"Quartet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... movement in the sonata Op. 110 from the beginning of the slow movement Adagio ma non troppo to the end. In both the feverish pulsation indicates a morbid condition, leading in Beethoven to a calmly triumphant end. The second movement of the quartet Op. 127, Adagio ma non troppo, with which Porges compares the scene, gives a different side, from which the morbid element is absent. The rhythm which dominates this scene is a development of the preceding triplet rhythm and must be taken quite strictly—3-4 time, ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... the solemn protest and then the death of Archbishop Warham. So that now of that great and close quartet of friends,—Colet, Warham, More, and Erasmus,—there were two on either shore of the last crossing. And More could already see the dark river ahead. His eye marked the consequences of the Acts as keenly as his aged friend Warham had discerned them on his death-bed; and shortly after the "Submission," ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... his solo concerted music that Mozart forges ahead of all possible rivals. The power which he shows of contrasting the conflicting emotions of his characters in elaborate concerted movements was something really new to the stage. The one quartet in Handel's 'Radamisto' and the one trio in his 'Alcina,' magnificent as they are, are too exceptional in their occurrence to be quoted as instances, while the attempts of Rameau and his followers to impose dramatic significance into their concerted music, though technically interesting, do ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... service outside of a church and lacking the accompaniment of the organ. It is almost impossible to introduce orchestral music that does not sound either dangerously suggestive of the gaiety of entertainment or else thin and flat. A quartet or choral singing is beautiful and appropriate, if available, otherwise there is usually no music at a ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... balance in coin. After many delays, we put our baggage into one canoe, and ourselves into the other, and pushed off into the rapid current of the Napo. We had three styles of valediction on leaving. Our Indian quartet, after several last drinks of chicha, bade their friends farewell by clasping hands, one kissing the joined hands, and then the other. Sandoval muttered adios in reply to ours, meaning, no doubt, good riddance, while we shouted a hearty good-bye to Edwards as ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... and when he had sufficiently recovered sent him to an address which he gave us in Mobile; but not a word could anybody get out of him as to who he had the misfortune to be, or why he had persisted, against the light, in following a quartet of ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... complete triumph became more and more a matter of certainty. She sang with infinite grace and tenderness that part in the quartet which is intended to express the operatic broken heart, while the Duke, the professional murderer, and Maddalena are laughing and talking inside the inn. That sort of thing does not appeal much to our modern taste, but Margaret did what she could to make it touching, and ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... While this quartet were finding it an arduous task to understand one another, a servant came to invite them to have their repast, and they eventually crossed over to the front side, and as it was already time for the lamps to be lit, madame Wang, widow Li Wan, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... The quartet passed out of the city unmolested. Ramabai's house was supposed to be under strict surveillance; but the soldiers, due to largess, were junketing in the bazaars. Shortly they came up to two elephants with howdahs. They were the best mannered of the half dozen owned or rented by Colonel Hare. Mahouts ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... grizzled fisherman to restrain the ardor of the amateurs. The cart was vast and solid, and two comfortable, sleepy-looking mules constituted the drawing power. There were also tin horns, some guitars, an accordion, and a quartet of much praised voices. The hay in the bottom of the wagon was freely mixed with pine needles, whose prickiness through your hose was amply compensated for by ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... said I; "I read some of his pieces thirty-two years ago when I was a lad in England. I think I can repeat some of the lines." I then repeated a quartet ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... separately classified as 'Border Ballads.' Sir Hugh in the Grime's Downfall seems to have some historical foundation, but Bewick and Grahame has none. A sub-section of 'Armstrong Ballads' forms a good quartet; Johnie Armstrong, Kinmont Willie, Dick o' the Cow, and ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various
... always at home to their friend on Friday afternoons, and there were already several guests in the beautiful, quaint old drawing-room when the quartet entered. Mrs. Marshall, her white hair looking lovely under her soft lace cap, came forward to meet her visitors. Her kind eyes looked with appreciation and welcome at one and all. Blushing and shame-faced Prissie received a pleasant word of greeting, which seemed ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... Canyon of the Colorado. The apparently perilous ride on the backs of donkeys down Bright Angel Trail had been greatly enjoyed, as well as certain other inspiring expeditions which the boys had made, sometimes in company with others and sometimes with a single guide for the quartet. ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... of it," Hermione said to Artois. "But now I insist on your staying here till the Marchesino comes. Then he will ask you, and we shall be a quartet." ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... up by the Big Silence for almost four long years. They came without warning, which is the free and easy way of the westerner, appearing in a mud-splattered and dust-covered Ford that had carried them blithely over two hundred and thirty miles of prairie trails. And with them they brought a quartet of rampageous young buckaroos who promptly turned our sedate homestead into ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... also the fact. Meanwhile the bull-dog, the black-and-tan terrier, Alick's sheep-dog, and the gander hissing at a safe distance from the pony's heels carried out the idea of Mrs. Poyser's solo in an impressive quartet. ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... that she was not in a state of mind or body to hold the coldly critical audience before her. While he read and spoke poor Anna behind him waited to be presented, in an agony of nervousness which she struggled not to show. Then came the singing of the "Negro Boatman's Song of Whittier" by a quartet, accompanied by the organ. At last, with an easy smile, which concealed his real feelings, Mr. Garrison turned to introduce Anna, and she rose and walked forward to the front of the platform, looking more immature and girlish than ever before. Her first sentences were halting, disconnected, ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... horrors of Gambling, as experienced during twelve wretched years of his own gambling life, and of his reformation and salvation by grace in Christ. A deep and powerful impression pervaded the vast concourse, while all was graced by beautiful strains of vocal music by the "Boston Quartet Club," and all passed ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... blank either to substantiate or to deny the sensational story of Messrs. Macready and Murray. "The incident is closed," Baron Hague is reported as declaring. But what care the depositors of the Chancery Legal Incorporated? For is it not announced, also, that this quartet of public benefactors, with a fifth philanthropist (who modestly remains anonymous) have put up between them no less a sum than three and a half million pounds to ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... to the major fiction: "Vanity Fair," "Pendennis," "The Newcomes," and "Esmond." Of "The Adventures of Philip" a later word may be said. "The Virginians" is a comparatively unimportant pendant to that great historical picture, "Henry Esmond." The quartet practically composes the fundamental contribution of Thackeray to the world of fiction, containing as it does all his characteristic traits. Some of them have been pointed out, time out of mind: others, often claimed, are either wanting or their ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... street, but she knew nothing of the man; had never seen him at the house, and so forth. Meanwhile the original discoverer had come back with a medical man, and the next thing was to get into the area. The gate was open, so the whole quartet stumped down the steps. The doctor hardly needed a moment's examination; he said the poor fellow had been dead for several hours, and it was then the case began to get interesting. The dead man had not been robbed, and in one of his pockets were papers identifying ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... would say, "and now that I think of it, I can smile myself, but we are an eerie quartet at the time. When the strain becomes unendurable, one of us rises and mends the fire with his foot, and then I think the rest of us could say 'Thank you.' We talk desperately for a little after that, but soon again the awful ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... perhaps even going to the trouble of meeting the accompanist beforehand and going through all material to be used so as to insure a mutual understanding upon such matters as tempo, et cetera. In out-of-door group singing a brass quartet (consisting of two cornets and two trombones, or two cornets, a trombone, and a baritone) is more effective than a piano, but if this is to be done be sure to find players who can transpose, or else write out the parts in the proper ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... interests me is your own fight," he remarked at length. "If the paper you spoke of should be found, I would be pleased to have it translated for you. I should also like to consult with this man Martinez; he seems a clever fellow. You expect to settle with this quartet who defrauded your ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... quartet to remain standing for some time. He strode up and down before them, his eyes straining at the floor, his hands behind his back. He was in fatigue-dress, and only the star of Ehrenstein glittered on his breast. He was never without this order. All at once he whirled round, and as a sailor ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... As Lawson gave the warning, Jan half lifted himself, and the struggling quartet floundered across the tent into a muddle of furs and blankets. In its passage it cleared the body of a man, who lay motionless, bleeding from a bullet-wound in ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... Sharm el-Sheikh Agreement. Direct negotiations to determine the permanent status of Gaza and the West Bank began in September 1999 after a three-year hiatus, but were derailed by a second intifadah that broke out a year later. In April 2003, the Quartet (US, EU, UN, and Russia) presented a roadmap to a final settlement of the conflict by 2005 based on reciprocal steps by the two parties leading to two states, Israel and a democratic Palestine. The proposed date for a permanent status agreement has been postponed indefinitely due to violence ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... effort should include—as soon as possible—the unconditional calling and holding of meetings, under the auspices of the United States or the Quartet (i.e., the United States, Russia, European Union, and the United Nations), between Israel and Lebanon and Syria on the one hand, and Israel and Palestinians (who acknowledge Israel's right to exist) on the other. The purpose of these meetings would be to negotiate peace as was done ...
— The Iraq Study Group Report • United States Institute for Peace
... magnate with every manifestation of welcome and a courtesy that seemed to be entirely unaffected. It was found that the most generous and thoughtful provision had been made for our comfort. The colored chef prepared a dinner which would have tickled the palate of an epicure, much more those of a quartet of hungry officers directly from the front. There were champagne and cigars in abundance of a quality such as would have been good enough had General Hancock himself been the guest. The host was courtesy itself, an excellent raconteur, a good fellow, and a gentleman. ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... England sent the Band of the Grenadier Guards; Germany, its great Prussian Band; France, the brilliant French Republic Band. King William of Prussia sent also, as a special compliment, his classical Court Cornet Quartet; and Ireland sent its best band. To this galaxy of star military bands, perhaps the greatest ever assembled, the United States added its own favorite Marine Band of Washington. At this second great and vast assemblage of artists the almost marvellous achievements ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... which the brush had been cut away far enough for half of them to stand under the trees. The men had quieted down to sleep, but at one tent very near us a group of regimental officers sat in the light of a torch-basket, and by them were planted their colors. A quartet of capital voices were singing, and one who joined the chorus, standing by the flag, absently yet caressingly spread it at such breadth that we easily read on it the name of the command. Let me leave ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... very much like asking: "Who ought to be the tenor in the quartet?" Obviously, the man who can sing tenor. You could not have deposed Caruso. Suppose some theory of musical democracy had consigned Caruso to the musical proletariat. Would that have reared another tenor ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... is a quartet of corn-grinders, walled in from the floor by stone slabs laid in cement. In every pueblo house, a "battery" of these mealing stones is to be found, and it is one of the commonest of sights to find the women and girls on their ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... arrived, gallantly swept off his cap and bowed, and suddenly conscious of an indefinable hostility in the attitudes of the silent quartet, stared from one to the ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... Of the ship's social quartet, Chafis One and Two were asleep at the moment, dreaming wistful dreams of conical Ciriimian cities spearing up to a soft and plum-colored sky. The Zid raged into their communal rest cell, smashed them down from their gimbaled sleeping perches ...
— Traders Risk • Roger Dee
... "Israel in Egypt." They are characterized rather by grace, sweetness, and elegance of form, and by pure, healthy music. Haydn was a master of instrumentation, as he had shown years before in the string quartet, of which he was the creator, and in his almost innumerable symphonies,—he being the originator of the modern symphony. He had had the advantage of a magnificent orchestra while in service at Prince ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... the hill road. The Professor—as I still call him, by force of habit—curtined in the front of the van with a rubber sheet. Bock hopped up and curled himself aginst his master's leg. Roger got out his corncob pipe, and I sat close to him. In the gathering gloom we plodded along, as happy a trio—or quartet, if you include fat, cheery old Peg—as any on this planet. Summer was over, and we were no longer young, but there were great things before us. I listened to the drip of the rain, and the steady creak of ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... spread rapidly, and for a time we were the most unpopular quartet in the Club; but by the time we had reached our eighty-third deuce, and luncheon (the gift of Lady Boggles) was served, hunger and anger began to abate simultaneously, and the situation was discussed with humour to the exclusion of all other topics. At ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 147, August 12, 1914 • Various
... years to our Philadelphia home came Henry Irving and his fellow player Ellen Terry and Augustin Daly and that wonderful quartet, Ada Rehan, Mrs. Gilbert, James Lewis, and our own John Drew. Sir Henry I always recall by the first picture I had of him in our dining-room, sitting far away from the table, his long legs stretched before him, peering curiously at Richard ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... characteristics of the gigue. This, however, is only the starting point with Haydn; later we will consider the development of this form into what is practically our modern sonata, which, of course, includes the symphony, quartet, quintet, concerto, etc. ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... had been arranged by a musical society in a town near Glasgow—a suburb of the city. I was to appear with a quartet soprano, contralto, tenor and bass. The two ladies and the tenor greeted me cheerfully enough, and seemed glad to see me—the contralto, indeed, was very friendly, and said she always went to hear me when she had the chance. But the bass was very distant. ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... where water murmurs in quiet alcoves, and simple jets tinkling in summery courts. Of those fountains that have especially been dignified and adorned by sculpture there are fourteen, some single, some in pairs, with one quartet in the Court of Seasons. Their sequence from the chief gate of the Exposition follows in a way the symbolic significance of all ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... in a highly emotionalised voice from Miss Nickall that, like a vague murmured message of vast events, drew the entire quartet away from the bright inebriated ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... very hard," said Mrs. Sparrowgrass, looking out of the window next morning. Sure enough, the rain was sweeping broadcast over the country, and the four Sparrowgrassii were flattening a quartet of noses against the window-panes, believing most faithfully the man would bring the horse that belonged to his brother, in spite of the elements. It was hoping against hope; no man having a horse to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... May 14, 1853.—Third quartet concert. It was short. Variations for piano and violin by Beethoven, and two quartets, not more. The quartets were perfectly clear and easy to understand. One was by Mozart and the other by Beethoven, so that I could ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... seemed to alter. The present players were sufficiently conscious of the social nature of the occasion to be concerned about their clothes and appearance, and sufficiently sport-loving to be keen on the game. Both their efforts and their appearance came under the fourfold scrutiny of a quartet of ladies sitting as official spectators on a bench immediately commanding the court. It was one of the accepted conditions of the Rectory garden party that four ladies, who usually knew very little about tennis and ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... she looked, she would have seen that her fluttering shawl touched his hand and he quickly raised it to his lips, releasing it immediately. As it was, she moved on, unaware of the gesture. The orchestra, or rather string quartet, had ceased; Hans, a host in himself, a mountain of melody, bowed his acknowledgments; the footlights glared, the din of voices subsiding; and the ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... expanding it from one act to three and giving it the title Die Mitschuldigen, or The Fellow-culprits. It is a sort of rogue's comedy in middle-class life, written in the alexandrine verse, which was soon to be discarded along with other French fashions. We have a quartet consisting of an inquisitive inn-keeper, his mismated sentimental daughter, her worthless husband, and her former lover. They tangle themselves up in a series of low intrigues and are finally unmasked as one and all poor miserable sinners. Technically it is a good play—lively, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Terrestrians got into their cooling suits, and stepped outside the ship. The Lanorian dignitary left his guard, walked up to the quartet from Earth with measured tread, and ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... boat belonged to Fred Button, one of the quartet. Fred now was at the wheel and the expression of pride on his face as he occasionally glanced behind him at his companions was one that indicated something of the feeling in his heart. And indeed there was a substantial basis for Fred's pride. ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... who had seen long service with the 48th Division, B Company; Jones still led A. Time had wrought changes among the Sergeant-Majors of the Companies. At this period in Cunningham of A, Mudd of B, Smith of C, and Brooks of D, we had a quartet of tried experience. The recurrent conflicts about 'strength'—a word which in effect meant the number of men employed with Quartermaster's Stores and at Headquarters—were now at a high pitch. After much 'camouflage,' by aid of Bicknell, ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... parted respectfully to let him pass as he hastened down the steps of the grand stand and away. The little girl looked after him undecidedly. Then, a quartet having moved between her and the colonel's son, she cast aside the gilded rock and the cotton batting and threaded the ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... already said, the music of Plymouth Church has always been an important part of the church worship. The high-priced quartet has never been relied upon, the chorus choir being preferred, not merely for its own singing, but because it served best in leading the congregation, and that was the thing ever kept in mind. Mr. Beecher loved the old-fashioned hymns, though he had also ...
— Sixty years with Plymouth Church • Stephen M. Griswold
... manifestation of the ideal. Everything that is beautiful delights me, and I believe in it as a work of God. 'I believe in God and in Beethoven,' as his pupil said—and besides, how much religion the grandeur of music contains! Do you know the last quartet that Beethoven wrote? He felt he was dying, and he wrote on the edge of the score this terrible question: 'Must it be?' and lower down he added, 'Yes, it must be, it must be.' It was necessary ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... study hall put an end to the conversation. It was renewed at noon, however, when Jerry, Irma, Marjorie and Constance trooped out of the school building together, a seemingly contented quartet. ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... suh! you are not going back to town this mo'ning!" protested the warm-hearted Major Caspar, as the quartet was rising from the breakfast-table an hour later. "Why, bless youh soul! I wouldn't think of letting you go from undeh my roof in such weatheh as this! Tell him it's his duty to stay, Ardea, my deah; persuade him that he'll neveh have a betteh oppo'tunity ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... quartet struck out again westward, leaving the disgruntled ranchman behind. The last they saw of him, he was kicking about in the ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... elaborate method of intimating that Dr. Mangan played the violin, moderately as to technique, but soundly as to intonation, and that he and his family sang, as a quartet, not only at charity concerts, but also for their own pleasure, in their own home. Music, more than the other arts, demands sympathy, and an audience. In Larry, the Mangan Quartet recognised that ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross |
