"Contralto" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Jettatura," "Une Nuit de Cleopatre," etc., and then the very diamonds of the crown, "Les Emaux et Camees," "La Symphonie en Blanc Majeure," in which the adjective blanc and blanche is repeated with miraculous felicity in each stanza. And then Contralto,— ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... three prime donne. These were the Signore Steffanone, Bosio, and Tedesco. Its only contralto was the Signora Vietti. There were three tenors—Salvi, Bettini, and Lorini. Badiali and Corradi Setti were the two barytones, while the two bassi were Marini and Coletti. At the head of this extraordinary company was the great contrabassist Bottesini, assisted by Arditi. It would ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... peeping over the bannisters at him, and the vision's eyes were sparkling with a lucent mischief and a wonderful, half-hushed contralto was demanding ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... disappeared into an enormous excavation, and behind the summer-house I happened upon a bear asleep and retreated hurriedly. But on going towards the house I heard a well-known voice. "That is Augusta Holmes singing her opera," I said; "she sings all the different parts—soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass." At this time we were all talking about her, and I stood by the window listening until suddenly a well-known smell interrupted her. It was Ninon's cat that had misconducted herself. A window was ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... the coat, carefully adjusting the collar. Then fingering an imaginary watch-chain, she began. Her face grew grave—her neck seemed to thicken. Her voice was a throaty contralto. ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... not happy. She had not been cleared. She bought and dispersed Bibles, contributed more money to the plate, contralto'd gloriously in all the hymns, but would not tell her soul. In vain Abel Ah Yo wrestled with her. She would not go down on her knees at the penitent form and voice the things of tarnish within her— the ill things of good friends of the old days. "You cannot serve two masters," ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... the high prices paid to fortunate artists in these times may be found in the fact that Alboni, the famous contralto singer, has been engaged to sing at Madrid, at the enormous rate of $400 dollars per day, while Roger, the tenor, who used to sing at the Comic Opera at Paris, and who was transplanted to the Grand Opera to assist in the production of Meyerbeer's "Prophet," has been engaged to sing with her at ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... his violin, and the Van Ness boys produced a banjo and a madolin. Everybody seemed to sing at least fairly well, and some of the voices were really fine. Patty's sweet soprano received many compliments, as also did Elise's full, clear contralto. The girls were accustomed to singing together, and Mr. Pauvret proved himself a true musician by ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... good school until she was sixteen years of age, since which time she had stayed at home with her mother, and assisted her in the house work. Alice had continued her education, however. She had a natural gift for music and possessed a fine contralto voice. She had quite a local reputation as a pianist and was constantly in demand to sing at concerts. She was more than ordinarily intelligent too, and was a lover of good books. Added to this she attended classes ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... work surprised. Her own voice was contralto, but it would have taken her a week to learn to sing a second from the notes, and she had never dreamt ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... were solemn and almost hieratic. The heroine, who wore her gown as though it were a Greek peplus, with arm uplifted, and head lowered, was nothing else but Antigone, and she smiled with a smile of eternal sacrifice, carefully modulating the lower notes of her beautiful contralto voice. The heavy father walked about like a fencing-master, with automatic gestures, a funereal dignity,—romanticism in a frock-coat. The juvenile lead gulped and gasped and squeezed out a sob or two. The ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... highly accomplished. In the evening, having refused several distinguished guests, but instantly yielding to the request of Lord Monmouth, she sang. It was impossible to conceive a contralto of more thrilling power, or an execution more worthy of the voice. Coningsby, who was not experienced in fine singing, listened as if to a supernatural lay, but all agreed it was of the highest class of nature ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... picnickers gathered about the dying bonfires for a "sing-song." This always included all the songs they loved best, the songs Mr. and Mrs. Lee had known in their youth and the songs of the present day. And Aunt Josephine's rich contralto ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... a husband and two children," Aline Goring murmured, in her soft contralto. "You remember Eugene? At the Springs that summer?" The husband, a tall, smooth-shaven, young man with glasses and the delicate air of the steam-heated American scholar ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... her deep majestic contralto, accompanied by my own thin and quavering soprano, were sending out into the silent air the holy notes which to me are like the reverberations ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... design of which was that of the Violono or Double Bass already referred to. The next and most important step was in all probability to make the common Geige or three-stringed Fiddle of the same shape as these Tenor and Contralto Viols, thus handing to us the present-shaped Violin. In the MS. notes of Lancetti, reference is made to a three-stringed Violin in the collection of Count Cozio di Salabue, which throws some light ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... Otello—the tone with which she gave the words "Sul mio sasso," in the Capuletti—is ringing in my memory yet. Her lower tones were absolutely miraculous. Her voice embraced three complete octaves, extending from the contralto D to the D upper soprano, and, though sufficiently powerful to have filled the San Carlos, executed, with the minutest precision, every difficulty of vocal composition-ascending and descending scales, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... that this Vittoria was no other than the famous singer, Vittoria Tesi, "a contralto of masculine strength," as one listener describes her voice. She was very dramatic, and made her chief success in men's roles, singing bass songs transposed an octave higher. She was born at Florence in 1690, and would have been seventeen years old when Haendel's ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... iconostasis was aflame with innumerable candles, which surrounded a large one in the centre wound in a narrow strip of gilt paper. The church lustre was dotted with candles, joyful melodies of volunteer singers with roaring bass and piercing contralto mingled with the ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... we feared that we should be do-re-mi-ou'd past endurance. Instead of which, scraps of the gayest of ballads float over the knoll in the evening, and the Infant's little shrill pipe is being inoculated with real music, via Mother Goose melodies sung in a delightfully subdued contralto. ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... a rich contralto voice which had been carefully cultivated. Every evening in the twilight, with only the flickering of the wood fire in the room, she would sit at the piano and sing. Lane would close his eyes and let the mellow voice ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... the effect that I fancied rejoicing angels whispering their songs to the winds that played so gently around us. One of the voices was a soprano of much sweetness and flexibility, for it ascended the scale with great ease, and its higher notes were flutelike. The other was a contralto of no mean order. And there joined in chorus with these, two male voices, evidently well trained, and of ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... exceedingly sweet and rich; an uncommon contralto; and when she sang one of these hymns, it came with its fall power. Mrs. Armadale heard her, and murmured a "Praise the Lord!" And Charity, getting the breakfast, heard her; and made ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... sudden the girl gave a tiny scream and grabbed the old boy around the neck. 'Oh, father, father!' she says, kind of contralto, 'can this be true? Have you taken money that is not yours? Speak, father!' It made you shiver to hear the tremolo stop ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... this interminable refrain, drawn out in a youthful nasal contralto, Fleming knocked. The girl instantly appeared, holding the ring in her fingers. "I reckoned it was you," she said, with an affected briskness, to conceal her evident dislike at parting with the ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... place. To us, who had been nurtured on its broad bosom,[1] there was something almost pathetic—as in meeting an old nurse in much reduced circumstances—about this trickle among the peat and moss. Lower down, however, it widened, and the water poured over granite boulders, with a bell-like contralto note, into a ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... contralto sings in the organ loft, The carpenter dresses his plank—the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp, The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving dinner, The pilot seizes the king-pin—he heaves down with a strong arm, The mate stands ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... then the murmur seemed about to break into a little tune, and as if in emulation, or because he remembered his part in the music, a blackbird, perched near to his mate, whose nest was in the hawthorns growing out of the tumbled wall, began to sing a joyful lay in a rich round contralto, soft and deep as velvet. 'All nature,' he said, 'is talking or singing. This is talking and singing time. But my heart can speak to no one, and I seek places where no one will come.' And he began to ask if God would answer his prayer if he prayed ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... filling her dance orders first and playing the lead in theatricals, and Rena Drew was more prominent, president of the class and the debating society, and the proud owner of the strongest voice in the school quartette, a fine big contralto which wrapped itself round Judith's small, clear soprano at public appearances and nearly extinguished it. Willard, the most eligible of the boys, was Judith's unquestioned property, otherwise nothing distinguished ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... went [in 1836, when twenty years of age] to New Orleans, and sang until, owing perhaps to my youth, to change of climate, or to a too great strain upon the upper register of my voice, which, as his wife's voice was a contralto, it was more to Mr. Maeder's interest to use, than the lower one, I found my voice suddenly failing me. In my unhappiness I went to ask counsel and advice of Mr. Caldwell, the manager of the chief New Orleans theatre, He at once said to me, "You ought ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... approaching quickly. How youthful and self-reliant her voice sounded! The sweet, girlish contralto jarred painfully upon at least two of our tense, waiting group. And Belle continued ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... tintinabulation &c v.; reflexion [Brit.], reflection, reverberation; echo, reecho; zap, zot [Coll.]; buzz (hiss) 409. low note, base note, bass note, flat note, grave note, deep note; bass; basso, basso profondo [It]; baritone, barytone^; contralto. [device to cause resonance] echo chamber, resonator. [ringing in the ears] tinnitus [Med.]. [devices which make a resonating sound] bell, doorbell, buzzer; gong, cymbals (musical instruments) 417. [physical resonance] sympathetic vibrations; natural frequency, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Pasta!" cried Chateau-Renaud, entering the stalls immediately on the descent of the curtain. "Heard you ever such a magnificent contralto?" ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... one of their deadly musical evenings, with about three second-rate professionals, and a sprinkling of local talent. The Misses Hillier play the harp and violin, with particularly red arms and bony elbows, their sister-in-law sings in a throaty contralto, and the ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... establishment of the Demoiselles Denis, the chevalier was not thinking of uniting the three thousand livres which this generous mother gave to her daughters to the thousand crowns a year which the Abbe Brigaud had bestowed on him. The shrill treble of Mademoiselle Emilie, the contralto of Mademoiselle Athenais, the accompaniment of both, had recalled to his recollection the pure and flexible voice and the distinguished execution of his neighbor. Thanks to that singular power which a great preoccupation gives us over exterior objects, the chevalier had escaped from the charivari ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... Providence in his first seeing Martha Fullington in one of these rare hours at church. She was truly a fine, wholesome woman. The daughter of a small town Congregational minister of the best New England stock, she had always been healthy in body and mind. She possessed an unusual contralto voice, and came to Buffalo at twenty-two for special training. Helpful letters of introduction, with her pleasing self and good voice, rapidly secured her friends and a position in a fashionable church-choir. Here Kent heard her in a short but effectively ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... and her past; but Hugh had an inkling that there had been some deep disappointment in the background, which had turned a passionately affectionate nature into a fastidious and critical temperament. She had a wonderful contralto voice, and a real genius for music; she could rarely be persuaded to touch an instrument; but occasionally, with a small and familiar party, she would sing a few old songs with a passion and a depth of melancholy feeling that produced ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... is right for Tweedle-dum is wrong for Tweedle-dee," sang Peggy in her sweet contralto voice, Polly following ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... not allow it, and how she wanted him to do so. She kept her head steadfastly averted. The meeting dragged on. Men rose and spoke and prayed, at intervals the out-of-tune piano was invoked. A woman behind Maria sang contralto with a curious effect, as if her head were in a tin-pail. There were odd, dull, metallic echoes about it which filled the whole chapel. The woman's daughter had some cheap perfume on her handkerchief, and she was ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... almost if not quite as much difference between the larynx of a barytone and of a tenor as between that of an ordinary man who is not a public voice-user and the larynx of the ordinary woman. The larynx of the contralto may in its size and general development remind one of the same organ in the male. The vocal bands of the bass singer may be to those of a soprano as are the strings of a violoncello to those of a violin—using these examples, it will be understood, ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... was a naked laughing boy, with a fine contralto that rang out so merrily through all the din as to create something of a sensation in the hotel. A young woman, one of the guests, came out upon the balcony to look, and exclaimed: 'That boy's voice is RED'—whereat everybody smiled. Under ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... in bold, though not unfriendly curiosity, which, undoubtedly, I reciprocated. She was evidently sizing me up. I smiled, and she screwed her full, sensitive mouth into a judicial expression, puckering her forehead; then, in a deep, contralto voice, she spoke. What she said I didn't hear, or rather didn't grasp, in my wonder at the quality and timbre of that great voice, which, issuing from the folds of the checked apron, seemed fairly to fill the big hall below and the stair-well ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... no such performer in the Western wilderness as the brilliant young woman in the lovely black silk, whose fingers went flashing over the keys, and whose voice came carolling forth in rich and wonderful notes. It was a contralto, or at least a deep mezzo, and the songs she sung were well adapted to its low and feeling tones. Mr. Holmes stood over her much of the time as she played, and applauded heartily when she had sung. "I did not expect to find such a nightingale ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... in some adjacent den, there floated a tenor aria, the Bella figlia del amore, pierced suddenly and beautifully by a contralto's rich voice. ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... She was in a corner of the room—quite empty—the other waiters were on the terrace. She weighed his appearance and smiled mysteriously; her smile, her glance, and her scarlet gowns were her dramatic assets. Then she spoke in a low voice—a contralto like the darker tones of an ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... done to it on the stage at the Royalty, but there are two morceaux in it which ought to become popular; one being a song entitled "Her Eye," which, were it wedded to serious words, would be highly popular as a contralto song, just as SULLIVAN'S charming "Hush a bye Bacon," in Cox and Box, became "Birds of the Night." Then the Gavotte in this book is as graceful and catching as the Gavotte de Louis Treize, and would be in great request with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... you about, who is going to marry my cousin Giovanni, Prince Della Robbia's younger brother," said Idina Bland to her companion; "the Miss Grant who has been so much talked about here." Idina had a contralto voice, with tones in it almost as deep as those of a very young man. It was musical, and gave an effect of careful training, as if she had studied voice-production and had become self-conscious ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... was a rich contralto voice, that of a boy rather than a man, the slight blur of the South distinguishable even in ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... paid her no special attention. She was sufficiently occupied in aiding the helpless blind man beside her, and repeating for his benefit the names of their fellow-guests. As the large party talked at the top of its lungs, Miriam's quiet voice, with its liquid, almost contralto, quality, reached her companion's ears unheard by others. She began with Bishop Endsleigh who was on Miss Jarrott's right. Then came Mrs. Stephen Colfax; after her Mr. Endsleigh Jarrott, who had on his right Mrs. Reginald Pole. Mrs. Pole's neighbor was Charles Conquest, whom she shared with ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... to her ears, as if the noise distressed her, then dropped them, straightened herself resolutely, and answered in a pleasant contralto, whose rich ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... thousand. My third argument you will surely appreciate. Paint is more artistic." Here Jack paused to give his words effect; then proceeded like one walking on stilts. "Pure tones symphoniously gradated from contralto shadows to the tender brightness of the upper registers and harmoniously blended with the ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... must have observed how different are the songs sung by different brooks. Some are a mere tinkling, others are sweet as silver bells, with a tone besides which no bell ever had. Some sing in a careless, defiant tone. This one sung in a veiled voice, a contralto muffled in the hollows of overhanging banks, with a low, deep, musical gurgle in some of the stony eddies, in which a straw would float for days and nights till a flood came, borne round and round in a funnel-hearted ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... the Piazzetta of St. Mark, the moon comes up above the waters of the Adriatic and hangs serenely over the lagoons. No pen can justly describe such a sight—only a Claude Lorraine could paint it. Glancing gondolas on their noiseless track cut the silvery ripples; a sweet contralto voice, with guitar accompaniment, salutes the ear; stately palaces cast long, mysterious shadows upon the water; the Bridge of Sighs arches the canal between the palace and prison close at hand; oddly-rigged craft from the far East float lazily at anchor in the open harbor; the domes of lofty ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... and there floated out a voice of the kind that in his childhood he used to call "creamy" a full, true contralto; and this is the song that he ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... contralto voice was raised above the rest. "You are unethical, Savarona, to announce such a thing before adapting ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... low pitched and had the mellow sweetness peculiar to a contralto. But Selpdorf recognised a note in it now which showed him that his wishes were very far from fulfilment. She was loyal and steadfast, qualities that up to the present the Chancellor had found very admirable in his daughter. It is a rare pleasure for men of his type to be able to trust their ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... CONTRALTO (from Ital. contra-alto, i.e. next above the alto), the term for the lowest variety of the female voice, as distinguished from the soprano and mezzo-soprano. Originally it signified, in choral music, the part next ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... Elizabeth feel how necessary it was to be composed; her husband was watching her still. Some one asked her to play; she took her seat at the piano and played one of her most brilliant pieces—to sing, and her rich contralto voice rang out with new passion and power. I tell you even women can only marvel at the power many of the sex preserve over themselves when playing for a great stake, and the least betrayal of look or movement might be full ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... beside her, looking down in his very gentle and individual way. He smoothed the front of his djelabieh, lifted his rose, smelt it, and said in his low contralto voice: ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... you do, Miss Moore?" broke in a charming contralto voice. "You are the very person I wish to see. I can give you some news for your paper. It is not very important, but I thought you might like ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... and rattled till Laura wondered to hear him. It was not the same Pen, yawning in a shooting jacket, in the Fairoaks parlour, who appeared alert and brisk, and smiling and well dressed, in Lady Clavering's drawing-room. Sometimes they had music. Laura had a sweet contralto voice, and sang with Blanche, who had had the best continental instruction, and was charmed to be her friend's mistress. Sometimes Mr. Pen joined in these concerts, or oftener looked sweet upon Miss Blanche as she sang. Sometimes they had ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... vocal gymnasts, and fine actress always, with voice well worn, and Madame Frezzolini, as the last imported celebrity from Europe; her voice, too, is past its prime, but her art is pronounced immaculate, and she is quite a charmer, if we may trust the critics. For contralto there is Vestvali, the dashing tall one, who delights in man's clothes, and sings Charles the Fifth, the baritone (!) rle in "Ernani." There is a delicate new tenor, Labocetta, and another named Maccaferri, and a fresh, universally ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... takes at least two: this excuse would disappear (and incidentally a much-mispronounced word would be eliminated) if the single word quality were to be adopted as the equivalent of timbre. Thus, e.g., the soprano voice singing c' has a quality different from the contralto voice singing ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... is what we have decided to do," continued Schafroff, moving nearer to Lialia, as if the matter were becoming much more complex, "we mean to ask Lida Sanina and Sina Karsavina to sing. Each a solo, first of all, and afterwards a duet. One is a contralto, and the other, a soprano, so that will do nicely. Then I shall play the violin, and afterwards Sarudine might sing, accompanied ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... Avontown," for female voices, "The Minstrel and the King," for male chorus and soloists, and "Sylvania," a wedding cantata recently published. Another vocal work of great merit is an a capella motet, while among her earlier compositions is the scena for contralto and orchestra, entitled "Eilende Wolken," on a text ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... 5, 1906, Mr. Clemens, following a musical recital by his daughter in Norfolk, Conn., addressed her audience on the subject of stage-fright. He thanked the people for making things as easy as possible for his daughter's American debut as a contralto, and then told of his first experience before ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Year that the British public were first charmed by the singing of this admirable American contralto. She sang in London, and successive audiences were quick to confirm the judgments of Sir Joseph Barnby and certain other critics who had heard her only in private. Her advance to the front rank of English singers was exceedingly rapid, and ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... about for a time forgetfulness of his trouble. Amongst the performers was a distant cousin, Cecilia Morland, a young woman rather tall and fully developed; not strikingly beautiful, but with a lovely reddish-brown tint on her face, indicative of healthy, warm, rich pulsations. She possessed a contralto voice, of a quality like that of a blackbird, and it fell to her and to Frank to sing. She was dressed in a fashion perhaps a little more courtly than was usual in the gatherings at Mr Palmer's house, and Frank, as he stood beside her at the piano, could not restrain his eyes from ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... the most entrancing of the arts. Slow and sweet came the plaintive, penetrating sounds, that seemed to pass into his heart and thrill his every nerve. Now they swelled louder, now they almost died away; and now, only touching the strings from time to time, she began to sing in her rich, contralto voice. He could not understand the words, but their burden was clear enough; they were a lament, the lament of some sorrowing woman, the sweet embodiment of an ancient and forgotten grief thus embalmed ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... not odd," she asked, "that we know each other so well, yet have never met until this moment?" Her voice was a rich, deep contralto, and very sweet. ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... I recognized the deep contralto of the voice. "Don't stop to question; there is not a moment ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... children to go home, with a tray on which there was a pitcher of something nice and cold that tasted of orange, and some small doughnuts. Miss Rand sat down on an apple branch, which seat she preferred to a chair, and she sang for them, at Peggy's request, some Scotch songs, in a sweet contralto voice. ...
— Peggy in Her Blue Frock • Eliza Orne White
... she replied in a very throaty contralto that went with her figure and her thousand dollars worth of simple skirt and blouse. "You needn't 'Fix' anything. Just be sure that it's Flying Heels, Moonbeam, and Lady Grace in that order. One, two, three. Do I ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... together to "harmonize" more perfectly, the circle about her touched their glasses while they sang, "For she's a jolly good fellow." Later, when the little supper was almost over, Ethel Elliot, leaning over to lay her hand on Margaret's, began in her rich contralto:— ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... probably, because the dead man might be of his own age within a year, but decidedly impressive. He had gone so far as to imagine her an actress, of the sinuous, well-rounded type, who would address him in a deep contralto, and, if and when she fainted, would sink gracefully on to a couch correctly ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... turned to the piano and sang that glorious hymn, "Lead, Kindly Light." Jack was close beside her, his blue eyes shining with an appreciation of which any woman might be proud, and his baritone in perfect harmony with her rich contralto. The young ladies took the higher part, Frank added his tenor, and even Phil and I leaned heavily on Jarvis's deep bass. My effort was of short duration; a lump gathered in my throat that caused me to turn away. Polly was searching fruitlessly for something to dry the tears that overran her ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... too near the thrasher for his liking and he slips down into the brush. And then, by rare good fortune, a blue-bird begins his song. He has been chided by some because he has a magnificent contralto voice and scarcely ever uses it. Have we not been taught to chide the man who hides his talent in a napkin, or his light under a bushel? But how he can sing when he does sing! This is one of the mornings. ...
— Some Spring Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... Cowfold, she had a tub, and used it too with constant soap and water. With her lessons she did not succeed, more particularly with arithmetic, which she abhorred. Sometimes they were done, sometimes left undone, but she never failed in history. Her voice was a contralto of most remarkable power, strong enough to fill a cathedral, but altogether undisciplined. She was fond of music, and the organist at the church offered to teach her with his own daughters, if she would ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... you have not been at Mellor long?" the new-comer asked, in a deep contralto voice which she dragged ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... seat, was silent, listening with an inscrutable intentness to the three voices that ran on. He marveled at the way they kept it up. When his mother's light soprano broke, breathless for a moment, on a top note, Mrs. Randall's rich, guttural contralto came to its support, Mr. Randall supplying a running accompaniment of bass. And now they burst, all three of them, into anecdote and reminiscence, illustrating what they were all agreed about, that Mr. Ransome was a ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... lilies—Lucy's lilies, his Easter decorations. It was by her side the alarmed Curate was made to sit down. It was she who took the foot of the table, and was the gentleman of the house. Her voice was of that class of voice which may be politely called a powerful contralto. Every way she was as alarming a critic as ever was encountered by a Perpetual Curate, or any other young man in trouble. Mr Wentworth said feebly that this was a very unexpected pleasure, as he ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... the piano without being asked, and sang to them for more than an hour. She chose folk-songs and tender melodies—little songs made of tears and laughter, and the simple ballads that never grow old. She had a deep, vibrant contralto voice of splendid range and volume; she sang with rare sympathy, and every word could be ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... the first notes of the well-known aria, and hardly had Roger heard the magnificent contralto of the stranger than he ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... the "Darby and Joan" of the song. They belong to song-land. To accept them I need a piano, a sympathetic contralto voice, a firelight effect, and that sentimental mood in myself, the foundation of which is a good dinner well digested. But there are Darbys and Joans of real flesh and blood to be met with—God bless them, and send more for our example—wholesome living men and women, brave, struggling, souls ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... is an odd vocal performance—a low, croaking trill, preceded by a few longer notes, all delivered in the same key. It is, in fact, a contralto solo divided into brief stanzas, and easily might be mistaken for the grating buzz of an insect, especially if heard at a distance of a few rods. It possesses little or no musical quality, and is perhaps the most curious style of bird minstrelsy ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... her a letter, stating in distinct terms that"—and here she alters her voice until it is highly suggestive of Miss Blake's fine contralto—"'he deemed it expedient for both parties that the present engagement existing between them should be annulled.' Those are Aunt Priscilla's words; what he really meant, I suppose, was that he ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... there are limits which cannot safely be overpassed. Nature rarely suffers one sex really to pass the common boundary and take on the special attributes of the other, seeming only to permit these extreme cases as warning and landmark. The contralto in woman and the tenor in man are delightful, but when the woman's voice is bass or the man's ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... I just this instant came up from dinner," she replied. Her low, contralto tones, quite impersonal, were yet delightful; I could have stood there talking burglars with her till dawn. "Do you wish to come in and make sure that he is not in hiding?" With a half smile for which I didn't blame her, she ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... had changed entirely. Gone were the heavy guttural tones. In their place was a rich, rather throaty contralto. Carnes gave a cry of astonishment and turned his ...
— The Great Drought • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... a woman should show so much intelligence, and so, raising my dorsal spine, I began to rub up against her legs and to purr lovingly with the deepest chords of my contralto voice. ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... I shall faint again? These faints are so unpleasant—really I don't think"—she paused, and when she resumed her voice sounded still deeper, with a true contralto note—"I don't think even death itself can be much more horrible. The sensation of falling, ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... Robusto, in love with Soprano and fated to be left at the post; Tenor Di Grazia, his twin brother; Giovanni Baritono, a Soldier of Fortune; Piccolo, an innkeeper; Fra Tonerero Basso, a priest; Signorina Prima Soprano, a bar maid; Signorina Mezzo, also a bar maid, and Signora Contralto, Piccolo's wife, besides villagers, eight topers, musicians, five couples of rustic brides and grooms, and a dancing bear and his keeper. Let us not forget the mythical mouse and the ribbon from which The Garters were made, ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... learning. She wished, too, to cultivate her voice, and to use it in supporting herself later. She knew she could sing; she loved it, and the instructors at Briarwood encouraged her in the belief that she had a more than ordinarily fine contralto voice. ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... fell together, now soft, now triumphant, harmonizing as if they sung together for years. Dare's second was low, pathetic, and it blended at once with Ruth's clear young contralto. Charles wondered that the others should applaud when the duet was finished. Ruth's voice went best ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... daughter of a Covent Garden upholsterer, and sister of Dr Arne (1710-1778) the composer. Mrs Cibber had a beautiful voice and began her career in opera. She was the original Galatea in Handel's Acis and Galatea, and the contralto arias in the Messiah are said to have been written for her. She played Zarah in Aaron Hill's version of Voltaire's Zaire in 1736, and it was as a tragic actress, not as a singer, that her greatest ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... the last, My philandering days are past. Sing you, in your clear contralto, Songs I write for ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams
... been arranged by a musical society in a town near Glasgow—a suburb of the city. I was to appear with a quartet soprano, contralto, tenor and bass. The two ladies and the tenor greeted me cheerfully enough, and seemed glad to see me—the contralto, indeed, was very friendly, and said she always went to hear me when she had the chance. But the bass was very distant. He glared ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... paddle, Joe. It's all right to talk now." She gave a little laugh of satisfaction and he noted that her voice was contralto and well modulated. "This has been the best night's work yet. Did you ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... darling?" she mused: she was unused to singing babies to sleep. Suddenly a little kindergarten melody she had heard came to her, and she sang softly in her rich, tender contralto the ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... Cherubino's music, the original character of the page, transplanted from French comedy to Italian opera, Mozart's conception of that character, Mozart's specific quality of emotion and specific style of musical utterance, together with the contralto's interpretation of the character and rendering of the music, according to her intellectual capacity, artistic skill, and timbre of voice, have collaborated with the individuality of the hearer. Some of the constituents of the ever-varying product—a product which ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... sad-coloured birds that are gifted with the sweetest of songs. In the bed of the Morogoro River lives a warbler who sings from the late afternoon until dusk, and he is one of the very few birds that have that deep contralto note, the "Jug" of the nightingale. And there are little wrens with drab bodies and crimson tails that live beside the dwellings of men and pick up crumbs from the doors of our tents, and hunt the rose trees for insects. In the thorn bushes of higher altitudes are grey finches that ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... said Marsa, in her rich, warm contralto voice, whose very accents were like a caress, "do you know that, among all those who fought for our country, you are the ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... Portuguese, she spoke French perfectly and English not badly, sang in a melodious contralto voice, drew well for an amateur, carved alabaster vases, and had all kinds of talents. She did not care to sing ballads, ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... singing when this I had heard, and more, Though tears half-blinded me; yes, I remained going on and on, Just as I used me to chord and to sing at the selfsame time! . . . For it's a contralto—my voice is; they'll hear it again here to- night In the psalmody notes that I love more than world or than flesh ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... reality and dreamland, the watcher of the midnight sun gave himself up to the half painful, half delicious sense of being drawn in, absorbed, and lost in infinite imaginings, when the intense stillness around him was broken by the sound of a voice singing, a full, rich contralto, that rang through the air with the clearness of a golden bell. The sweet liquid notes were those of an old Norwegian mountain melody, one of those wildly pathetic folk-songs that seem to hold all the sorrow, wonder, wistfulness, and indescribable yearning of a heart ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... confidence and high spirits, except when asked to do the one thing she could do—sing! Then she became—quite genuinely—a nervous, hesitant, pale little thing. However, the suppliant hostess bore her off, and presently her rich contralto notes passed through the garden, adding to its passion and mystery, and through the open French windows, John could see her standing against the wall near the piano, her head thrown back, her eyes half-closed, her creamy throat ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... Madrigal The Poem of Woman - Marble of Paros A Study of Hands I Imperia II Lacenaire Variations on the Carnival of Venice: I On the Street II On the Lagoons III Carnival IV Moonlight Symphony in White Major Coquetry in Death Heart's Diamond Spring's First Smile Contralto Eyes of Blue The Toreador's Serenade Nostalgia of the Obelisks: I The Obelisk in Paris II The Obelisk in Luxor Veterans of the Old Guard, December 15 Sea-Gloom To a Rose-Coloured Gown The World's ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier |
