"Contralto" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Frothingham, not quite twenty-one, was studying at the Royal Academy of Music, and, according to her friends, promised to excel alike on the piano and the violin, having at the same time a 'really remarkable' contralto voice. Of late the young lady had abandoned singing, rarely used the pianoforte, and seemed satisfied to achieve distinction as a violinist. She had founded an Amateur Quartet Society, whose performances were frequently to be heard at the ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... woman on a high stool turned her long, rather heavy face towards Mr. Pappleworth, and said, in a contralto voice: ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... to the theatre, where we saw La Sonnambula well put on the stage, and well sung and acted by an Italian opera company. The prima donna, contralto, baritone, and bass were all good, but the scenery was occasionally somewhat deficient. The house, which is highly decorated—perhaps too much so for the ladies' dresses—looked well by night, though if it had been full the ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... spite of all that her tyrannical guardian or anybody else can do. This cavatina has been the show piece of hundreds of singers ever since it was written. Signora Giorgi-Righetti, the first Rosina, was a contralto, and sang the music in the key of E, in which it was written. When it became one of Jenny Lind's display airs, it was transposed to F and tricked out with a great abundance of fiorituri. Adelina Patti in her youth used so to overburden its already florid ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... procedure in such cases—but whatever may happen, I shall still be loyal; I shall always have your interests at heart.' Her words faltered and she turned her head away. 'You did love me once, Arthur, I can't forget that.' The contralto voice trembled ever so little, and the gloved hand smoothed gently ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... a voice 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 ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... 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 an almost physical thrill in her audience. ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the slightest demur, joined her friends. Lothair felt agitated, as he could not doubt Theodora was going to sing. And so it was; when Euphrosyne had finished, and the chorus she had inspired had died away, there rose a deep contralto sound, which, though without effort, seemed to Lothair the most thrilling tone he had ever listened to. Deeper and richer, and richer and deeper, it seemed to become, as it wound with exquisite facility through a symphony of delicious sound, until it ended in a passionate burst, which made Lothair's ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... the drawing-room as he let his visitor out. He could hear her playing, and singing in her sweet contralto a tuneful French love-song, ignorant of the hideous crisis that had fallen, ignorant of the awful disaster which had ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... remembrance of an Uncle David who had brought them toys and sweetmeats in a dim past). Aunt Vivie and Mummie used to get up the most amusing Suffrage meetings in the long, narrow garden behind the house; or they combined forces with Lady Maud Parry, and spoke in lilting contralto or mezzo-soprano (with the compliant tenor or baritone of here and there a captive man) across the two gardens. Or somehow they commandeered the Square Garden on the pretext of a vast Garden Party, at which every one talked and laughed at once ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... 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
... people of Ann Veronica's temperament take at times—to the girl in the next cell to her own. She was a large, resilient girl, with a foolish smile, a still more foolish expression of earnestness, and a throaty contralto voice. She was noisy and hilarious and enthusiastic, and her hair was always abominably done. In the chapel she sang with an open-lunged gusto that silenced Ann Veronica altogether, and in the exercising-yard ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... Grimaldi, commonly called Nicolini, had made his first appearance in an opera called 'Pyrrhus and Demetrius,' which was the last attempt to combine English with Italian. His voice was a soprano, but afterwards descended into a fine contralto, and he seems to have been the finest actor of his day. Prices of seats at the opera were raised on his coming from 7s. 6d. to 10s. for pit and boxes, and from 10s. 6d. to 15s. for boxes on the stage. When this paper was written he had appeared also in a new opera on 'Almahide,' and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... When, with her fingers wandering o'er the keys, The white enchantress with the golden hair Breathed all her soul through some unvalued rhyme; Some flower of song that long had lost its bloom; Lo! its dead summer kindled as she sang! The sweet contralto, like the ringdove's coo, Thrilled it with brooding, fond, caressing tones, And the pale minstrel's passion lived again, Tearful and trembling as a dewy rose The wind has shaken till it fills the air With light and fragrance. Such the wondrous charm ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... 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
... warm, full contralto of exquisite culture. It suggested depths of rich sound behind, from which the singer, if she chose, might draw, until the room and the deck and the sea ached with sweetness. I scarcely dared to look in to see who it was, lest I should find it a dream. I stood with my head ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... she was giving involved but lucid directions to the footman who had just admitted her. She went on with these directions regardless of Darrow's entrance, merely fixing her small pale eyes on him while she proceeded, in a deep contralto voice, and a fluent French pronounced with the purest Boston accent, to specify the destination of her bags; and this enabled Darrow to give her back a gaze protracted enough to take in all the ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... Miss Williams Soprano. Hippolytus Madame Vigano Contralto. The Girl Madame de Bombelles Soprano. Theseus ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... 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 in the town for French and German; and had on more ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... 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 think I was ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... thought of one of them that her fateful silence was more full of eloquence than any spoken words could be. She seemed to draw solemn music from every nerve of his body. Oh, droll John Blair! Did those placid, good blue eyes see anything? The deep contralto note of Marion Dearsley's voice ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... stood on the now deserted pavement, exhorting and cheering him, a loud contralto voice vulgarised by an Italian accent ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... for a little before she began. Her eyes showed for a moment over the piano, deep, burning, in-looking; then they veiled; her fingers touched the keys, wandered over them in a few strange, soft chords, paused, wandered again, more firmly and very intimately, and then she sang. Her voice was a good contralto, well balanced, true, of no great range, but within its compass melodious, and having some inexpressible charm of temperament. Frank did not need to strain his ears to hear the words; every one ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... over to the actors with a kind of fatalistic resignation. Accessories of costume and scene meant much more to her than to me. She sat entranced through "Robin Hood" and hung upon the lips of the contralto who sang, "Oh, ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... 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 swelling in the very abandonment ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... 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, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... became, instantly, her foremost charm. It was a deep voice; the profoundest contralto with an illimitable strength ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... whose past lay in mists that never lifted, and whom even the inquisitive Burlingame had been unable to "discover" when he lived in the same house. But then Kitty Tynan was as fond of singing as a canary, and relieved her feelings constantly by this virtuous and becoming means, with her good contralto voice. She was indeed a creature of contradictions; for if ever any one should have had a soprano voice it was she. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... 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 ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... was clad and the rain wetting her face. Under the tin roof, the air was filled with the rattling reverberation of the rain. The woman lifted her head and, with the rain beating down upon her, began singing, her fine contralto voice rising above the rattle of the rain on the roof and going on uninterrupted by the crash of the thunder. She sang of a lover riding through the storm to his mistress. One ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... accepted as a matter-of-course, making apparently no claim whatever upon the smallest share of my attention. When the long and tedious meal was at an end, upon her uncle's suggestion, she seated herself at the piano, and sang in a deep, powerful contralto, Schubert's magnificent arrangement of ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... been listening. The loud contralto cry of the Jewess rose up, with its suggestion of violence and of rough indifference. And ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... crocodiles, with small beryl eyes, that crawl over the green steaming mud; he began to brood over those verses which, drawing music from kiss-stained marble, tell of that curious statue that Gautier compares to a contralto voice, the "monstre charmant" that couches in the porphyry-room of the Louvre. But after a time the book fell from his hand. He grew nervous, and a horrible fit of terror came over him. What if Alan Campbell should be out of England? ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... naturally the last place in the land where he would have expected to meet with one. No air was played—only a few chords were lightly touched by fingers which were evidently expert. Presently a female voice was heard to sing in rich contralto tones. The air was extremely simple, and very beautiful—at least, so thought Oliver, as he leaned against a wall and listened to the words. These, also, were simple enough, but sounded both sweet and sensible to ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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 glees, when Captain Strong's chest was of vast service, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... rather magnificent person, young, 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 placed for ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... of her shoulders and head it seemed to me that she could not take her eyes off Savka's face. To avoid being the third person at this tryst, I decided to go for a walk and got up. But at that moment a nightingale in the wood suddenly uttered two low contralto notes. Half a minute later it gave a tiny high trill and then, having thus tried its voice, began singing. ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... time for the 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
... 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 ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... 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)
... such title as R.A.M. A.R.A.M. and M.R.A.M. we know, but we must protest against this unlawful use of the name of our oldest academy of music. The song is a stirring and dramatic account of how a lost child was recovered by his mother. It is to be declaimed by a contralto. ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... 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 rang ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... living lightning—are wholly wanting. But in it all you feel the deep, measured pulse of a religious conviction that never halts nor doubts. There are grace, ease, beauty, sweetness and exquisite harmony everywhere. In the "Saint Paul," as in his other oratorios, are such arias for the contralto as, "But the Lord is mindful of His own"; for the bass, "God have mercy upon us," and for the tenor, "Be thou faithful unto death." These reveal pure and exalted melody of highest type. It uplifts but ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... in a sweet contralto. "I think I am not mistaken; this is the young lady who arrived last evening, and is registered,"—she looked full in the girl's eyes—"as ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... workers 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. ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... splendid," she said, in her deep contralto, and, as if involuntarily, she held out her ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... could easily have imagined myself in some church of Old England, hearing the royal family prayed for, and listening to the pretty poor sermon delivered with such an English brogue. The people, too, had such Englishy faces and such queer little eccentricities of dress; the young lady that sang contralto in the choir wore a scarf like a man's on her hat. The cathedral isn't much, architecturally, I suppose, but it affected me very solemnly, and I couldn't help feeling that it was as much a part of British power and grandeur as the citadel itself. Over the bishop's seat drooped the flag of a Crimean ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... medicine, and to better result, was able to furnish accompaniments. The concert began, and Piers, who had felt misgivings, was most agreeably surprised. Not only had Bridget a voice, a very sweet mezzo-contralto, but she sang with remarkable feeling. More than once the listener had much ado to keep tears out of his eyes; they were at his throat all the time, and his heart swelled with the passionate emotion which had lurked there to the ruin of his peace. But music, the blessed, the peacemaker ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... his feet sang its queer, crooning moor-song as it rambled onward, chuckling to meet a bed of pebbles somewhere out of sight, whispering mysteriously to the rushes that fringed its banks of peat, deepening to a sudden contralto as it poured over granite boulders into a ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... and 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 alone in ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... as it were, out of the music, and a moment later the Song of the Revolution rolled forth in a flood of triumphant melody, above which Natasha's pure contralto thrilled sweet and strong, till to Arnold's intoxicated senses it seemed like the voice of some angel singing from the sky in the ears of men, and it was not until the hymn had been ended for some moments that he was ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... her mind to stay in the kitchen and then loses her mind. A product of modern society who has for her motto "Dimuendo contralto dumdum," which means, "She who cooks and runs away will live to cook ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... we have sometimes had music in the evening. One of The Teacups, to whom I have slightly referred, is an accomplished pianist, and the two Annexes sing very sweetly together,—the American girl having a clear soprano voice, the English girl a mellow contralto. They had sung several tunes, when the Mistress rang for Avis,—for that is our Delilah's real name. She whispered to the young girl, who blushed and trembled. "Don't be frightened," said the Mistress encouragingly. "I have heard you singing 'Too Young for Love,' ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... been at Mellor long?" the new-comer asked, in a deep contralto voice which she dragged ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sitting. She had to render Glinka's ballad: 'As soon as I knew you ...' She began at once to sing, without changing the attitude of her hands or glancing at the music. Her voice was soft and resonant, a contralto; she uttered the words distinctly and with emphasis, and sang monotonously, with little light and shade, but with intense expression. 'The girl sings with conviction,' said the same dandy sitting behind Aratov, and again he spoke the truth. Shouts of 'Bis!' 'Bravo!' resounded over the room; but she ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... masters to understand and enjoy them. He was an artist through and through, possessing a sweet nor yet an uncultivated voice—a blend between a low tenor and a high baritone—I was almost about to write a "contralto," it was so soft and liquid. Its tones in speech retained to the last their charm. Who that heard them ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... In the contralto aria "He shall feed His flock," in Handel's Messiah, the unaccented word "shall" falls on the most strongly accented note of the bar. If performed thus, it would give a most aggressive character to the passage, ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... on a card, which was affixed to the door by means of a drawing-pin, and from within came the sound of a contralto voice singing to a guitar accompaniment. One by one the male residents of Big Stone Hole drew near to that iron-roofed hut and stopped to listen; but after commenting on the innovation in gleeful ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... ring &c v.; ringing, tintinabulation &c v.; reflexion [Brit.], reflection, reverberation; echo, reecho; zap, zot [Coll.]; buzz (hiss) 409. low note, base note, bass note, flat note, grave note, deep note; bass; basso, basso profondo [It]; baritone, barytone^; contralto. [device to cause resonance] echo chamber, resonator. [ringing in the ears] tinnitus [Med.]. [devices which make a resonating sound] bell, doorbell, buzzer; gong, cymbals (musical instruments) 417. [physical resonance] sympathetic ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Victoria in the attempt to express the grief of widowhood by a profusion of dark dry goods, and she would sit close to the bed, so that Marion would lose nothing of the large face, with its beak nose and its bagging chin and its insulting expression of outraged common sense, or of the strangulated contralto in which she would urge that there was no reason why any sensible gel should not be proud to marry the butler at Torque House. By sheer noisiness she would make Marion cry. The child would doubt again.... Since these things would have happened ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... hear the general's bass raging, but through the inner door came the strident tones of the lieutenant's modulating contralto. He had expected to see the general towering over the girl's shrinking figure, but as he entered she was bent earnestly in the middle, and the top of her torso inclined toward General Morrison, who had tilted as far back as his swivel chair ...
— A Fine Fix • R. C. Noll
... 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 ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... seclusion was by no means so complete as he expected. He presently was aware of a camp-meeting hymn hummed somewhat ostentatiously by a deep contralto voice, which he at once recognized as Melinda's, and saw that severe virgin proceeding from the kitchen along the ridge until within a few paces of the buckeyes, when she stopped and, with her hand shading her eyes, apparently began to examine the distant fields. She ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... sorry to be late," said a new voice, a rich, sweet contralto, and a stout woman with a kindly, florid face swept through the doorway. "Why, what is the matter?" she demanded hurriedly, confronting the ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... 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, ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... next moment, Rosemary found herself in the living-room, offering a rough, red hand to an exquisite creature who seemed a blurred mass of pale green and burnished gold, redolent of violets, and who murmured, in a beautifully modulated contralto: "How do you do, Miss Starr! I am very ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... she was declaiming, in a husky contralto, as Verkan Vall and Marnik entered, "foul even for the criminal beasts who conceived and perpetrated it!" She pointed an accusing finger. "This murder of the beautiful ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... too which follows, "He made us," is most fervent in expression. There is a fine field here for beautiful contralto voices ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... behind (for the moon, her work done, had retired again) came guffaws, and gurgles, and wails of laughter. The three men in the automobile eyed each other inquiringly. The laughter drew nearer. They could distinguish, amid mirth unmistakably negroid, a beautiful contralto voice demanding. "Did you see 'em skedaddle, Lige? Oh, wasn't it glorious! Riding on their stomachs, their ears, any old way. Holding on ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... from her 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 ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... to the pleasure of the soldiers, also serving for sacred music when needed. Mr. Blandner's lute, my piano, and Mrs. Gamble's soprano voice, joined to that of a Confederate tenor or bass, or my own contralto, made delicious music. Concerts, tableaux, plays, etc., were also given for the benefit of refugees or to raise money to send boxes to the front: at all these I assisted, but had no time for rehearsals, etc. I could only run over and sing my song or songs and ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... backwards. For three long hours you have a succession of dreary monotonous strains, forming portions of a chant, to you unintelligible, broken at intervals by a passage of intonation. There is no organ or instrumental music, and the absence of contralto voices is poorly compensated for by the unnatural accents of the Papal ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... you to the priest? Quite so." She laughed softly, her voice a mellow contralto. "The Father has been gone for a month; he wouldn't have let you ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... being filled up rapidly and a pleasant noise circulated in the auditorium. She came back and spoke to her husband privately. Their conversation was evidently about Kathleen for they both glanced at her often as she stood chatting to one of her Nationalist friends, Miss Healy, the contralto. An unknown solitary woman with a pale face walked through the room. The women followed with keen eyes the faded blue dress which was stretched upon a meagre body. Someone said that she ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... spoke I heard a sweet contralto voice in the adjoining room break out into a song from one of the popular revues. It ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... was a rich contralto voice, that of a boy rather than a man, the slight blur of the South distinguishable even in those ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... "Jettatura," "Une Nuit de Cléopâtre," etc., and then the very diamonds of the crown, "Les Emaux et Camées," "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
... 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 ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... playing and 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 or ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... in the damp, unused "best room," which was devoid of fire for economic reasons. Her aunt was seated in the window busily crocheting, while she, with her white fingers running across the keys, raised her sweet contralto voice in that old-world Florentine song that for centuries has been sung by the populace in the streets of the ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... Topsy Cooney, the famous coloured pianist, who plays only on the black keys and entirely by ear; Little Dinky, the marvellous calculating boy, who does not know the names of the numbers; and Elaine Runnymede, the child contralto, who can only sing the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various
... Interviewer's Item The Women of the West The Silent General President Hayes's Speeches St. Louis Memoranda Nights on the Mississippi Upon our Own Land Edgar Poe's Significance Beethoven's Septette A Hint of Wild Nature Loafing in the Woods A Contralto Voice Seeing Niagara to Advantage Jaunting to Canada Sunday with the Insane Reminiscence of Elias Hicks Grand Native Growth A Zollverein between the U. S. and Canada The St. Lawrence Line The Savage Saguenay Capes Eternity and Trinity Chicoutimi, and Ha-ha Bay The Inhabitants—Good Living ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... above a book held open upon his knee, the shape of which bespoke a Bible; while on the other side a bevy of children were romping with their dogs or playing with sharp knives in the hard ground. A woman over by the gate lifted a sweet contralto voice in an old-time love-song, and had hardly lilted the opening line before others joined her, making the night resound to the tender melody. I saw the soldiers pause in their work to beat time, and marked the dark forms of the sentries above on the palisades as they leaned ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... truth of, certify. konstituci-o constitution. konstru-i to build. konsul-o consul. konsult-i to seek advice of, consult. kont-o account (book-keeping, commercial). kontent-a content, satisfied. kontinent-o continent (geographical). kontrakt-i to contract, agree. kontralt-o contralto. kontraux (prep.), against, opposite, opposed to (159, 160). kontrol-i to control, inspect, examine and check. kontur-o outline, contour. kontuz-i to bruise. konven-i to be suitable, be fitting or convenient. konvink-i to convince, ...
— A Complete Grammar of Esperanto • Ivy Kellerman
... castle walls—something between humming and singing—listlessly unequal and intermittent, like the melody of a man whiling away the hours over his work. While she was wondering at this unwonted minstrelsy, there came a silence, and—could she believe her ears?—it certainly was Una's clear low contralto—softly singing a bar or two from the window. Then once more silence—and then again the strange manly voice, faintly chaunting ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... between the melody of the hermit and woodthrush? Both are gifted singers whose notes, rising serene in far mountain haunts, touch our spirits like a prayer. The melody of the woodthrush is not so wild, so ethereal and so far away as the hermit's, but when he rings his vesper bell in his divine contralto voice, no other sound in Nature can excel it. We have heard many nightingales and skylarks singing, but their songs do not attain that depth of soul-thrilling harmony found alone in the song of the thrush. So, too, here in the lovely Catskill region, you will ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... 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
... bridge yesterday, a ride to Tarrytown), Out of the papers. I watchfully waited, Yearning a coup that would place him on the Musical map. A coup, such as kissing a Marshal Joffre, Aeroplaning over the bay, Diving with Annette Kellerman. Then for three days I quit the city To get a simple contralto into the western papers. Returning I entered my office; the phone jangled. The burly tenor was tearfully sobbing and moaning over the wire; Tremor and emotion choked his throat. This was his ominous message: A taxicab accident ...
— The Broadway Anthology • Edward L. Bernays, Samuel Hoffenstein, Walter J. Kingsley, Murdock Pemberton
... strange, deep ring in her rich contralto voice. 'Yis, he belongs to me now—leastways he's my pal ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... river for playthings, by her tall brothers the mountains; and the voices of pines and cedars answered, all singing the same high song in the same language—the language of Nature. Only, they sang in different tones and different keys—soprano and contralto, tenor and bass. The song was so sweet that no one could think of anything else, unless it might be of love; for the song told of ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... from a man's not only in pitch but in timbre; its quality suggests the sex. There is great scope for variety, from the lowest contralto to the highest soprano, as there is in man's from the lowest bass to the highest tenor; a variety so great that voices differ as much as faces and can be instantly recognized; but unless it has the proper sexual quality a voice affects us disagreeably. A coarse, harsh voice has marred many ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... than of Bob's, for the hood of the cape was upturned into a cowl, and even in Switzerland the stars are only stars. But while I peered she let me hear her voice, and a very rich one it was—almost deep in tone—the voice of a woman who would sing contralto. ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... 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 ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... was to be varied, as usual upon such occasions, by local talent. Leila MacDonald, who sang contralto in the church choir, and Mrs. Arthur Wells, who sang soprano, and Mrs. Jack Evarts, who played the piano very well, and Miss Sally Anderson, who had taken lessons in elocution, all had their parts, besides the president of the club, Mrs. Wilbur Edes, who ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... man, an artificial soprano, although it might be a hero—like Hercules, for example. The subject had to be classical, and the denouement happy. There were invariably six principal characters, three men and three women. The first woman was always a high soprano; the second or third a contralto; the first man, always the hero of the piece, an artificial soprano. The second man might be an artificial soprano or a contralto. The third man might be a bass or tenor. But it was not at all unusual to confide all the male parts to artificial sopranos. Each ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... voice trilled out merrily in a slightly foreign accent, while the contralto tones vibrated on the ear like ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... an obliging spirit. She at once began, in a low contralto voice, "I cannot sing the ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... 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 ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... Italian opera-singer, was born at Cesena, Romagna, and was trained in music at Bologna, where she became a pupil of Rossini. She had a magnificent contralto voice, and in 1843 made her first appearance at La Scala, Milan, being recognized at once as a public favourite. In England her reputation was established by her appearance at Covent Garden in 1847, and she had brilliant success all over Europe ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... soap, swinging from poles over open fires in the yard; they spread out long webs of jeans and linen on the grass to dry or bleach, and all the while they sang—sang the measured rhythm of familiar hymns in the high soprano of white women—sang wild, plaintive lyrics in the liquid contralto of negresses. Men were repairing fences, and doing other Winter work in the fields, and from the woods came the ringing staccato of choppers. She met on the road leisurely-traveling negro women, ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... She was the 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 triumphs were won. From Colley Cibber she learned a sing-song ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... Vincent. Every word they spoke betrayed the difference between them: the sharp tones of Lurida's head-voice, penetrative, aggressive, sometimes irritating, revealed the corresponding traits of mental and moral character; the quiet, conversational contralto of Euthymia was the index of a nature restful ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... romance in 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, cadences, or fiorituri. In the final of the Somnambula, she brought about ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... or an Italian air, merry or sad, in a voice which may be either tenor, contralto, ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... closed. 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 ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... sing. Listening to her, I could well believe in the far-famed Orpheus lute. It was enough to bewilder any man. She had a sweet, rich voice, a contralto of no ordinary merit, and the way in which she used it was ...
— Coralie • Charlotte M. Braeme
... the kitchen and dining room and into the living room, for he had recognized Penny Crain's sweet, husky contralto. ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... beaded dancing dresses, advanced, waving green boughs, and, halting in front of the returning impi, sang a song of welcome. Their voices were melodious and pleasing to the last degree, imparting a singular charm to the somewhat monotonous repetition of the wild chant—now in a soft musical contralto, now shrilling aloft in a note of pealing gladness. Laurence, who was beginning to feel vividly interested in this strange race of valiant fighters, failed not to note that many of these girls were of extraordinarily prepossessing appearance, with their tall, beautiful ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... 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 ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... rapid, and the rendering of the events in the high-priest's hall—Peter's bass recitative alternating its craven protestations with the clamorous agitato chorus of the servants—is stirring in the extreme. The contralto aria describing the Lord's turning and looking upon Peter is followed by the orchestra with a lament in B-flat minor, introducing the bass aria of the repentant and remorse-stricken disciple, "O God, my God, forsake me not." ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... 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
... captain) pealed like thunder. Just as it died away a second girl took up the melody, very sweetly, but with a little more excitement,—it was like a gleam of moonlight on the still agitated waters, a strange contralto witch-gleam; and then again the chorus and the storm; and then another solo yet sweeter, sadder, and stranger,—the movement continually increasing, until all was fast, and wild, and mad,—a locomotive quickstep, ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... 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
... borne to the grave by six stalwart negroes, laborers on the estate. A lad followed, leading poor Thurlow's favorite horse. Then the widow and her son, the relatives, friends, and family servants. A fine male quartet sang "Nearer, my God, to Thee," and a soul-stirring contralto, "Asleep in Jesus." Tears stood in the eyes of all, the negroes weeping openly and uncontrollably. As the grave was filled in, the snow began to fall in real earnest, gusts of wind lashing the pines into fury. It was the beginning of a three ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... 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 ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... good-looking,' pursued Jasper, meditatively, with a quick glance at the listener, 'but fairly intellectual. Plays very well, and has a nice contralto voice; she sang that new thing of Tosti's—what do you call it? I thought her rather masculine when I first saw her, but the impression wears off when one knows her better. She rather takes to ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... 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 (!) role in "Ernani." There is a delicate new tenor, Labocetta, and another named Maccaferri, and a fresh, universally admired baritone, Gassier; and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... little hand organ, a healthy-looking red-cheeked girl of eighteen, wearing a tucked-up striped skirt, and a Tyrolese hat with ribbons. In spite of the chorus in the other room, she was singing some servants' hall song in a rather husky contralto, to the ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of 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 ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... soul fed perpetually among cabinets and picture-galleries, to whom their compact method of utterance is, so to speak, secondarily natural. That they are precious and beauteous no one can deny. How sparkling are the successive descriptions of women—blonde, brune, Spanish, contralto-voiced, coquettish, etc.—whom the poet, like some capricious artist, invites into his atelier, drapes hastily with old Moorish or Venetian or diaphanous costumes, and then reflects in a diminishing mirror, changing the model into a fine statuette of ivory and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... wearing a bright red dress with blue stripes. Her face was painted thickly and unskillfully, her brow was hidden under her hair, and there was an unblinking, frightened stare in her eyes. As she came in, she began at once singing some song in a coarse, powerful contralto. After her a fourth appeared, and ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... upon Jack: I do not think he even heard it. His handsome, colorless face, albeit a trifle worn and thoughtful, was inscrutable. Only once, during the singing of a hymn, at a certain note in the contralto's voice, there crept into his dark eyes a look of wistful tenderness, so yearning and yet so hopeless, that those who were watching him felt their own glisten. Yet I retain a very vivid remembrance of his standing up to receive the benediction, with the ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... There was a certain girl, the daughter of the shoe merchant, who (temporarily) displaced the image of Agnes in the niche of my shrine, and to roll the platter for her at a "sociable" was a very high honor indeed, and there was another, a glorious contralto singer, much older than I—but there—I must not claim to have even attracted her eyes, and my meetings with Millie were so few and so public that I cannot claim to have ever conversed with her. They were all ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... me informed me, in tones which would have lent a charm to the driest of statistical details, what the hour was. I had never before been impressed with any particular interest attaching to the hour of three in the morning, but as I heard it announced in those low, rich, thrilling contralto tones, it appeared fairly to coruscate with previously latent suggestions of romance and poetry, which, if somewhat vague, were very pleasing. Turning out the gas that I might the more easily imagine the bewitching presence which the voice suggested, I went back ...
— With The Eyes Shut - 1898 • Edward Bellamy |
