rather strikingly dressed young woman in front of her, she could, at least, see the stage. The programme which she held in one hand announced that Miss Agatha Ismay would sing a certain aria from a great composer's oratorio, and she leaned further forward in her chair when a girl of about her own age, which was twenty-four, slowly advanced to the ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... Grimaldina; or, Female Clown, the next novelty in Pantomime, dedicated to the author and composer of L'Enfant ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, May 9, 1891 • Various
... mention has been made, was one of two sisters, both sufficiently noted for their artistic gifts to have found a place in the new Dictionary of National Biography. The elder, Eliza or Lizzie, was a musical composer; the younger, best known as Sarah Flower Adams, a writer of sacred verse. Her songs and hymns, including the well-known 'Nearer, my God, to Thee', were often set to music by her sister.* They sang, I am told, delightfully together, and often without accompaniment, their ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... little whether the chiefs of music number two only, or whether they may be so many as four or five. Indeed, it may be admitted at once that the list would need to be widely extended before it would include the name of any composer who was not a ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... melt, in accordance with chemical law. The orchestra in the gallery leaped suddenly into the rag-time without whose accompaniment it was impossible, anywhere in the civilized world, to dine correctly. That rag-time, committed, I suppose, originally by some well-intentioned if banal composer in the privacy of his study one night, had spread over the whole universe of restaurants like a pest, to the exasperation of the sensitive, but evidently to the joy of correct diners. Joy shone in the elated eyes of the ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... patient now—generally—and quite determined to make a name for himself as a composer. But he seems to me extraordinarily frail. Do you remember that lovely French poem of Sully Prudhomme's I read you one night—'Le Vase Brise'? The vase has had a blow. No one knew of it. But the little crack widens and grows. The ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in cold sheet one of the loftiest passages of a great composer before a man sensitive to music, but who does not know one note from the other, and he looks at it with indifference. You put the sheet before a gifted organist seated at his instrument; and as the melody rolls forth in swells of power, then in cadences ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... a composer of books I would keep a register of divers deaths, which, in teaching me to die, should afterwards teach ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... legs before admiring thousands over the back seat of a Golden Chariot. In a dearth of comic songs for the banjo and guitar, I had written two or three myself, and the idea took possession of me that I might be a clown, introduced as a character-song-man and the composer of ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... hour at night. She carried the violin to Sintons' on Saturday and practised all the time she could there, while Margaret watched the road to see that Mrs. Comstock was not coming. She had become so skilful that it was a delight to hear her play music of any composer, but when she played her own, that was joy inexpressible, for then the wind blew, the water rippled, the Limberlost sang her songs of sunshine, shadow, ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... M. Ludovic Halevy, and in the twenty years since then their names have been linked together on the title-pages of two score or more plays of all kinds—drama, comedy, farce, opera, operetta and ballet. M. Meilhac's new partner was the nephew of the Halevy who is best known out of France as the composer of the Jewess, and he was the son of M. Leon Halevy, poet, philosopher and playwright. Two years younger than M. Henri Meilhac, M. Ludovic Halevy held a place in the French civil service until 1858, when he resigned ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... carved on his tombstone in St. Andrew's churchyard. He is best known as the composer of the ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... absence of traditionary music in England opened the heart of the country to strains more ambitious and classical. However it came about, there is no denying that so it was. If there was any Scottish composer at all, his productions were only imitations or modifications of the old airs. Music continued to be represented by the songs of immemorial attraction, the woodnotes wild of nameless minstrels, pure utterance of the soil. Perhaps the absence of music, except in the kindred shape of ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... and finally Marquis of Halifax by Charles the Second, and became one of the leading statesmen of the seventeenth century. One of his grandsons was the witty Earl of Chesterfield; another descendant was Henry Carey, the writer and composer of "Sally in our Alley". On the death of the second marquis, without male issue, the title became extinct, and the estate with the Savile baronetcy passed to a somewhat distant kinsman, whose collateral descendant ...
— The Dukeries • R. Murray Gilchrist
... they had run across two or three amusing but unassorted people, and the Princess, having fused them in a jolly lunch, had followed it up by a bout at baccarat, and, finally hunting down an eminent composer who had just arrived to rehearse a new production, had insisted on his asking the party to tea, and treating them to fragments of ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... cry of those four notes; and one listens, one trembles, one feels that they were to come before they are there, and when they have come, one can but shake and know their force." He stopped and took his cigarette from between his lips. "Mon Dieu," he cried violently, "of what was the composer thinking when he beat out those bars? When you shall play them you shall take only your forefinger and draw all your strength within it, and when the notes shriek in pain you shall have one secret of passion ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... highly organized structures proceed from those of lower organization, and these again form the inorganic under the influence of meteors and stars. The poet laureate Conrad Celtes (b. 1459), a singer of love and composer of four books about it, was a true poet. His incessant wandering, for he was always moving from place to place, was due in part to love of Nature and of novelty, but still more to a desire to spread his own ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... Paris, at one of its recent concerts, gave a piece of original Russian music, called the "Song of the Cherubim," by BORTNIANSKY, a composer who has written a good deal for the Imperial Chapel at St. Petersburg. It is a chorus without accompaniment, and is spoken of by the critics as most original and striking, in fact unlike any thing familiar to Western or Southern ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... reflections of the soul of a nation but were expressions of the creative Will—the Od of Baron Reichenbach—and were in fact not effects but causes. Not only did he claim this for the avowed philosophers, but also, in some degree, for every writer, composer, painter or sculptor. In Russian literature he perceived a foreshadowing of the doom of Tzardom and imminent catastrophe. In the literature of France and England he sought to divine the future. The fervent imperialism of Kipling stirred his emotions, but left him spiritually ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... merely the spleen of a rival composer. But many years after in Vienna I heard a concert given over exclusively to the performance of certain posthumous manuscripts of Schubert. Among the rest were selections from an unfinished opera—"Rosemonde," ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... current, the swiftness with which he modulates these moods into one another, is the measure of his power. The violinist who plays best is the one who sings the most things together in his playing. He listens to his own bow, to the heart of his audience, and to the soul of the composer all at once. His instrument sings a singing that blends them together. The effect of their being together is called art. The effect of their being together is produced by the fact that they are together, that they are born and living and dying together in the man himself while the strings are ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... could; so the programme was changed. The frog is a diligent songster, having a good voice but no ear. The libretto of his favorite opera, as written by Aristophanes, is brief, simple and effective—"brekekex-koax"; the music is apparently by that eminent composer, Richard Wagner. Horses have a frog in each hoof—a thoughtful provision of nature, enabling them to shine ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... me fairest flowers;" Morley, whose "Now is the month of Maying" is so modern in its air, that it is introduced as the finale of one of our most popular operas, the Duenna; and Michael Este, the composer of the beautiful trio, "How merrily we live that Shepherds be." This music retains all its original freshness, and has been listened to, age ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various
... these hosts of claqueurs, and victory usually crowned the efforts of M. Auguste, who was careful to arrogate to himself the results of the evening's proceedings. "What a splendid success I have achieved!" he would say; completely ignoring the efforts of the composer, the artists of the theatre, and the manager, who were perhaps entitled to some share of ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... the best minds in the world, and thus any great musical composition is an intellectual achievement of high rank. Behind the sensuous factors, sound and rhythm, lies always the personal message of the composer, and if we are to grasp this and to make it our own, we must go with him hand in hand so that the music actually lives again in our minds and imaginations. The practical inference from this dual nature of the art we are considering is clear; everyone can derive a large amount of genuine pleasure ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... that luxury. As he caught sight of it the young fellow's face brightened gaily. He stepped back a little way, leaned against a linden, and sang, in the drawling tone peculiar to the west of France, the following Breton ditty, published by Bruguiere, a composer to whom we are indebted for many charming melodies. In Brittany, the young villagers sing this song to all newly-married couples on ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... well-known Britishers who have given their lives for their country. There was Rupert Brooke, the poet; Denis Browne, formerly musical critic of The Times; F. S. Kelly, holder of the Diamond Sculls record, who also was an exceptionally clever composer and pianist; and Arthur Waldene St. Clair Tisdall, a great scholar and poet of Cambridge. He was awarded the Victoria Cross for his valour on the 25th of April, at Gallipoli, for going to the rescue of wounded men on the beach. To ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... commemoration in the Cathedral at Reims of the triumph of the peasant-girl of Domremy. He was a schoolfellow at St.-Sulpice and has been a lifelong friend of Gounod, and upon his suggestion the great French composer produced for the commemoration his Mass of Jeanne d'Arc. He came from Paris himself to superintend the execution of the music. Simple, grand, choral, in the manner of Palestrina, music of the cathedral, not of the concert, I must leave my readers to imagine what its effect was beneath those ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... gallantry under heavy fire. He took his chances in the bullet and shell fire at Koeniggraetz, and again on the afternoon of Gravelotte. Not a Hohenzollern of them all but shared as became their race in the dangers of the great war of 1870-71; even Prince George, the music composer, the only non-soldier of the family, took the field. William's noble son, whose premature death neither Germany nor England has yet ceased to deplore, took the lead of one army; his nephew Prince Frederick Charles, a great commander ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... and Lady Mary Duncan. By them I was placed for education in the Irish Convent, Rue du Bacq, Faubourg St. Germain, at Paris, where the immortal Sacchini, the instructor of the Queen, gave me lessons in music. Pleased with my progress, the celebrated composer, when one day teaching Marie Antoinette, so highly overrated to that illustrious lady my infant natural talents and acquired science in his art, in the presence of her very shadow, the Princesse de Lamballe, as to excite in Her Majesty an eager desire for the ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... drooping at the corners; the baroness Tefting, little, exquisite, pale—she was everywhere seen with the artiste; the famous lawyer Ryazanov; and Volodya Chaplinsky, a rich young man of the world, a composer-dilettante, the author of several darling little ballads and many witticisms upon the topics of the day, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... advertisement of Dr. LOUIS ENGEL's new book from Handel to Halle. "It will be interesting," says the Baron, "to note how much of HANDEL's popularity was due to that particular inspiration of genius which caused him to use the name of the future composer and pianist in one of his greatest works, namely, the celebrated 'Hallelujah Chorus.' For this magnificent effort would have been only half the chorus it is without 'HALLE' ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various
... known in musical and literary circles as a composer and author died in London early in January. He possessed considerable taste and feeling, and produced ballads and concerted pieces of much sweetness. As a dramatic author, his efforts were principally confined to performances of a light ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... alias, closely associated with the operatic and musical professions, and most appropriate to the line he has adopted, in the name of "SIGNOR COSTA." The melody of Mr. CHEVALIER's "Coster's Serenade," of which, I rather think, he is the composer as well as librettist, is as charming as it is strikingly original. After the Chevalier sans peur et sans approche had retired, clever and sprightly Miss JENNY HILL gave as a taste of lodging-house-keeperism, following whom came the Two MACS belabouring ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various
... old church was crowded to the last inch of space, although admission was by ticket. Facing the chancel were the thirty famous women singers of Goeteborg, their cantor a woman, and the noted woman organist and composer, Elfrida Andree, who composed the music for the occasion. In the center of all was the little black-robed minister. It was said by many to be the most wonderful sermon of her life and after the service was over the pastor, with tears rolling down his cheeks, went ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... sublime struggle of Hamlet into the image of his own unhappy weakness. Hazlitt by no means escaped its influence. Only the third of that great trio, Lamb, appears almost always to have rendered the conception of the composer. ...
— Poetry for Poetry's Sake - An Inaugural Lecture Delivered on June 5, 1901 • A. C. Bradley
... JOKERS.—TOM COOKE was the leader and composer at the Theatres Royal, and a remarkable performer on a penny trumpet. He occasionally made use of this toy in his pantomime introductions. He was also ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... Ave Maria. Its pathos was of the past, and after she had finished, as we fled into the open air, we were conscious of having turned our backs irrevocably yet determinedly upon an era whose life and convictions the music of the composer so beautifully expressed. And the sister's sweet withered face was reminiscent of a missal, one bright with colour, and still shining faintly. A missal in a ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... noble interpretation of the composer's musical idea, flowed forth at the leader's touch, as if each motive and phrase, each period and melody, were waiting somewhere in the air to reveal itself at his slight signal. And through all the movement of the Allegro con brio, with its momentous struggle between Fate and the Human Soul, ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... to yield to the other when the right moment comes.[3] The feet must never use the pedals so as to make the harmonies mingle wrongly, but at just the right moment must make the strings sing together as the composer desires. The thoughts can never for a single moment wander from the playing; they must remain faithful, preparing what is to come and commanding the hands to do exactly the right task in the right way. That shows us, you see, the ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper
... I am out of spirits, and it does me good. Don't you like the old-fashioned ones best? I fancy, in those days, people felt more what they wrote, and did not consider only how the words would suit the composer." ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... cause, is oft follow'd by tears; 'Tis certainly well to keep them from plums; But certainly not from sucking their thumbs! If a babe suck his thumb 'Tis an ease to his gum; A comfort; a boon; a calmer of grief; A friend in his need—affording relief; A solace; a good; a soother of pain; A composer to sleep; a charm; ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... probably within the temple's precincts, and, as the passage which records this fact is broken, it is possible that the missing portion of the text recorded the building of shrines to other deities. In any case, it is clear that the composer of the text represents all the great gods as beholding the erection and inauguration of Ningirsu's new temple ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... George Herbert Rodwell, the celebrated composer and writer, was removed from among the living. His musical compositions and stage ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Such a simply sumptuous storyette for you! Even in your remote fastnesses you must have heard of young Ivan Rowdidowsky, the very very latest thing in Russian composer-pianists. Playing the piano with his elbows, dressed in scarlet velvet, and fuller of "inner meanings" than anyone (even from Russia) ever was before, he captured London at the beginning of the Little Season, and his vogue has been colossal. He gave twelve elbow-recitals ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various
... other day I called at the studio unexpectedly to ask for something I'd forgotten, and found Harry improvising at the piano—you know that way he has of improvising from memory—an inaccurate memory—of some well-known composer. I've never known him do it except when he wanted to—please some woman. Well, Lady Walmer was there, leaning over the piano and listening. Should you think from that he's keen, as you call ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... stillness, and from his grave the dead magician began to weave his spells about his disciples and steep their souls in his enchantments. There was something strangely impressive in the fancy which kept intruding itself that the composer was conscious in his grave of what was going on here, and that these divine souls were the clothing of thoughts which were at this moment passing through his brain, and not recognized and familiar ones which had issued from it at ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... movement of the air and the tone of the voice are exquisitely harmonious, though we regard not one word of what we hear, yet the power of the melody is so busy in the heart, that we naturally annex ideas to it of our own creation, and, in some sort, become ourselves the poet to the composer; and what poet is so dull as not to be charmed with the child of his own fancy? So that there is even a kind of language in agreeable sounds, which, like the aspect of beauty, without words, speaks ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... front row of the upper circle a woman with a restless starling-voice was discussing the work of a temporarily fashionable composer, chiefly in relation to her own emotions, which she seemed to think might prove generally interesting ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... think I remember to have heard, two or three years ago, of an action for damages brought against an eminent composer, on account of plagiarism in a musical composition; and that the defendant's argument was founded on the fact, that there exist very few really "original compositions," if originality excludes every ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 67, February 8, 1851 • Various
... Emperor Charles, had chosen him to be director of her lessons in singing, and also permitted him to write German letters for her; and what assistance worthy of all gratitude he had enjoyed through the director of the imperial musicians, Gombert, the composer and leader of the royal orchestra, and his colleague Appenzelder, who directed the Queen's ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... his contemporary, Ghirlandajo, was a stronger one. His strength came more from assimilation than from invention. He combined in his work all the art learning of his time. He drew well, handled drapery simply and beautifully, was a good composer, and, for Florence, a good colorist. In addition, his temperament was robust, his style dignified, even grand, and his execution wonderfully free. He was the most important of the fifteenth-century technicians, without having any peculiar distinction or ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... (or it might be more correct to say composer and author, for in this case music preceded words), Rouget de Lisle—a young aristocrat and an artillery officer—had as a friend a citizen of Strasbourg, to whose house, in the early days of the Revolution, he came on a visit one evening. The tired guest was cordially welcomed by ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey
... voice echoed over the cemetery as he was approaching the end of his discourse. "The six feet of earth" was repeated again and again, like the refrain upon which a good composer will hang a whole symphony; and each time it seemed to make a deeper impression. The account in the evening papers might perhaps be slightly exaggerated, when it said that not an eye was dry; but certain is it that many wept, and not only women, but men also. ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... that useful ability. Nor had he been able to spend less than he earned; so, suddenly, there he was on his beam-ends. Leisure to write, certainly, was now abundant enough; but he never was a rapid composer, and even had he been so, the market for the kind of things he wrote was, in the middle of the past century, in New England, neither large nor eager. The emoluments were meagre to match; twenty ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... journey at Boston, they went from Newport to Petersham, in the highlands of Worcester County, where they were the guests of Mr. and Mrs. John Fiske, at their summer home. Among the other visitors were the eminent musical composer Mr. Paine, the poet Cranch, and daughters of Hawthorne and Longfellow, so that they found themselves in the midst of a particularly cheerful and delightful party. From Petersham they proceeded to Buffalo, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... that, like me, she is intensely musical. She plays beautifully on the piano, and we had long hours together playing Chopin and Beethoven; we also played some of Moussorgsky's duets, but I love her best when she plays Chopin, the composer pre-eminent ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... month, is a very good scholar, and whatever study he undertakes masters it most surprisingly. He began with the riddle last year, and now plays everything at sight." [In after years Lord Mornington acquired considerable distinction as a composer.] ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... is richly suggestive of the psycho-analytic basic aroma which pervades the entire scenario. The absence of a Coda in the Funeral March which concludes the ballet is an exquisitely pathetic touch which could only have occurred to a composer of genius. The orchestration is sumptuous and sonorous, the usual instruments being supplemented by two Glory Quayle-horns, a quartet of Laxey-phones with rotating C and C sharp crooks, a Manx harp with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 15, 1920 • Various
... The composer of an American ragtime song is to have a statue erected to him in New York. It is hoped that this warning will have the desired effect on any composers in this country who may be tempted to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... composer of Der Freischutz, said of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony: "The extravagances of genius have reached the limit; Beethoven is now ripe for an asylum." Of the opening phrase, on a reiterated "e," the Abbe Stadler ...
— Concerning the Spiritual in Art • Wassily Kandinsky
... symbolised their kings under this emblem, the honey indicating the reward they gave to the well-doers, and the sting the punishment they inflicted on the evil. More than 300 golden bees were found in the tomb of Childeric, A.D. 1653. Offer your song to some composer. Sometimes they are in request; more frequently there are more offered than are required. All depends on the fancy of the composer. Only two questions are allowed, and the answers given at the discretion of the Editor. We regret that you ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 356, October 23, 1886. • Various
... the right spirit, and place ourselves in a receptive attitude when listening to it to understand his message. Often metaphysical, particularly in the work of his later years, his meaning will be revealed only when we devote to it earnest and sympathetic study. No other composer demands so much of one; no other rewards the student so richly for the effort required. The making a fact the subject of thought vitalizes it. It is as if the master had said to the aspirant: "I ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... timid; he led a detached life, hence his art was bold and violent. Unlike Liszt he seldom sought the glamor of the theatre, and was never in such public view as his maternal admirer, Sand. He was Frederic Francois Chopin, composer, teacher of piano and a lyric genius of the ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... artistic discussions; she was afraid not. Even when she succeeded in picking up the thread of an idea, it soon got tangled with another, and she began to fear she would never know why Herve was a better composer than Offenbach, and why a certain quintette was written on classical lines and such-like. She asked Montgomery to explain things to her, but he was more anxious to speak of his own music, and when the names of the ladies of the company were being run ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... of things had endured for two weeks, and the symphonic poem was progressing as well as its composer had any reason to expect. Already it was bidding fair to rival the Alan Overture and Mr. Barrett began to carry his nose tilted at an angle higher than ever, as if in imagination he already scented the fresh laurels in store for him. Pride ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... in this movement was an eminent Italian composer born twenty miles from Rome. His full name was Giovanni Pietro Aloysio da Palestrina, and at that time he was in the prime of his powers. He was master of polyphonic music as well as plain-song, and he proposed applying it to grace the older mode, preserving the solemn beauty of the chant ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... opportunity, and who produced some charming and even joyous songs during the long struggle with tuberculosis which preceded his death, had made a brave beginning, not only as a teacher of music but as a composer. In the little service held at Hull-House in his memory, when the children sang his composition, "How Sweet is the Shepherd's Sweet Lot," it was hard to realize that such an interpretive pastoral ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... gradually gained pre-eminence, so that, although virtually unknown during the war, he came into high regard. Benjamin Britten, the British composer who set nine of Owen's works as the text of his "War Requiem" (shortly after the Second World War), called Owen "by far our greatest war poet, and one of the most original poets of this century." ...
— Poems • Wilfred Owen
... it. So long ago as the times of Pope Adrian I. a Dutch school of music was established under the tuition of Italian masters, and it compared favourably with the contemporary schools of other nations. Even in the ninth century Holland produced a composer famous in the annals of music in the person of the monk Huchbald of St. Amand, in Flanders. He it was who changed the notation, and arranged the time by marking the worth of each note, and he is also remembered for his 'Organum,' the ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... France: "I visited the Eiffel Tower at the invitation of Eiffel. We went to the top, where there was an extension and a small place in which was Eiffel's private office. In this was a piano. When my wife and I arrived at the top, we found that Gounod, the composer, was there. We stayed a couple of hours, and Gounod sang and played for us. We spent a day at Meudon, an old palace given by the government to Jansen, the astronomer. He occupied three rooms, and there were 300. He had the grand ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... musicians insisted that Wagner was not a composer. They declared that he produced only a succession of discordant noises. I account for this by the fact that the music of Wagner was not German. His countrymen could not understand it. They had to be educated. There was no orchestra in Germany ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... reassured, and became more amiable when he told her that not only did he know about music, but wrote it into the bargain: that flattered her vanity: it would be a good thing to spread about the neighborhood that her daughter was taking lessons with a composer. ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... how could you? . . . When the books were written by city-dwelling men. Then, too, is not any production of the creative arts—a poem, a story, a play, a painting, or a statue—but a reflection of the composer's soul? So . . . when you read a book filled with inhuman characters, you have taken the measure of the man who wrote it, you have seen a reflection of the author's soul. Furthermore, when people exclaim: "What's the matter with the movies?" ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... prevailing metrical unit, or foot, within the line has been frankly given over. Iambs, dactyls, and their ilk receive scant courtesy from the composer of folk-song, who without qualm or quaver will stretch one syllable, or even an utter silence (caesura), into the time of a complete bar; while in the next breath he will with equal equanimity huddle a dozen syllables into the same period. ...
— A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk-Songs • Hubert G. Shearin
... that the composer of this particular musical selection with its light accompaniment was psychologically abnormal; that is, he was affected with colored audition. It is not yet established to what extent normal persons are similarly affected by light and color. Certainly there is no ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... author, the work of God, that interested him more than the book—the work of man; the painter more than the picture; the composer more than the music. "If a writer, a painter, or a musician makes me feel that he held those things to be lovable which I myself hold to be lovable I am satisfied; art is only interesting in so far as it reveals ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... a careful composer. He allows himself many liberties, which betray a want of respect for his reader. For instance, he is too fond of inversions; i.e. he often places the verb before the substantive, and the accusative before the verb. W. Scott ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... times are no doubt the most important fundamental entities of it, and may even lie undiscoverably at the root of all varieties of rhythm whatsoever, and further they may be the only possible or permissible rhythms for a modern composer to use, but yet the absolute dominion which they now enjoy over all music lies rather in their practical necessity and convenience (since it is only by attending to them that the elaboration of modern harmonic music is possible), than in ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges
... fed in the scholar by memories of past glory, in the peasant by intense local attachment, and kindled from time to time in all by the reaction of gross wrongs and moral privations. Sometimes in conversation, oftener in secret musing, now in the eloquent outburst of the composer, and now in the adjuration of the poet or the vow of the revolutionist, this latent spirit has found expression. Again and again, spasmodic and abortive meutes, the calm protest of a D'Azeglio and the fanaticism of an Orsini, sacrifices of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... whose genius they are better suited than to the British. An analogy may be observed between all the different departments of the belles lettres; and none seem more closely allied, than the pursuits of the dramatic writer, and those of the composer of romances or novels. Both deal in fictitious adventure; both write for amusement; and address themselves nearly to the same class of admirers. Nay, although the pride of the dramatist may be offended by the assertion, it would seem, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... to dances and crushes, in short, to every possible kind of diversion and frivolity that the gay world of London could devise. He went steadily on with his letters. More photographers wanted him to sit to them. Would he accept the dedication of "The Squire's Daughter Fantasia"? The composer of "The Starry Night Valses" would like a lithographic portrait of Mr. Lionel Moore to appear on the cover. A humble admirer of Mr. Lionel Moore's great impersonation of Harry Thornhill begged to forward the enclosed acrostic, and might he be allowed to print it in ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... inglenook which is the basis of the Bluebeard libretto. Strauss's symphony is worked out along more tranquil lines, to be sure, but it is only the history of a single day of married life and a day arbitrarily chosen by the composer. It is conceivable that there may have been ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... table, where every delicacy was sumptuously served up in profusion: a grand concert, too, was given in the chapel-royal, under the direction of the chief musician, the celebrated Haydn; whose famous piece, called the Creation, was performed on this occasion, in a stile worthy of that admirable composer, and particularly gratifying to those distinguished amateurs of musical science, Sir William Hamilton and his most accomplished lady. The prince and princess had, a few years before, during a residence of several months at Naples, received such polite attentions ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... This was the first serious attempt at a biography of Chopin. The author reproduced in the book what had been brought to light in Polish magazines and other publications regarding Chopin's life by various countrymen of the composer, among whom he himself was not the least notable. But the most valuable ingredients are, no doubt, the Chopin letters which the author obtained from the composer's relatives, with whom he was acquainted. While gratefully acknowledging ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... woman who had given her thoughts form, who had indeed started her thinking of the inadequacy of her life. The brother, a studious, quiet man, worked as a chemist in a manufacturing plant somewhere at the edge of town. He was a musician and wanted to become a composer. One evening during the winter his sister Kate had brought Clara to the apartment where the two lived, and the three had become friends. Clara had learned something there that she did not yet understand ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... is the one instrument which they know and understand, and it has been in use among the Norwegians for hundreds of years. Their most famous violin-player, Ole Bull, who died some few years ago, was looked on as a great composer and musician. But all over the country there are to be found men who can play after a fashion; and a century or so ago, when the people were still very superstitious, they fully believed that anyone ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... several songs have been arranged for the pianoforte, which will enhance its value to the musical part of the public. I am indebted for this to an able composer,* who has performed his task in so masterly a manner that the hearer is not unlikely to forget the poet in the melody of ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... few familiar allusions to an unknown period of history, and a half-destroyed fresco by an early master, varied every now and then with a reference to the fugues or toccatas of a quite-forgotten composer. ...
— Every Man His Own Poet - Or, The Inspired Singer's Recipe Book • Newdigate Prizeman
... was not aware that they had ever been printed. She wrote them down merely by ear, and afterwards translated Me cal Mouri into English (see page 57). The ballad was very popular, and was set to music. She did not then know the name of the composer, but when she ascertained that the poet was "one Jasmin of Agen," she resolved to go out of her way and call upon him, when on her journey to the Pyrenees about two years later.{3} She had already heard much about ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... sure he was safe with Tanrade. Frequently, too, when the maker of ballets was locked in his domain and his servant had strict orders to admit no one—neither Monsieur le Cure nor the mayor, nor so intimate a comrade as myself—during such hours as these the little boy was generally beside the composer, his chubby toes scarcely reaching to the rungs of the ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... doubtful word has to be looked up in the dictionary, and newly acquired knowledge concerning participles and personal pronouns duly applied, letter-writing is a serious business. Sometimes a page was copied three times before it met with the critical approval of the composer. ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... have been contemporary with Rama, namely, Visvamitra, Atri and Agastya, are frequently mentioned in the hymns of the Rig-Veda; whilst Valmiki, the sage dwelling at Chitra-kuta, is said to have been himself the composer of the Ramayana. Again, the sage Atri, whom Rama visited immediately after his departure from Chitra-kuta, appears in the genealogical list preserved in the Maha Bharata, as the progenitor of the Moon, and consequently ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... musician, and great composer was taken ill of a fever, which assumed the continued form, with a gradual increase of the symptoms. On the second day he fell into a very violent delirium, almost constantly accompanied by cries, tears, terrors, and a perpetual watchfulness. The third day of his delirium one of those natural instincts, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... Jim Crow, 1832. Straaten,(Flem.) - Streets. Stracks - Straight ahead, or onwards. Straight flush - In poker, all the cards of one suit. Strassen,(Ger.) - Streets. Strauss - Name of the celebrated Viennese valse player and composer. Strumpf,(Ger.) - Stocking. Stunden,(Ger.) - Leagues. About four and a half English miles. Sturm und Drang,(Ger.) - Literally Storm and Violence. Sturm und Drang periode, signifying a particular period of German literature. Sweynheim and Pannartz - The first printers ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... y obtient par l'entremise de la Mre de Dieu vont jusqu'au miracle. Comme il faudroit composer un livre entier pour dcrire toutes ces faveurs extraordinaires, je n'en rapporterai que deux, ayant t tmoin oculaire de l'une et propre sujet de ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... secret chamber, intending to hide the money which he expected to receive from the whip. Then he said, "Whip, give me a hundred!" and thereupon the whip gave him more than he looked for, making a score on his legs and face like a musical composer, so that Lise, hearing his cries, came running to the spot; and when he saw that the whip, like a runaway horse, could not stop itself, he opened the little box and brought it to a standstill. Then he asked ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... a very different sort of pleasure that I listened to the Chevalier Neukomm, the celebrated composer of "David," which has been so popular in our country. I heard him improvise on the orgue expressif, and afterward on a great organ which has just been built here by Cavaille for the cathedral of Ajaccio. Full, sustained, ardent, yet exact, the stream, of his thought bears with it the attention ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... supple and strong, struck in great chords the air of a gloomy march from the half-forgotten muse of some monastic composer. While she played, Claude de Chauxville proceeded with his delicate touch to play on the hidden chords of ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... with which he bought land and house and tithes at Stratford, must have been his share in the takings of the theatre—a share which would doubtless increase as the earlier partners disappeared. He must have speedily become the principal man in the firm, combining as he did the work of composer, reviser, and adaptor of plays with that of actor and working partner. We are thus dealing with a temperament or mentality not at all obviously original or masterly, not at all conspicuous at the outset ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... of Handel suggests to most people the sound of music unsurpassed in massiveness and dignity, and the familiar portraits of the composer present us with a man whose external appearance was no less massive and dignified than his music. Countless anecdotes point him out to us as a well-known figure in the life of London during the reigns of Queen Anne and the first ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... a creature of odd feelings. I was, I really believe, in spite of my secret self-disgust, a little flattered to have the attention of these big fellows. I remember particularly a moment of pleasure caused by the praise of Crawshaw—you remember Crawshaw major, the son of Crawshaw the composer?—who said it was the best lie he had ever heard. But at the same time there was a really painful undertow of shame at telling what I felt was indeed a sacred secret. That beast Fawcett made a joke about ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... succeeding Swedish and Saxon dynasties, and through Jesuit instrumentality, religious liberty and national independence were lost, and Poland disappeared from the map of Europe. As a race the Poles boast such names as Copernicus the astronomer, Kosciusko the patriot warrior, and Chopin the composer."[66] ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... composer of this song had uttered it, the Danes rewarded him with the crown. Thus they gave a kingdom for an epitaph, and the weight of a whole empire was presented to a little string of letters. Slender expense for so vast a guerdon! This huge payment for ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... a sudden clangour among the bass-notes—the music seemed to be jumbled into confusion, and the ear was stunned by a painful and intolerable dissonance. On looking more intently, he perceived that the composer had let one hand fall abstractedly upon the key-board, while the other executed, by itself, a passage of extraordinary difficulty and involution. Then, for the first time, the thought struck him that the musician was deaf.[17] Alas! the supposition was too true: Beethoven was cursed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... and, with a chosen car-driver, the wit and fun of the three clever Irishmen was no small treat. The last time I saw either of my two friends was at a dinner-party which Bourke gave at the 'Windham.' We were only four, to make up a whist party; the fourth was Fred Clay, the composer. It is sad to reflect that two of the lot came to violent ends - Keogh, the cheeriest of men in society, by his own hands. Bourke I had often spoken to of the danger he ran in crossing the Phoenix Park nightly ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... the rain fertilises the seed, the sun shines and makes it grow, and when the tree has grown and again bears blossoms and fruit, this fruit is useful to man, is food and not poison to him. Is all this without purpose, without reason? Is it a symphony without a composer? Man, too, needs rain and sunshine, and warmth and darkness; and all this is given to him so that he may live and work and think. What would man be without darkness, without the rest afforded by night? Probably crazy. What would he be without sunshine? Perhaps an Esquimau or a mole. But ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... immense building was filled with the sound. The full organ was played, and some of the priest singers took part. Never did music so overcome me. The sublime piece,—as I thought of Beethoven's, surely of some great composer,—performed in this glorious old cathedral, was beyond all that I had ever dreamt of. It seems to me that I might think of it again in my dying hour with delight. I felt as if it created a new soul in me. Such gushes of sweet sound, such joyful fulness of melody, such tender breathings of ...
— Travellers' Tales • Eliza Lee Follen
... and admirers serious misgivings by his article on Sir EDWARD ELGAR in a new musical journal, Music and Letters. Sir EDWARD ELGAR has a great following; he has written oratorios; he is an O.M.; yet Mr. SHAW salutes him as the greatest English composer, the true lineal descendant of BEETHOVEN, one of the Immortals and the only candidate for Westminster Abbey! To find Mr. SHAW taking a majority view is bad enough; it is a case of proving false to the tradition of a lifetime—a moral suicide. But why drag in BEETHOVEN? So left-handed a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... great composer, once asked him how it happened that his church music was so full of gladness, and Haydn replied, 'I cannot make it otherwise. I write according to the thoughts I feel; when I think upon my God, my heart is so full of joy that the ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... listening to something which belonged originally to Beale Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee. The original "Memphis Blues," so far as it can be credited to a composer, must be credited to Mr. W. C. Handy, a colored ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... and the most ancient was the Delphian, who lived before the Trojan war. The second was the Erythraean, who was said to have been the first composer of acrostic verses, and who also lived before the Trojan war. The third was the Cumaean, who was mentioned by Naevius in his book on the first Punic war, and by Piso in his annals. She is the Sibyl spoken of in the AEneid, and her name was Deiphobe. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... to this rendition of one of her most adored poems with much the same feeling which a composer with an over-sensitive ear would suffer on hearing his pet opus assassinated by a schoolgirl. Albert, who was a willing lad and prepared, if such should be her desire, to plough his way through the entire seven stanzas, began the second verse, but ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... For generations these mountain people have been developing a tenderness and pathos that really grips one's heart. The music was composed by a man by the name of Dedler, about one hundred years ago, and while it gives expression to the composer's tender heart, yet experts say that it reminds them of Hayden and Mozart. The paintings in the building are those of great masters. It took an entire year to paint the scenery for the play in 1910, but they could not afford to spend so much ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... piano fingered a chord tentatively, then struck into a popular song, an appealing little melody, the words a lyric set to music by a composer with a ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... chime, homophony; euphony, euphonism[obs3]; tonality; consonance; consent; part. [Science of harmony] harmony, harmonics; thorough-bass, fundamental- bass; counterpoint; faburden[obs3]. piece of music &c. 415[Fr]; composer, harmonist[obs3], contrapuntist (musician) 416. V. be harmonious &c. adj.; harmonize, chime, symphonize[obs3], transpose; put in tune, tune, accord, string. Adj. harmonious, harmonical[obs3]; in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... is to enable the student to recognize and trace the mental process of the composer in executing his task; to define each factor of the structural design, and its relation to every other factor and to the whole; to determine thus the synthetic meaning of the work, and thereby to increase not only his own appreciation, interest, ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... song was singularly suited to the great, bull voice of its composer, born to the red and become Captain Stransky in the red business of war. It was he who led the thunder of its verses not far from where Peterkin led the ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... or grief. There is no staginess or far-fetched emotion, or artificial scene-painting: the style strikes the right chords of passion or pity, and stamps upon the mind a vivid impression of situation and character. Moreover, the heroic poet, as a composer, had this advantage in early days, that continual recital before an appreciative public must have had the effect of polishing up his best verses, and polishing off his bad ones. As the theme was always some well-known story or personage, it was possible to omit ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... of surpassing interest to the musician. Whatever may be thought the true purpose of music, there can be no question as to one demand made on each individual instrument,—it must produce tones of sensuous beauty. A composer may delight in dissonances; but no instrument of the orchestra may produce harsh or discordant tones. Of beauty of tone the ear is the sole judge; naturally so, for the only appeal of the individual tone is to the ear. Melody, rhythm, ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... by Plato amounts to this, that he makes Socrates compel his friends to admit, 'that it belongs to the same man, how to compose comedy and tragedy, and that he who is by skill a composer of tragedies is also a composer of comedies.' (Sympos fin.) * * * But it is mere confusion to speak of this as anticipation. Plato does not say that there would be any greater combination of the two talents ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... greatest English poet except Shakspere, was born in London in 1608. His father was a scrivener, an educated man, and a musical composer of some merit. At his home Milton was surrounded with all the influences of a refined and well ordered Puritan household of the better class. He inherited his father's musical tastes, and during the latter part of ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... out every where, and who will give one of his latest compositions, though unfortunately labouring under a cold. This man won the first prize at the Conservatory, an unfledged Boildieu, who will be a great composer of operas—when he can get librettos to his music, and music to his librettos. The next is a painter. He has shown at the exhibition—he has had wonderful success. To be sure nobody bought his pictures, because he didn't wish to sell them to people that couldn't appreciate them. In short, M. Lupot ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... "The Spanish composer? Oh, rather! He's coming over about his new opera. He's all right. At least, I bear him rather, but ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... sketches, which can be read in a few moments' time, are intended to give the reader as clear as possible an outline of the great dramatist-composer's work. ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... the pianoforte, and had afterwards played some of them to the poet, who was especially struck with one melody which Grieg had called "Fadrelandssang" ("Song of the Fatherland"). Bjornson there and then, to the composer's great gratification, protested that he must write words to fit the air. (It must be mentioned that each strophe of the melody starts with a refrain consisting of two strongly accented notes, which suggest some vigorous dissyllabic word.) ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... of the national hymn. In the old Pantheon itself, roofed with an awning of white silk which bore the royal arms, flares were burning up to the topmost cornice of the round walls. A temporary altar decorated in white and gold was ablaze with candles, and the choir, conducted by a fashionable composer of opera, were in a golden cage. The King and Queen and royal princes sat in chairs under a velvet canopy, and there were tribunes for cabinet ministers, senators, deputies, and foreign ambassadors. Religion was necessary to all state functions, and the Mass was a magnificent political ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... cultivated his gift to relieve the monotony of an unintellectual occupation, and the usual auditor of his lays was his younger brother Matthew, who for some years was his companion in the workshop. The acquaintance of Robert Archibald Smith, the celebrated musical composer, which he was now fortunate in forming, was the means of stimulating his Muse to higher efforts and of awakening his ambition. Smith was at this period resident in Paisley; and along with one Ross, a teacher ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... musical composer, in his recently published volume on The Philosophy of Modernism in its connection with Music, states that the criterion of lofty music, the method of gauging the spiritual value of art, "is only possible to him who has awakened the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... something else." He draws an analogy from the production of music in which purely physical factors are concerned; the laws of harmonics account for all; but back of all is something that is not mechanical and chemical—there is the mind of the composer, and the performers, and the auditors, and something that takes cognizance of the whole effect. A complete human philosophy cannot be built upon physical science alone. He thinks the evolution of life from ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... lyrics are more subtle, weighted with thought, tinged with autumnal melancholy. He was a most fertile composer, and, like all the men of his time and group, produced too much. Yet his patriotic verse was so admirable in feeling and is still so inspiring to his readers that one cannot wish it less in quantity; and in the field ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... a genuine, systematic knowledge of music might be laid. You might specialise your inquiries either on a particular form of music (such as the symphony), or on the works of a particular composer. At the end of a year of forty-eight weeks of three brief evenings each, combined with a study of programmes and attendances at concerts chosen out of your increasing knowledge, you would really know something about music, even though you ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... letter to Novello, who was the peculiar champion of Mozart and Haydn. Lamb calls him Corelli after Archangelo Corelli (1653-1713), the violinist and composer. It was part of a joke between Lamb and Novello that Lamb should affect to know a great deal about music. See the Elia essay "A Chapter on Ears" for a description of Novello's playing. Mrs. Novello was the mother of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... repeating some unbearably tedious passage on the piano about a hundred times in succession, while Woloda, who was dozing on a settee in the drawing-room, kept addressing no one in particular as he muttered, "Lord! how she murders it! WHAT a musician! WHAT a Beethoven!" (he always pronounced the composer's name with especial irony). "Wrong again! Now—a second time! That's it!" and so on. Meanwhile Katenka and I were sitting by the tea-table, and somehow she began to talk about her favourite subject—love. I was in the ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... do not only consider in Musick these Materials, as I may call them, of which it is composed; but also the Style and Manner. This diversifies the Genius of the Composer, and produces the most sensible and touching Difference. There is in all Musick the natural difference of Tone and Measure. They are to be found in the most vulgar Compositions of a Jig or an Hornpipe. But it is a full Knowledge ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... you next purchase the same composer's "Spinning Song." This may not appeal to you so much at first. It seems to run along very rapidly without any very clearly defined melody. Still, it is by the same composer as the "Spring Song," so it may be worth trying ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... necessity to every spoken play; imagine the effect if Shakespeare or Ibsen had written little pieces of rhyming verse joined up by any jumble of nonsensical prose! Neglect of this fact led every opera composer before Wagner astray. We can imagine a pre-Wagner composer telling his librettist, "Now, mind you arrange that in certain parts the words will allow me to put in arias or choruses." In short, the situation ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... production, more especially when, here and there, it makes faltering attempts at rendering Beethoven's pathos. The means ill befit the intention, and the intention is, on the whole, not sufficiently clear to the listener, because it was never really clear, even in the mind of the composer. But the very injunction that something definite must be imparted, and that this must be done as distinctly as possible, becomes ever more and more essential, the higher, more difficult, and more exacting the class ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... public teacher, and at thirty began the study of music, making such remarkable progress in this art that from the study of one piece he was able to describe the person of the composer, even to his features and the expression of his eyes. His teacher now gave him up. The pupil had passed infinitely beyond his reach. At the next important epoch in the life of Confucius (499 B.C.) he had become one of the chief ministers of the king of Loo. This potentate fell into a dispute ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... philosophy; 'And yet he bore it not about'; not 'as being loth to wear it out,'{1} but because he held that there was a time for all things, and that dinner was the time for joviality, and not for argument; Mr. Minim, the amateur composer of the music for the comedy; Mr. Pallet, the amateur painter of the scenery; and last, not least, the newly-made ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... Switzerland were written during the two years with which he prefaced his quarter-century of labor as composer, director, and virtuoso. They relate much to Italian painting, the music of Passion Week, Swiss scenery, his stay with Goethe, and his brilliant reception in England on his return. They disclose a youth ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... obedience but my particular genius I do embrace it: for even that vulgar and tavern- musick which makes one man merry, another mad, strikes in me a deep fit of devotion, and a profound contemplation of the first composer. There is some- thing in it of divinity more than the ear discovers: it is an hieroglyphical and shadowed lesson of the whole world, and creatures of God,—such a melody to the ear, as the whole world, well understood, would afford the understanding. ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... his audiences. The boy had a keen sense of humour, and always entered heartily into any joke that was made with him, but sometimes he could be very serious, as for instance, when he was called to play for the court composer, George Wagenseil, who was himself a proficient performer on the harpsichord. The Emperor stepped back when Wagenseil came forward, and Mozart said very ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... man gave a careless friendliness to his faded little aunt, and spent long hours with his dreams, creative and subjective, in her garden. For the most part they were dreams of unheard melodies, for Mark Faraday was a composer. So little of his life had been spent in his own country that outside the garden he felt less at home in America than in Florence or Vienna. Yet place mattered little to him. An artist and a creator, his kingdom was within. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... nicety of the Greeks, in the ordering and disposing their dances, I refer to what I have before said, for its being to be observed, how much at present this art is fallen short of their perfection in it, and how difficult it must be for a composer of dances to produce them in that masterly manner they were used to be performed among the antients. Let his talent for invention or composition be never so rich or fertile, it will be impossible for him ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... that lively song. Gunnar Wennerberg, Gluntarra's poet and composer, sings his songs with Boronees,[P] and they acquire a dramatic ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... well known to most of my readers, that in writing these bills the name of the composer generally follows the song, particularly in any ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie |
