"Piece of music" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in one of my own blood. I mean to prove to you, some day, what a true sister I am. I am neither afraid or ashamed to answer your question. I have no grief or sad memory connected with 'Ever of Thee,' any more than with any other sadly beautiful piece of music with ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... Reck'-oned, calculated, counted. 3. Com-pos'er, an author of a piece of music. Or'ches-tra, a body of instrumental musicians. 7. Ap-prove', sanction, allow. 10. De-ject'ed, ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... mode, minor mode; passage, phrase. concord, harmony; emmeleia^; unison, unisonance^; chime, homophony; euphony, euphonism^; tonality; consonance; consent; part. [Science of harmony] harmony, harmonics; thorough-bass, fundamental-bass; counterpoint; faburden^. piece of music &c 415 [Fr.]; composer, harmonist^, contrapuntist (musician) 416. V. be harmonious &c adj.; harmonize, chime, symphonize^, transpose; put in tune, tune, accord, string. Adj. harmonious, harmonical^; in concord &c n., in tune, in concert; unisonant^, concentual^, symphonizing^, isotonic, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... perform a kind of plaintive melancholy dirge in recitative, to sooth their unavailing toil, which, with the accompanyment of the clanking of their irons, is the real voice of wo, and attunes the soul to sympathy and compassion, more than the most elaborate piece of music. ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... it, they went still further, and, whenever they spoke of the fundamental principles of the system, talked nonsense. The greatest advantage of my scheme was to supersede transpositions and keys, so that the same piece of music was noted and transposed at will by means of the change of a single initial letter at the head of the air. These gentlemen had heard from the music—masters of Paris that the method of executing by transposition was a bad one; and on this authority ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... except in so far as they impart correct information about the objects portrayed. Outside of art, sensation is a mere transparent means to the end of communication and recognition. Compare the poem, the piece of music, the artistic drawing or painting. There the words or tones must be not only heard but listened to; the colors and lines not only seen but held in the eye; of themselves, apart from anything they may further mean, they have the power to awaken ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... form for a girl to receive presents from young men, aside from flowers, candy and an occasional book or piece of music. In some circles, to offer a girl a piece of jewelry would be considered insulting. Not until he is engaged to her may a man offer expensive presents. This rule, it is lamentably true, is often violated ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... the French guard rallied and formed upon their flanks; the whole reserve came up; the cuirassiers and lancers charged, by turning the position assailed, and for ten or fifteen minutes there was a succession of quick evolutions, which like the finale of a grand piece of music, appeared confused even while it was the most scientific, and then there was a sudden pause. The position, whose centre was a copse, had been carried, and we soon saw the guards formed on the ground that was supposed to have been held by the enemy. ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... seem at first sight that our feeling states will fall into a much larger number of classes distinguished by differences in quality, or tone. The taste of an orange, the smell of lavender, the touch of a hot stove, the appreciation of a fine piece of music, and the appreciation of a lofty poem, seem at first sight to yield different feelings. The supposed difference in the quality of the feelings is due, however, to a difference in the knowledge elements accompanying the feelings, or to the fact that ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... a native inborn love of humor. There was something fresh and piquant in the very expression of naive bewilderment with which he now adjusted his eyeglass—a wholly unnecessary appendage—and set himself strenuously to examine anew the chords of that extraordinary piece of music which others thought so easy and which he found so puzzling, . . he could manage the simple melody fairly well, but ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... a chanting people was a religious people. He said, moreover, that there was a fine religiosity about Moussorgski, but that the most beautiful single piece of music in the world was Beethoven's sonata, Opus 111,—he was thinking, he said, more particularly of the Adagio at the end, molto semplice e cantabile. It had a real quality ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... now led Christine to the piano, and she played a classical piece of music in faultless taste. Then followed duets, solos, quartets, choruses, and instrumental pieces, for nearly all present were musical amateurs. Under the inspiration of this soul-stirring art, coldness and formality melted away, and with jest and brilliant ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... the very end. At the most intense moment her arms were stretched above her head; at the close of the music she was bowed to the ground, in an attitude expressive of the utmost grief. In such widely different ways did the same piece of music speak to the individualities ...
— The Eurhythmics of Jaques-Dalcroze • Emile Jaques-Dalcroze
... down at this congealing remnant. Then she laughed, a hard, high little laugh, pushed a plate away contemptuously with her hand, and walked into the sitting room. On the piano was the piece of music (Bennie Gottschalk's great song hit, "Hicky Bloo") which she had been playing the night before. She picked it up, tore it straight across, once, placed the pieces back to back and tore it across again. Then she dropped the pieces to ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... standpoint of composer and performer, each having an indispensable part in it, and neither being able to get along without the other. But in our treatment of conducting, we shall need to come back again and again to the idea of expression from the standpoint of interpretation, and in directing a piece of music we shall now take it for granted that the composer has said something which is worthy of being heard, and that as the intermediary between composer and audience, we are attempting to interpret to the latter what the former has expressed ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... off to hide herself in some bay-window or other nook or corner of the vast drawing-room, and taken up a book or a piece of music as an excuse for her reserve; but as they passed through the curtained archway leading from the dining-saloon to the drawing-room, Lady C., with the kindest intentions toward the supposed mourner, and with the motherly grace ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... proffered her by the long-haired pianist. She was called back ... not very soon, she reappeared, with the same hesitating steps approached the piano, and whispering a couple of words to the accompanist, who picked out and put before him another piece of music, began Tchaykovsky's song: 'No, only he who knows the thirst to see.'... This song she sang differently from the first—in a low voice, as though she were tired ... and only at the line next the last, 'He knows what I have suffered,' ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... old Emperor William, and first wife of the present reigning Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. It is doubtless from her that Prince Bernhardt of Saxe-Meiningen, married to the eldest sister of the present kaiser, has inherited his powers of composition, for his name figures on the title page of many a piece of music; and among his other more important works has been the setting to music of "the Persians of Aeschylus," which has been most successfully staged at Athens. This is published under the initials of ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... Every piece of music, with the exception of intentionally rhapsodic utterances, begins with some group of notes of distinct rhythmic and melodic interest, which is the germ—the generative force—of the whole, and which is comparable to the text of a sermon ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... Castle William and the batteries in this town and Charlestown were discharged: In the afternoon the Bells rang; and His Excellency with the two Houses was escorted by his Company of Cadets to Concert Hall, where a fine piece of music was performed, to the satisfaction of a very large assembly; and in the evening there were beautiful illuminations, and a great variety of fire works in many parts of the town.... We hear there has also been great rejoicings on the late success ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... storming a breach; and although I knew nothing of music, as I sat and listened with my mouth open to this wonderful display, my CAFFY grew cold, and I wondered the windows did not crack and the chandelier start out of the beam at the sound of this earthquake of a piece of music. ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... even than the first, strikes at the same moment my ear and my nose. I continue; a third, a fourth report, and, to make a long matter short, each movement gives an explosion with as much regularity as a conductor making the time for a piece of music! ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... necessary to be attended to in the study of the Chinese characters. They speak equally strong to a person who is deaf and dumb, as the most copious language could do to one in the full enjoyment of all his senses. It is a language addressed entirely to the eye, and not to the ear. Just as a piece of music laid before several persons of different nations of Europe would be played by each in the same key, the same measure, and the same air, so would the Chinese characters be equally understood by the natives of Japan, Tunquin, and ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... do any harm!" Shiel said, with so much eagerness that Gladys got up and began searching for a piece of music. "I would ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... relating to the study of the French language, eight questions on the study of the German tongue, eight mathematical questions, eight arithmetical questions, eight questions on English History, and eight on English Literature. In addition, a piece of music will be played by each girl and a song sung by each; but the final and most searching test of all will be the essay, which in itself will contain, I doubt not, the innermost heart of the competitor, for she cannot truly write on Heroism without understanding something of what a hero or heroine should ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... a boy. His soul is full of music; his fingers are as much at home on the key-board of a piano as a mocking-bird in its own native orange grove. His sister is a mathematician; she solves a problem in mathematics as easily as her brother plays a piece of music. Because one is a boy and the other a girl, don't make the girl teach music and the boy mathematics. What God has joined together in fitness, let ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... discover wherein the man of to-day, of whom her aunt could speak in such high terms, differed from the youth that she, even as an immature girl, despised, determined to give Haldane a little close observation. When he entered she was at the piano, practicing a very difficult and intricate piece of music that Beaumont had recently brought to ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... difference in our national character, which depends upon whether the crossing has taken place with the weak Laplander, or with the well-grown, strong, bold Fin. It makes a difference in temperament, as great as between minor and major in the same piece of music. That touch of rich colour in our nation, of which the poet Wergeland's endless wealth of imagery and flight beyond logic are a representation, is certainly Finnish—at any rate, there is very little of it in our old Sagas. And it can be understood from ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... out,' perhaps I ought to say 'conveyed to him.'" Sally gets the viola in place for a start, and asks is her friend ready? Waiting, it seems; so she merely adds, "Yes, I should say conveyed it to him." And off they go with the new piece of music in B flat, and are soon involved in terrifying complications which have to be done all over again. At the end, they are ungrateful to B flat, and say they don't care much for it; it will be better when they can play it, however. Then Laetitia ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... play than read that book? That shows how little you understand of either. This is an immoral piece of music! If you knew what it meant you would scream in horror. It is immoral, and I am going to practise it ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... on the part of that reader an imperfect acquaintance with the Five Towns. In the Five Towns there are (among piano scorners) two musical instruments, the concertina and the cornet. And the Five Towns would like to see the composer clever enough to compose a piece of music that cannot be arranged for either of these instruments. It is conceivable that Beethoven imagined, when he wrote the last movement of the C Minor Symphony, that he had produced a work which it would be impossible to arrange for cornet solo. But if he did he imagined ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... silence, as if the countess's name chilled the atmosphere. Cotoner hummed a tune, pretending to be thinking of something else; Lopez de Sosa began to look for a piece of music on the piano, talking about it to change the subject. He too seemed to ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... garden to Don Antonio's house, we were most kindly received by his wife and daughter, the latter of whom played a long and difficult piece of music most excellently. It was, however, English, in compliment to us, though we should have preferred some of her own national airs. After the music, we were conducted to a table spread in the gallery that surrounds the open court in the ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... Cicely walked leisurely into the church again, and found the missing piece of music lying on a seat near the organ. They were returning down the ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... different parts of a well arranged establishment go on together, and harmonize, like the parts of a piece of music in full score, yet, in describing such an establishment, it is impossible to write like the musician, in score, and to make all the parts of the narrative advance together. Various movements, which exist together, and which have the most intimate ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... to Volkovisk, and Kammerman settled himself resignedly to a hearing of what he anticipated would be a commonplace piece of music. After the first six measures, however, he sat up straight in his chair and his face took on an expression of wonder and delight. Then, resting his elbow on the table, he nursed his cheek throughout the first movement in a posture ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... body fairly quivered. Her mother had touched her on a tender point. She had been drilled by her music-teacher for a long time on the high notes of a difficult piece of music, and she had just succeeded in trilling it out to her own satisfaction and delight, when she was startled by her mother's voice. Poor Margaret! She had a hot temper, and when the severe reprimand for her carelessness was added, she felt so angry and disgraced that she would ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... to be a prevailing impression that any one can write a story. But it scarcely need be said that literature is an art, like painting and music, and that one may have knowledge of life and perfect sincerity, and yet be unable to produce a good, truthful piece of literature, or to compose a piece of music, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... were arranged in front of the curtains, in the form of a deep curve, Dr. Leidy, Dr. Knerr and myself being put in the second row. Mrs. Thayer directed us where to sit. The room in which we sat was lighted by a single gas-jet, situated some distance behind the spectators; a piece of music was placed before this to prevent any direct light from falling on the curtains, and the gas was turned very low. Mrs. Wells entered the room used as a Cabinet, and took her seat in a chair opposite the curtains. Mrs. Thayer closed ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... German music, Iasked him to sing an Indian song. He declined at first, saying that he knew I should not like it; but at last he yielded, and sang, not one of the modern Persian songs, which commonly go by the name of Indian, but a genuine native piece of music. Ilistened quietly, but when it was over, Itold him that it seemed strange to me, how one who could appreciate Italian and German music could find any pleasure in what sounded to me like mere noise, without melody, rhythm, or harmony. 'Oh,' he said, 'that is exactly ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... down a few moments to rest. Miss Warren must have heard our voices; but she went on with an intricate piece of music in which she was displaying no mean skill. I did not think Mr. Hearn was as much interested in it as I was. His little girl came out of the house and climbed into Adah's lap. She evidently liked being petted, and was not a little spoiled by it The banker continued to admire the picture ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... opinion upon any matter of public interest—a play, a book, a piece of music, a picture, the speech of a politician, the sermon of a parson, the behaviour of a general, the conduct of an admiral, the methods of a judge, etc.—must fulfil two conditions. It must be honest and it must ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... which it may once have appeared to possess; but it has great fire and originality, and contains difficulties of no trifling magnitude, even at the present day. That process of mind, by which we sometimes hear in sleep a beautiful piece of music, an eloquent discourse, or a fine poem, seems one of those mysterious things which show how fearfully and wonderfully we are made. It would appear that there are times when the soul, in that partial disunion between ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various
... man, Mr Quilp passed the evening with great cheerfulness; solacing himself all the time with the pipe and the case-bottle; and occasionally entertaining himself with a melodious howl, intended for a song, but bearing not the faintest resemblance to any scrap of any piece of music, vocal or instrumental, ever invented by man. Thus he amused himself until nearly midnight, when he turned into his ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... played divinely. Lord Cowper requested him to play the popular sonata, composed by his master, Tartini, called the 'Devil's Sonata.' Mr. Jackson, an English gentleman present, asked Nardini whether the anecdote relative to this piece of music was true. Nardini answered that 'he had frequently heard Tartini relate the circumstance,' and at once gave an account of the composition, in accordance with that furnished ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... broken manner, as if struggling to control some strong emotion, "I have a very great favor to beg of you; the next time I have the honor and pleasure of spending the evening with you, will you, if Mrs. Kemble does not disapprove of it, sing this song for me?" He put a piece of music into my hand, and immediately left us without another word. On our way home in the carriage, I unrolled the song, the title of which was, "These few pale Autumn Flowers." "Ha!" said my mother, with, I thought, rather a peculiar expression, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... the pianoforte: she led him to it, nay, what is more, she would herself pick out the music he was to play. First it was a fugue of Handel's, then one of Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words, and then "The Diver," and then music from Gilbert and Sullivan; but each piece of music she picked out was gayer than the last one. Thus they sat happily engrossed for perhaps an hour in the candle light until the extreme cold in that unwarmed room stopped his playing and drove them downstairs to the fire. Thus did ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett
... in digestion or the oxygenisation of the blood different in kind to the rapid unconscious action of a man playing a difficult piece of music on the piano? There may be in degree, but as a man who sits down to play what he well knows, plays on when once started, almost, as we say, mechanically, so, having eaten his dinner, he digests it as a matter of course, unless it has been in some way unfamiliar ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... Florestan is, as you know, one of those rare musical minds that foresee, as it were, coming novel or extraordinary things. But he encountered a surprise today. With the words 'Off with your hats, gentlemen! a genius,' Eusebius laid down a piece of music. We were not allowed to see the title-page. I turned over the music vacantly; the veiled enjoyment of music which one does not hear has something magical in it. And besides this, it seems that every composer has something different ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... held out his hand as if to ask for silence, and struck into the slow music of a pibroch. It was a fine piece of music in itself, and nobly played; but, it seems besides, it was a piece peculiar to the Appin Stewarts and a chief favourite with Alan. The first notes were scarce out, before there came a change in his face; when the time quickened, he seemed to grow restless in his seat; and long ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... Stradella ever attempted to enter into conversation with his pupil, between one piece of music ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... muscular system; it sets up some sort of cardiac and vascular excitation. This reaction is in general in the direction of increased amplitude of respiration, but diminution of the pulse, depending on a peripheral vaso-constriction. Moreover, this vasomotor reaction is given in a melody or piece of music, not by its continuity, but for every one of the variations of rhythm, key, or intensity,—which is of interest in the light of what has been said of the latent motor image. The obstacle in syncopated rhythm is physiologically translated as vaso-constriction. ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... prelude had, in truth, been a pretty enough piece of music. Katharine's experience had but few black patches in it as yet. Furnished with a fair and healthy body, with fine breeding, with a character in which the pride and grit of her North Country ancestry was tempered by the poetic instincts and quick wit which came ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... blowing a cathedral organ, said after the performance of a fine anthem, "I think we performed very well to-day."—"We performed!" answered the organist; "I think it was I performed, or I am much mistaken." Shortly after another celebrated piece of music was to be played. In the middle of the anthem the organ stopped; the organist cried out in a passion, "Why don't you blow?" The fellow popped out his head from behind the organ, and said, "Shall it be ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... political economy, Socialism, and Fabians, painting and actors [and so on, with untrue and ill-natured remarks ad lib.], but evidently you understand very little about Schubert. That 'Rossini crescendo' is as tragic a piece of music as ever was written." Yet, after dismissing the twain in this friendly manner, I should have an uneasy feeling that there was some good reason for their lack of enthusiasm for Schubert. The very fact of there being such wide disagreement about the value of music that ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... cheer from one end of the room to the other. It seemed an inopportune cheer, and for a moment it upset the orator: yet it was felicitous in opportuneness. Slowly, after a long pause, came the last two words—like that curious, detached and high note in which a great piece of music suddenly ends—'Homeward bound.' Again there was a cheer: but this time it was lower; it was subdued; it was the fitting echo to the beautiful words—with their double significance—the parting from a hospitable land, the return to the ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... said, "I'll play my favorite schottische, composed by our old friend, the Professor. I have not yet procured a copy of his latest piece of music, 'The Passing of the Dahlias.' I think it is ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... Hubert Herkomer have taken to it. It is a matter for regret that the practice should not have been general at an earlier date, not only among painters and musicians, but also among the people who write books. It consists in signifying the number of a piece of music, picture, or book by the abbreviation "Op." and the number whatever it may ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... their first names, and drew out a cigar. Kirkwood was smoking his pipe. Phil held a match for her uncle and placed a copper ash-tray on the table at his elbow. Rose continued her search for a piece of music, and Nan curled herself on the corner of a davenport that occupied one side of the room under the ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... possible embodiment of the mental impressions retained. Short as the poem is, there is in it character, humour, pathos, satire, indignation, tenderness, fun, frolic, diablerie, almost every human feeling. I have heard Burns in the writing of this poem likened to a composer at an organ improvising a piece of music in which, before he has done, he has used every stop and touched every note on the keyboard. Even the weakest lines of the piece, which mark a dramatic pause in the rapid narration, have a distinctive beauty and are the most frequently quoted lines of the poem. In artistic word-painting ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... of crisis and of final hope for human nature, then suffering some mysterious eclipse, and labouring in some dread extremity. Somewhere, I knew not where—somehow, I knew not how—by some beings, I knew not whom—a battle, a strife, an agony, was conducting, was evolving like a great drama or piece of music, with which my sympathy was the more insupportable from my confusion as to its place, its cause, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... dominant ninth chord, and the other for the invention of opera. Viadana is said to have been the first to use what is called a basso continuo, and even the figured bass. The former was the uninterrupted repetition of a short melody or phrase in the bass through the entire course of a piece of music. This was done very often to give a sense of unity that nowadays would be obtained by a repetition of the first thought at certain intervals through the piece. The figured (or better, ciphered) bass was an entirely different thing. This device, which is still employed, consisted ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... more psychological than mechanical. The small part of science which came to his notice (inventions, machinery, etc.) was easily and delightedly comprehended by him. He could do intricate things with a knife and a piece of string, or a hammer and a saw: but a picture, a poem, a statue, a piece of music—these left him as uninterested as they found him: more so, in truth, for they left him bored ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... into Warwick Street Chapel, with my father, who, I believe, wanted to hear some piece of music; all that I bore away from it was the recollection of a pulpit and a preacher, and ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... on the right, with an armchair near it. A small round table, further forward on the same side, with a chair beside it, has a yellow-backed French novel lying open on it. The piano, a grand, is on the left, open, with the keyboard in full view at right angles to the wall. The piece of music on the desk is "When other lips." Incandescent lights, well shaded, are on the piano and mantelpiece. Near the piano is a sofa, on which the lady and gentleman are seated affectionately side by side, ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw
... higher climbed the swift plane, no faltering in its stride. The beat of the engines was as rhythmical to experienced ears as the regular swing and lilt of some perfectly rendered piece of music to the ears ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... having a sum he never attained before. Or a pianist, having acquired the mastery of the technic of the keyboard and the ability to read music, can sit down before a piano he never sat at before and play off instantly a piece of music he ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... pure or else from mineral springs, and the delectable juices of certain fruits and plants. They eat together, chatting merrily the while, and afterwards recline on couches listening to some tale, or song, or piece of music, but taking care not to fall asleep, as ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... the unwritten law running throughout all architecture that a progress of line in one direction requires to be stopped in a marked and distinct manner when it has run its course, and we find a similarly felt necessity in regard to musical form. The repetition so common at the close of a piece of music of the same chord several times in succession is exactly analogous to the repetition of cross lines at the necking of a Doric column to stop the vertical lines of the fluting, or to the strongly marked horizontal lines of a cornice ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... account of the letters received by him and which he has to open; but he is interrupted two hundred times in this business by all sorts of people imaginable. Now it is a horse-jockey with the finest horses to sell. . . . Again some saucy girl who calls to bawl out a piece of music, and on whose behalf some influence has been exerted to get her into the opera, after giving her a few lessons in good taste and teaching her what is proper in French music. This young lady has been made to wait to ascertain if I am still at home. . . . I get up and go ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... a piece of music till the sound of the opening door told him that his pupil had arrived. Then he rose and looked in her direction, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... piece of music, poor in itself, when played by a young girl under the influence of deep feeling, makes more impression than a fine overture played by a full orchestra. In all music there is, besides the thought of the composer, ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... serve no other. We trust Christlike love as the divine basis for a happy family life, and also for successful commerce, for statesmanlike international dealings, for the effective treatment of every political and social question. The inspirations that come to us from a glorious piece of music or from an heroic act of self-sacrifice, from some new discovery or from a novel sensitiveness of conscience, are all inspirations from the one God. At every moment and in every situation we must keep the ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... is long in showing its elements of fluxion; we must watch long in order to compute them; we must wait in order to know the law of their relations and the music of the deep mathematical principles which they obey. A piece of music, again, from the great hand of Mozart or Beethoven, which seems a mere anarchy to the dull, material mind, to the ear which is instructed by a deep sensibility reveals a law of controlling power, determining its movements, its actions and reactions, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... their agency, provided that they act under the influence of reason and not of passion. The Socinians believe it to be without foundation, but it always has some foundation in that fitness of things which gives satisfaction not only to the injured but also to the wise who see it; even as a beautiful piece of music, or again a good piece of architecture, satisfies cultivated [162] minds. And the wise lawgiver having threatened, and having, so to speak, promised a chastisement, it befits his consistency not to leave the action completely unpunished, even though the punishment would no longer avail to correct ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... have conjured up about you! Poor fool! When I was at work your face was always crossing the page or peering up from the margins. I never saw a fine painting that I did not think of you, or heard a fine piece of music that I did not think ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... sense of relief from those fierce dithyrambics to the beauty and pathos of her other poems. Take, for example, that exquisite piece of music, "The Lullaby of the Iroquois," simple, yet entrancing! Could anything of its kind be more perfect in structure and expression? Or the sweet idyll, "Shadow River," a transmutation of fancy and fact, which ends ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... aroused by it from their slumbers in his own bosom that a responsive echo may be found in the bosoms of the listeners. A most ingeniously constructed music-box, with the presentation of a complicated piece of music, may fail to move a heart that will be stirred to its depths by a simple song, into which the singer's whole ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... a chateau in France where he visited had an excellent voice, and every time she began to sing, a donkey belonging to the establishment invariably came near the window, and listened with the greatest attention. One day, during the performance of a piece of music which apparently pleased it more than any it had previously heard, the animal, quitting its usual post outside the window, unceremoniously entered the room, and, to exhibit its satisfaction, began to bray with all ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... about the assumed regularity in the succession of ideas. That when you are repeating a familiar form of words or playing a familiar piece of music, every word uttered or note struck, by reason of connexion of some sort between itself and the word or note next in order, enables you without the smallest mental effort to utter that word or strike that note, is too notorious to be questioned. ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... company, with his legs slightly apart, places the figure on the ground between them. As might be expected, it falls flat and lifeless, but after a few mesmeric passes it is induced to stand upright, though without visible support, and, on a lively piece of music being played, dances to it, keeping time, and ceasing as soon as the ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... who took his words literally, and thought her present circumstances too discordant for the fulfilling his request, opened the supposed piece of music with an aking heart; but when she had perused it, and found the artifice her lover had made use of to communicate his generous intentions to her, it is extremely fine, said she to the valet, and I will do what he requires to the best of my power, but fear I shall not be able to give it such a ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... was a distinct existence, and that all 'ideas' were equally distinct, though fainter, copies of impressions. Beyond impressions and ideas it was unnecessary to look. Thus to look at a chessboard was to have a number of sensations of black and white arranged in a certain order, to listen to a piece of music was to experience a succession of loud and soft auditory sensations, to handle a stone was to receive a group of sensations of touch. To suppose that anything beyond these sensory units was ever really experienced was futile fiction. ...
— Pragmatism • D.L. Murray
... girl of twenty, dressed as Barberine from Musset's play; then Maud, Nadia, and Antoinette [eighteen to twenty-two], dressed as followers of the queen. Lucienne goes to the piano, takes a piece of music, and comes to ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... beat of a piece of music or of a verse, and, my attention immediately awakened, I await the second. At the end of a certain time—that is, when the expense of energy demanded has reached a certain degree—this second beat strikes my ear. Then I expect to hear the third when the ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... stroked his long beard, signifying his approval by nods and brief exclamations of satisfaction. The Queen was now sincerely glad that this piece of music had been brought to her notice; certainly nothing more suitable for the purpose could have been found. Besides, her kindly nature and feminine tact made her grateful to Wolf for his hint of distinguishing, by the first performance ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... "cheerful,'' as in Milton's poem), a term in music to indicate quick or lively time, coming between andante and presto; it is frequently modified by the addition of qualifying words. It is also used of a separate piece of music, or of a movement in a sonata, symphony, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... piano was wheeled through Coombe and set up a tune in that lonesome spot. Though it was but a mechanical piece of music, with the cogs as it were of the mechanism well marked by the thump, thump, it seemed to cheer the place—till she went out to the gate to look at the Italian woman who danced about while the grinding was done, and saw that she had a sound pair of boots on. ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... to assure herself that she is unobserved. MRS. UPJOHN and ROPER are seated at the tea-table with their heads together, talking; JIMMIE is at the piano, fingering out a piece of music; JEYES is half hidden in the arm-chair facing the settee at the back. LILY tiptoes to the writing-table and seats herself there as GLADYS reappears showing in the ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... sad one, but not with that sort of pleasant sadness which often mingles with our happiest moments, giving them even a higher zest, like the flattened notes when a fine piece of music passes gently from the major into the minor key, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... thought that runs through Wilkelm Meister, like the bass in a piece of music. In this work of Goethe's, we have a novel of the intellectual kind, and, therefore, superior to all others, even to Sir Walter Scott's, which are, one and all, ethical; in other words, they treat of human nature only from ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... that is good and noble. Far from loathing his father, he only bewails the hardness of him, for whose love he craves in vain. At last he falls asleep. Seeing this the maid servants come to mock him (by the bye a delightful piece of music is this chatter-chorus). When Hans has driven away the impudent hussies, his brother Ralph the Singer approaches to assure him of his unvarying love.—He is the only-one who believes in Hans' worth, and now tries ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... absurd to deny that it is possible for a man always to love the same woman, as it would be to affirm that some famous musician needed several violins in order to execute a piece of music or ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... was to beg off from our employers for half a day, travel thirty miles or so by train, usually standing up and protecting our horns from the careless mob, march eight or ten miles over unknown streets, picking out dry places underfoot and notes from a piece of music bobbing up and down in the shadows above our horns, and then drive home across country after midnight, getting home in time to go to work in the morning. Why, it was just like finding money; I've never had so much fun earning it since. I started once to figure out how many miles ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... recall, impressed me powerfully that morning—the way in which every one was working, apparently without any common agreement or any common purpose, and yet with a high sort of understanding. The first hearing of a difficult piece of music (to an uncultivated ear like mine) often yields nothing but a confused sense of unrelated motives, but later and deeper hearings reveal the harmony which ran so ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... is like a piece of music, like a movement in a sonata by Beethoven. The chords, the volume of sound are gravely added to, till that solemn close on a single note. It is emotion, perfectly rendered, so grave, so sincere, so restrained as to be almost inimitable. And alike in the music of the words ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... piece of music that had fallen to the floor, seated Irene, and half turned to Jack. Any other ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... raptures over the wild, sweet melodies which she sung with untutored pathos. His grandmother could scarcely conceal her vexation. Approaching the singer, she took an opportunity, while Bertha and Maurice were searching for a piece of music, whisperingly to suggest that Baptiste was old and clumsy, and the Sevres set in danger until it ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... feast was to be held at Court to celebrate Princess Kunigmunde's birthday. The Emperor had offered a prize, a wreath of gilt laurels, as well as the post of Court Kapellmeister to him who should compose the most beautiful piece of music in his daughter's honour. Franz seemed so certain of success that nobody even dared to compete with him ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... tune, which is called the key-note. The leader of a choir, when they are going to sing, will strike one of the keys of the organ, or the melodeon they are using, so as to give to each member of the choir the proper key-note of the piece of music they are to sing. It is very important for them to have this key-note, because they cannot have a proper understanding of what they are to do without it. This holy sacrament of the Lord's Supper is like a solemn song. And the key-note of the music to which ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton |
