"Soprano" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... music-room. He pushes his way through the crowds, for poor Chancer has been doomed to disappointment in his wish to have this fair woman sing to him alone, for when the now full rich notes, now sweet to intoxication, of her mezzo-soprano voice fell on the air, the languid, sentimental or gay ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... with care, and struck no false notes. She sang her best. Her voice was the best voice of the afternoon, a mezzo-soprano, but with clear upper register and a fulness that suggested training. It was not a great performance, but it thrilled the others. Sally had triumphed. With one ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... solitary safety-pin. He then clasped her tightly and made his explanation. He began in the softest of whispers, which increased in volume as it did in interest, so that he reached the climax at the full power of his boy soprano voice. ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... indulge in the same Diversions and Luxuries: When Husbands are ruin'd, Children robb'd, and Tradesmen starv'd, in order to give Estates to a French Harlequin, and Italian Eunuch, for a Shrug or a Song; [Footnote: Farinelli, an eminent Italian soprano, went to England in 1734, remained there three years, sang chiefly at the Theatre of Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, then under the direction of Porpora, his old Master, became a great favorite, and made about, L5,000 a year. As The Man of Taste was ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... think of talking to emptiness instead of fulness—to people instead of plush. How can the dear Rev. SPLURGE SPLUTTER have the heart or tongue to drop his pearls of eloquence to the swine of empty pews? And how dreadful for the gifted soprano, Miss SCREECH, to tune her melodious voice to earless aisles! And then it is so easy to "set" examples by sitting in soft pews, doing to church should be a matter of conscience. Every body not a dolt admits conscience to be a good thing, though a thing every body cannot boast of possessing. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various
... him that he is volatile; that he flies from one task to another, finishing nothing; that his artistic tastes are the extravagant dreams of a Nero; that he loves publicity as a worn and obese soprano loves the centre of the stage; that his indiscretions would bring about the discharge of the most inconspicuous petty official. Others speak and write of him as a hero of mythology, as a mystic and a dreamer, ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... grown very pretty, indeed," said Adrien, taking up the conversation, "and is really a very nice girl, indeed. She sings beautifully. She is the leading soprano in her church ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... string trios, a few divertimenti in five parts, a piece for four violins and two 'celli, entitled "Echo," twelve minuets for orchestra, concertos, trios, sonatas and variations for clavier, and, in vocal music, a "Salve Regina" for soprano and alto, two violins and organ. It would serve no useful purpose to deal with these works in detail. The symphonies are, of course, the most important feature in the list, but of these we shall speak generally when treating of Haydn as the father ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... great spaces opened out before her a thought, childishly superstitious, came to her, and she turned abruptly, went out, made her way to the beggar who had worried her, gave him a coin and said something kind to him. His almost soprano voice, raised in clamorous benediction, followed her as she returned to the church, moving slowly with horrible loose slippers protecting its floor from her Christian feet. She always laughed in her mind when she wore those ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... particularly their own. Both sang from one book, with much reserve, yet with such sweetly persuasive voices that those about them first listened and then added their own very best. The second tune was "Geer," and, with John's tenor going up every time Barbara's soprano came down, and vice versa, it was as lovely see-sawing as ever thrilled the heart of youth with pure and undefiled religion. They sang the last ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... was decisive, for that sound Hushed "Academie" sighed in silent awe; The fiddlers trembled as he looked around, For fear of some false note's detected flaw; The "Prima Donna's" tuneful heart would bound, Dreading the deep damnation of his "Bah!" Soprano, Basso, even the Contra-Alto, Wished him five fathom ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... February 10.—A French soprano, and it is the first time she has sung on an English platform. She walks on slowly and stands statuesquely motionless while the preliminary bars are being played. One notes her elegant Parisian costume, clinging and very low-cut, every detail of her appearance ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... are full," sang the soprano, Clare Rossiter, of the yellow colonial house on the Ridgely Road. She sang with her eyes turned up, and as she reached G flat she lifted herself on her toes. "Of the majesty, of ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... know. Mrs. Delmont is not always dropping her handkerchief like Lady Gusto, as if she expected a miserable cavalier servente to be constantly upon his knees; or giving those odious expressive looks, which quite destroy my nerves whenever I am under the same roof as that horrible Lady Soprano. There is a little too much talk, to be sure, about Roman churches, and newly-discovered mosaics, and Abbate Maii, but still we cannot expect perfection. There are reports going about that Ernest Clay is either ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... because of them short pants you speak about. I can't stand bein' laughed at, Mr. Gray. It comes hard to stand up in a class along with a bunch of children and make mistakes and have a little boy in a lace collar and spring heels snap his fingers and sing out in a sweet soprano, 'Oh, tee-cher!' Then have him show you up. They put me in with a lot of nursin' babes. What the hell? I weigh a hundred and ninety and I ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... the distinct trio, the golden yellow in the sky, the blue in the sea, and the red in the figures in the boats,—as in a vocal trio we have the only three possible musical sounds of the human voice, the soprano, the basso, and the falsetto of the child's voice. All these colors are distinctly asserted and perfectly harmonized in a most exquisite play of tints, but it is still no more like Nature than the trio in "I Puritani" is like conversation. Turner never dreamed of painting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... French audiences, with their abominable claqueurs, this first German audience seemed serious, thoughtful, appreciative, but unenthusiastic. They use more judgment about applause than the French. They never interrupt a scene or even a musical phrase with misplaced applause because the soprano has executed a flamboyant cadenza or the tenor has reached a higher note than usual. Their appreciation is slow but hearty and always worthily disposed. The French are given to exaggerating an emotion and to applauding an eccentricity. ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... not quite know. I do not think that they're in love with one another, because she is not jealous of me. She is Madame Socani in the plot, and a genuine American from New York; but she can sing; she has a delicious soprano voice, soft and powerful; but she has also a temper and temperament such as no woman, nor yet no devil, ought to possess. Of Monsieur Socani, or Signor Socani, or Herr Socani, I never yet heard. But ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... tremulous, and Aeolian in character, wandering over the entire room, as if walls and ceiling were honey-combed with sensitive musical cells, answering to the deeper vibrations. These floating aerial sounds also answered to the higher notes of some of the female singers, resembling soprano voices, brightened and spiritualized in a wonderful degree; and then the wide room would be filled with a mist, as it were, of this floating, formless melody, which seemed to come from invisible harpers hovering ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... morning's work, found himself continually murmuring whole phrases of a chant which he had heard once upon a time when he was staying in an old town in France, It was the Litany of the Blessed Virgin sung at Benediction by some unseen singer with a wonderfully sympathetic mezzo-soprano voice. The Tenor had gone again and again to hear her in this chant, the music of which suited her as well as it did the theme. The words of adoration, "Sancta Maria, Sancta Dei Genetrix, Sancta Virgo virginum," were uttered evenly on notes that admitted of the tenderest expression, while the ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... its silvery song, Voice of the restless aspen, fine and thin It trills its pure soprano, light and long— Like ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... of them pushed hers back, and I recognized the golden hair of Alathea, as she joined a group rather formally collected on one side of the grave. She looked round as if to see that all were ready, and then in such a soprano voice as one seldom hears, she "started" the funeral hymn. It ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... young cavaliers of the party—but all came right in due time. For after supper, which was early, Barty played the fool with Mr. Gibson, and taught him how to do a mechanical wax figure, of which he himself was the showman; and the laughter, both baritone and soprano, might have been heard in Russell Square. Then they sang an extempore Italian duet together which was ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... big male voices were shouting out the Boat Club song, Polly's soprano sweet and clear over the rest, while Frieda smiled encouragement over the edge of the robe in which she was wrapped ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... strong for them, and the hedge will grow its own way in spite of pedants' shears. 'If the whole body were an eye, where the hearing?' The monotony of a church in which uniformity was the ideal would be intolerable. The chorus has its parts, and the soprano cannot say to the bass, 'I have no need of you,' nor the bass to the tenor, 'I ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... awaited them from the first. True, the hall was in darkness, and, as far as they could judge, so was the rest of the house. But from somewhere upstairs came the unmistakable sound of a piano, and of somebody singing in a sweet but plaintive soprano voice. Gurdon clutched his companion ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... smart individual, in striking contrast to the down at-heel air of the hotel—a personage who took high-handed possession of us and our traps. "Will ces dames desire a salon—there is un vrai petit bijou empty just now," murmured a voice in a purring soprano, through the iron opening of ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... the dinner to be ready; and evenings after supper she played other things: old ballads and tender, touching melodies from old masters simplified, for such as she. Michael sometimes lingered a half hour before hurrying away to the alley, and joined his rich natural tenor with her light pretty soprano. Sometimes Will French, a young fellow who was in the same law office and also boarded at Mrs. Semple's, stayed awhile and sang bass. It was very pleasant and made it seem more as if he were ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... appeared, only to fill an unexpected place, or make a decorous entry afterward, to play accompaniments. Fortunately Kitty Meryon sang, in a pinched little soprano, not nearly so pretty as her ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... train were several others; a few on or with donkeys, but more on foot. In vain we told them that we would engage no donkeys at all, and no horses till we reached our destination; in vain we bade them allow us to "pursue the even tenor of our way" in peace, and hush their high soprano tones. It was one perpetual babble in praise of their horses, their donkeys, and their capabilities as guides, with the constant repetition of the names of the surrounding peaks, which we already knew perfectly well. When we reached the gorge which ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... missed. Johnny Byrd had an infectious way of making a party go and Maria Angelina's sweet soprano had become so much a part of every gathering that its absence now made ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... interest even such a cultivated man as M. Bois-le-Duc in Marie Gourdon. She had inherited from her mother a remarkable talent for music, such as many of the French Canadians have strongly developed. Her soprano voice was powerful, clear and flexible, and her ear was very correct. The good cure judged that, if given proper training, and the advantages Paris alone could afford, the little Canadian girl might become an artist of ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy
... inspiration by evangelists and prophets. It has stood the bombardment of ages, but with the result of more and more proof of its being a book divinely written and protected." "Science and Revelation are the bass and soprano of the same tune," he said. He defied the attempts of the loud-mouthed orators to destroy belief in the Bible. "I compare such men as Ingersoll, in their attacks on the Bible, to a grasshopper upon a railway-line with the express ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... made to understand (yet have I taken some pains) what a note in music is; or how one note should differ from another. Much less in voices can I distinguish a soprano from a tenor. Only sometimes the thorough bass I contrive to guess at, from its being supereminently harsh and disagreeable. I tremble, however, for my misapplication of the simplest terms of that which I disclaim. While I profess my ignorance, I scarce ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... some miserable rebec, from the infancy of the art, still imprisoned in the re-la-mi. But it was around the Pope of the Fools that all the musical riches of the epoch were displayed in a magnificent discord. It was nothing but soprano rebecs, counter-tenor rebecs, and tenor rebecs, not to reckon the flutes and brass instruments. Alas! our readers will remember that ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... sing in Vienna. He became a chorister in St. Stephen's Church, but offended the choir-master by the revolt on the part of himself and parents from submitting to the usual means then taken to perpetuate a fine soprano in boys. So Haydn, who had surreptitiously picked up a good deal of musical knowledge apart from the art of singing, was at the age of sixteen turned out on the world. A compassionate barber, however, took him in, and Haydn dressed and powdered wigs down-stairs, while he worked away at ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... he takes a perch and sings; but for the most part he is contented with a few simple notes, having no semblance of a tune. Possibly he holds that his pure contralto voice (I do not remember ever to have heard from him any note of a soprano, or even of a mezzo-soprano quality) ought by itself to be a sufficient distinction; but I think it likelier that his slight attempt at music is only one manifestation of the habitual reserve which, more than anything else perhaps, may be said to ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... dividing line that it requires wide experience and a fine ear for quality on the part of a teacher to determine in what direction they should be developed to greatest advantage. A fine ear may determine that the seeming mezzo is a true soprano, that the notes of the pupil who comes as a baritone have the tenor quality and that his scale safely can be added to, while the would-be tenor has the baritone timbre which will prevent his notes from ever ringing out with the true tenor quality. Yes, this initial task of voice classification ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... did not think much of him, turned to her companion and resumed their conversation—which, being of an essentially private and intimate nature, she conducted, after the manner of her kind, in a ringing soprano which penetrated into every corner of the lobby. Archie, waiting while the brigand reluctantly made change for a dollar bill, was privileged ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... small, nearly unheard-of, German town. And so personal force, musical genius, business talent, education, and general brain power went to the making of a man who hobnobbed with dukes and kings, who ruled musical England with an iron rule, who threatened to throw distinguished soprano ladies from windows, and was threatened with never an action for battery in return, who went through the world with a regal gait, and was, in a word, the most astonishing lord of music the ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... discovery of Fannie's voice proved of much more importance than any of the girls had foreseen. Evelin Hatfield, who had a very clear soprano voice, and who had been cast for the solo parts in the concert, came down with tonsilitis and had to go to the Infirmary. The Seniors met in English room to discuss finding a substitute, after Miss King had assured them that there was no chance of ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... granted. We do not, for example, expect to hear male sopranos at the opera. The Earl of Mount Edgcumbe admired this artificial form of voice almost to the exclusion of all others. His favourite singer, indeed, Pacchierotti, was a male soprano. But other breaks have been made with tradition, breaks which are not yet taken for granted. When you find that all but one or two of the singers in every opera house in the world are ignoring the rules in some respect or other you may be certain, in spite ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... of course, there came trouble. I have it from the soprano—a little lady who possessed even more than the usual unprejudiced judgment of her sex—that Mrs. Tretherick's conduct was simply shameful; that her conceit was unbearable; that, if she considered the rest of the choir as slaves, she (the soprano) would like to know it; that her conduct on Easter ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... stairs. In the distance, the soprano dog had reached A in alt., and was holding it, while his fellow artiste executed ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... rendered by a soprano, a contralto, a bass, and a baritone, each with the full effect of its quality and the personal equation besides, I was quite ready to admit that selecting phonographed books for one's library was as much more difficult as it was incomparably ...
— With The Eyes Shut - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... one of my happy discoveries;" said the old gentleman, complacently. "She possesses, I don't hesitate to say, the finest soprano voice in Europe. Would you believe it, I met with her at the railway station. She was behind the counter in a refreshment-room, poor innocent, rinsing wine-glasses, and singing over her work. Good Heavens, ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... four children. Behind her was a long line of ancestry of which anyone might rightfully be proud. Her face was pure and sweet and her eyes revealed the frankness and honest purpose of past generations. After breakfast she played for the hymns at prayers and in a clear, true, soprano led the singing. A twelve-year-old brother had selected the part of the Bible to be read and the eight-year-old sister had chosen the hymns. The father's prayer was simple and sincere and some of its sentences were remembered for many a day. After prayers the girl attended to the flowers. ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... vulgar child meant that class distinctions were ridiculous. She had this way of rushing subjects, eliding the obvious, and relying on her hearers. "He told me all about it. He'd been universally provided, he said; and I promised not to tell. Miss Erskine Peel—that's Orange, you know, the soprano—went to the manager and said her mother said they must get more men, though it wasn't dancing, or the rooms looked so bad; only they mustn't be fools, and must be able to say Wagner and Liszt and things. And he hoped I didn't think he was ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... you are most admirable, but why, oh! why, in the name of the immortals, will you, why will you present flags? Don't do it any more, please. They are always packed up in a box and left somewhere almost as soon as your handkerchiefs have ceased waving, your soprano hurrahs ceased ringing; or else they are given to some pet officer for a coverlet. They cost a great deal of money; they oblige the poor soldiers to endure a mort of flatulent oratory at a parade rest; ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and the singers forced to give encore after encore. One youth who played the part of a little maid from school, and sang in a sweet soprano voice, caused the greatest enthusiasm of the evening; but then everything seemed to ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... if the composers are their slaves no longer, the spectators and managers still are so. In Paris and elsewhere it is often found impossible to do justice to the secondary stage appointments because the salaries of the soprano and the tenor swallow the whole income. The Germans, on the other hand, are too artistic and rational to endure such an imposition. To them the one-star-and-ten-satellites system seems an abomination, and doubtless Emperor William had the sympathies ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... not accept this refusal, and produced a portfolio of old music. His niece selected a duet for soprano and tenor, and said that she would sing if any one would take the tenor; she stood with the music in her hand, looking dubiously at the circle of men around her. Not one could sing. Mrs. Delancey, my companion at the dinner-table, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... although it was Christmas Eve, and the only carol I heard in the trenches was the loud, deep chant of the guns on both sides, and the shrill soprano of whistling shells, and the rattle on the keyboards of machine-guns. The enemy was putting more shells into a bit of trench in revenge for a raid. To the left some shrapnel shells were bursting, and behind the lines our "heavies" ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... good choir for them days; the only trouble was that everybody wanted to be leader. That's a common failin' with church choirs, I've noticed. Milly Amos sung soprano, and my Jane was the alto; John Petty sung bass, and young Sam Crawford tenor; and as for Uncle Jim Matthews, he sung everything, and a plenty of it, too. Milly Amos used to say he was worse'n a flea. He'd start out on the bass, and first thing you knew he'd be singin' tenor with Sam ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... at first in the chest register, and then gradually to extend the compass of the voice upward. "Every student can for himself with perfect ease recognize the difference between these two separate registers. It will suffice therefore to commence by singing the scale, for example, if a soprano, from G to d;[10] let him take care that these five notes are sonorous, and say them with force and clearness, and without effort." For uniting the registers, "the most certain means is to hold back the tones of the chest and to sing the transition notes in ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... genius and serene wisdom of art, addressed herself to song, as the orchestral symphony prepared the way for the voice in Casta Diva. A better test-piece could not have been selected for her debut. Every soprano lady has sung it to us; but nearly every one has seemed only trying to make something of it, while Jenny Lind WAS the very music of it for the time being. We would say no less than that; for the wisest and ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... first time since that terrible and memorable day, nearly eight years ago, broke into song. And finally they began to sing duets together, his clear, rich, mellow tenor blending well with Flora's sweet, sympathetic soprano. ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... I'm too young for compliments! As for my voice, it's getting so strong that Mummy and the Blossom are always saying to me, 'Not so loud.' If I let it out in the house, they put their fingers in their ears. If I let it out in church, Jemmy says I'm drowning the soprano—and so I ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... morning with a song echoing in his ears. He had dreamed of singing; and as consciousness slowly returned, the dream-song became real. It floated in from the living room on a clear, sweet soprano. When a child he had heard such voices in the choir loft of the great Seville cathedral, and he had thought that angels were singing. As he lay now listening to it, memories of his childish dreams swept over him in great waves. The soft, sweet cadences rose and fell. His own heart swelled ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... whole career. As I have said, music was represented in our family by these two sisters. It was chiefly owing to Clara's career that the musical conductor C. M. von Weber often came to our house. His visits were varied by those of the great male-soprano Sassaroli; and in addition to these two representatives of German and Italian music, we also had the company of Mieksch, her singing master. It was on these occasions that I as a child first heard German and Italian music discussed, and learnt that any one who wished ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... he leaned on the pasture bars, and suddenly his memories sped; and the voice that was singing Schubert's serenade across the way touched him with the urgent, personal appeal that a present beauty always had for him. It was a soprano; and without tremolo, yet came to his ear with a certain tremulous sweetness; it was soft and slender, but the listener knew it could be lifted with fullness and power if the singer would. It spoke only of the song, yet the listener thought of the singer. Under the moon thoughts run ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... 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
... on the monuments and decoration, but on the musical establishment of its great cathedral of Terra Firma. In the midst of this ineffable concert of impossible voices and instruments, I tried to imagine the voice of Guadagni, the soprano for whom Gluck had written Che faru senza Euridice, and the fiddle of Tartini, that Tartini with whom the devil had once come and made music. And the delight in anything so absolutely, barbarously, grotesquely, fantastically incongruous as such a performance in such ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... all the noise, they heard a cracked soprano voice singing with some unauthorized flatting ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... nonsensical song of the moment. The chorus was caught up, and swelled in the shadows. Waving her scarf as she had done in the dance-room in Melbourne on the night when Done first saw her, she sang again, and her clear soprano rang in the gullies like the call of a bird, and brought the miners from their tents and their arguments. When the song ended half the diggers on Jim Crow were gathered about Burton's camp-fire, and the loudest roar of applause came from Mary Kyley! ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... begun, have you?" yelped the proprietor, whose voice in his anger had gradually reached the soprano. "I suppose you would like to ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... singers among them, and these have positions, with a fitting salary attached, in all the churches, from the cathedral to the poorest ministry; and thus they are being trained, from the time when they sing soprano. They are fond of verses and representations. They are excellent translators, and can translate a Spanish comedy with elegance into verses of their own language. And thus, although all, both men and women, are fond of reading, they are indefatigable when verses are concerned, and they ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... highest forms of work women compete on equal terms. In literature women are paid, for books or articles, the same prices that men receive. In art this is true. It is the picture or statue or musical ability that counts. Singers receive as much for the soprano as for the tenor voice. Actresses are paid according to "drawing" power, and woman dancers and acrobats, alas! command ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... the explosive headgear and came forward in response to the light keeper's command. She looked at the chair by the ancient parlor organ and announced: "Yes, indeed, it'll do real well, thank you, Cap'n Jethro." Her voice was a sharp soprano with liquid gurgles in it—"like pourin' pain-killer out of a bottle," this last still another quotation ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... English soprano sang Bach's Heart Ever Faithful. Variety was always welcomed at the parties ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... soprano, and a bass and tenor, too. I can thrill and slur and frill and whirr and shake you through and through. I'm a Jews' harp—I'm an organ—I'm a fiddle and a flute. Every kind of touching sound is found in ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... out of the somber blurring January fog, came a voice lifted in song, a soprano, rich, full and round, young, yet matured, sweet and mysterious as a night-bird's, haunting and elusive as the murmur of the sea in a shell: a lilt from La Fille de Madame Angot, a light opera long since forgotten in New York. Hillard, genuinely astonished, ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... and delicacy of the errand he had undertaken came home to him. Impulse had brought him thus far, but now he stood staring helplessly at a row of bells, speaking tubes, and cards. Which, for example, belonged to the lady whose soprano voice pervaded the neighbourhood? He looked up and down the street, in the vain hope of finding a messenger. The song continued: he had promised to stop it. Hodder ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Polly who was standing apart from the guests, and looking as if in anything but a pleasant mood. Her face brightened, however, when told that it would be a pleasure to hear her sing, and after a little urging, she consented. She possessed a light soprano voice which had been carefully trained, and when she chose, she ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... a waving of caps boys burst out of one door, while girls came out of the opposite one more demurely, but with the piping of gay soprano voices. For school was out, and young America free of restraint for eighteen hours at least. Resilient youth, like a coiled spring that has been loosed, was off with a bound. Horses were saddled or put to harness. The ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... Criterion, or it indicates with great subtlety that, like Members of Parliament, "Peers are, after all, human—very human," and that one old Peer is uncommonly like another old Peer. Miss EVELYN MILLARD, as the soprano heroine, and Mrs. PATRICK CAMPBELL as the base heroine, look handsome, and act excellently. They take the audience with them as far as the audience will go. As good as they possibly can be in such conventional puppet-parts are Messrs. GLENNY and ABINGDON, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 22, 1893 • Various
... attempt a selection from some organ-grinder opera, and she would howl and screech, and catch her breath and come again, and wheel and fire vocal shrapnel, limber up her battery and take a new position, and unlimber and send volleys of soprano grape and cannister into the audience, and then she would catch on to the highest note she could reach and hang to it like a dog to a root, till you would think they would have to throw a pail of water on her to make her let go, and all the time she would be biting and shaking ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... towards Amy in some surprise. I knew she sang very prettily, but I had thought she was rendered too nervous by the storm to do aught but sit quiet in her chair. However, there she was at the piano, and in another moment her fresh, sweet mezzo-soprano rang softly through the room in Tosti's plaintive song, "Good-bye!" We listened, but none of us moved from the open window where we still inhaled what air there was, and watched the ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... sparked and hummed With lights and people. Gebnitz was to sing, That rare soprano. All the fiddles strummed With tuning up; the wood-winds made a ring Of reedy bubbling noises, and the sting Of sharp, red brass pierced every ear-drum; patting From muffled tympani made a ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... allotment was made out, There chanced to be an odd male, and odd female, Who (after some discussion and some doubt, If the soprano might be deem'd to be male, They placed him o'er the women as a scout) Were link'd together, and it happen'd the male Was Juan,—who, an awkward thing at his age, Pair'd off with ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... collection will be taken up at the door to defray expenses.' Well, I though the people in church would sink through the floor. There was not a person in the church except the poor old deacon, but who understood that some wicked wretch had deceived him, and I know by the way the tenor tickled the soprano that he did it. I may be mean, but everything I do is innocent, and I wouldn't be as mean as a choir singer for two dollars. I felt real sorry for the old deacon, but he never knew what he had done, and I think it would be real mean to tell him. He won't be at the slugging match. That remark about ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck
... used to go up to the little fort chapel to attend service on Sunday; I knew the chaplains quite well. One Sunday I was late; as I went in, the choir were busy with something in the way of music. I have no idea what it was, but it went on and on, seemingly a race between the soprano and tenor, with occasional bursts of hurried sentences from the alto and bass, until my patience and ears were weary. The next day I met the chaplain, and, in the course of conversation, I spoke of the music the previous day. 'Was it an anthem or ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... soprano emblem grassy concise nothing ginger faraway kettle shadow next mercy scrub hilltop internal recite shoestring narrative thunder seldom harbor jury eagle windy occupy squirm hobby balloon multiply necktie unlikely supple westbound ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... chorus, in strains which rise above the other voices and supplement the air sung by Kadijah in contrapuntal treatment. Omar, the father of another maiden who is to be Mahomet's concubine, follows Abubekir's example; he and his daughter join in to form a quintette. The girl Ayesha is first soprano, Hafsa second soprano; Abubekir is ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... In writing, use soprano, alto and tenor, or alto, tenor and bass; and do not separate upper parts more than an octave. For a chord or two they may (for the sake of better voice-leading) ...
— A Treatise on Simple Counterpoint in Forty Lessons • Friedrich J. Lehmann
... will do by violating the quietude of thy body, Profaner of ample vices, Abstractor of stupid purities, cursed Nazarene, do-nothing King, coward God!" "Amen!" trilled the soprano voices of ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... of us hear voices calling," broke in Katherine. "And each is a different voice according to our natures. Now Margaret's voice is soprano, but Jessie hears ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... to be hung behind the Olio—for the act opened in One—and when the Olio went up, after the act's name was hung out, the lights dimmed to the blue and soft green of evening in the Quarter. Then the soprano commenced singing, the tenor took up the duet, and they opened the act by walking rhythmically with the popular ballad air to stage-centre in the amber of the spot-light. When the duet was finished, on came the baritone, and then the contralto, ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... molto umano, Perche avea preso gia di lui pietate; Quanto sei, disse, piu franco e soprano, Piu di te mi rincresce in veritate, Che sarai morto, e non sei Cristiano, Ed anderai tra l'anime dannate; Ma se vuoi il corpo e l'anima salvare, Piglia battesmo, ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... a French or an Italian air, merry or sad, in a voice which may be either tenor, contralto, soprano or baritone. ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... sang a reg'lar American song, with music to it. When she reached the chorus she stopped. Then away up in the balcony sounded the tiny treble of a boy's soprano, sweet as the ring of silver. The audience turned, to a man, and we seen, perched among the newsboys, the littlest, golden-haired youngster, 'bout the size of your thumb, his eyes glued to the face of his mother on the stage below, pourin' out his lark song, serious and frightened. ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... hollow, higher still, with an inarticulate mutter of mingled reproach, and warning, and anxiety. Rufe settled himself on the platform, his bare feet dangling about jocosely. Then, beating his hands on either thigh to mark the time he sang in a loud, shrill soprano, prone now and then to be flat, and yet, impartially, prone now and then ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... through the moonlight of memory, it seems as good a place to go away from as any other, after a stifling night in a net, the wooden shutters left open in the remote hope of air, and admitting the music of a whole opera-troupe of dogs, including bass, tenor, soprano, and chorus. Instead of bouquets, you throw stones, if you are so fortunate as to have them,—if not, boot-jacks, oranges, your only umbrella. You are last seen thrusting frantic hands and feet through the iron bars, your wife ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... each service of much divided opinion. Opinion was divided because the choir was divided—separated, in fact, into several small, select cliques, each engaged in deadly and bitter feud with the rest. When the moon-eyed soprano arose, with a gentle flutter, and opened her charming mouth in solo, her friends settled themselves in their pews with a general rustle of satisfaction, while the friends of the contralto exchanged civilly significant glances; and on the way home the solo in question was disposed ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... once more hear my 'Flauto Magico!'" humming, in scarcely audible voice, the lively bird-catcher song. The same day, at two o'clock in the afternoon, he called his friends together, and asked for the score of his nearly completed "Requiem" to be laid on his bed. Benedict Schack sang the soprano; his brother-in-law, Hofer, the tenor; Gerl, the bass; and Mozart himself took the alto in a weak but delicately clear voice. They had got through the various parts till they came to the "Lacrymosa," when Mozart burst into tears, and laid the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... had followed his; for the first time in Somerset's experience, she produced a double eyeglass; and as soon as the full merit of the works had flashed upon her, she gave way to peal after peal of her trilling and soprano laughter. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had started. Fra Domenico at the foot of the altar had pattered through the Confiteor, his deep voice responded to by the soprano of the ministering page. The Kyrie was being uttered when the attention of the congregation was attracted by the sound of steps approaching the chapel door to the accompaniment of an ominous clank of steel. The men rose in a body, fearing ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... Yes, I've got a case; Her voice is such a sweet soprano; Her people come from Northern Thrace; You ought to hear her play piano. If she would like my suicide— If she'd want me a dead and dumb thing, Me for a glass ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... for their instruments. It was impossible to sing the chants, as the string instruments could not hold the tones, so anthems were used instead—mostly Millard's—and they were very beautiful. Not one mistake has ever been made by anyone, but Sergeant Moore has vexed me much. He is our soprano, and has a clear, high-tenor voice and often sings solos in public, but for some unexplainable reason he would not sing a note in church unless I sang with him, so I had to hum along for the man's ear alone. Why he has been so frightened' I do not know, unless it was the ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... whether it means that the stout matter-of-fact lighter has been christened as a shadowy ghost, or a royal symbol. The veriest urchin steers her, with a little fat hand on the heavy tiller twelve feet long, and a hunch of good rye-bread in his other fist. Now and then he sings out in a thin soprano, "Fayther, boat's a'ead," and his father, (hidden below), answers deep-toned, from the cabin, "Keep 'er away, lad." From him I asked, "How old is your boy?" and the parent's head popped up to see, but it was the child that smartly answered, "Eight years old." He looked five. Round ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... regarded it as medicine, and hoped especially for a favourable effect from the exquisite soprano voice in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... ears. White dog cocked her head to one side, and the six puppies followed their parents' example. Duke uttered a low deep howl that chimed in with Beth's singing. White dog howled in a high soprano and the six little dogs did likewise, but in shriller tones. Beth was so surprised that she stopped singing, and the dogs immediately ceased howling, evidently waiting for ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... distinct kinds of voices: Soprano, alto, tenor and bass. There are also intermediate voices, possessing the peculiar quality of the kind to which it belongs, for example: Mezzo-soprano, with the quality of the soprano and only differing from the soprano in range, the range of this voice being lower than ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... round an' join the choir. Sam Merritt has come up from Palmer to spend Thanksgivin' with the ol' folks, an' he is singin' tenor to-day in his ol' place in the choir. Some folks say he sings wonderful well, but I don't like Sam's voice. Laura sings soprano in the choir, and Sam stands next to her ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... in his own inimitable fashion. Then Nora's sweet, high soprano voice began the "Serenata" to the subdued tinkling accompaniment of Reddy's mandolin. Two years in the conservatory had done much for Nora's voice, though its plaintive sweetness had been her natural ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... snoring audibly, not to say visibly. There was Professor Phyle, the celebrated phrenologist—a tall man, with a gaunt face and long gray hair. He had been a lion once, but was now out of date. There were also present Mrs. Blenkin, a comparatively new soprano, having seen only two seasons; Lieutenant Wray, a lion just caught, or rather polar bear, having only then returned from a trip to the arctic regions, in which his ship had covered itself with glory; a young lady who had written ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... greatly ornamented with pictures and gilding, but the most attractive part of the Russian service is the singing, particularly at the Vespers, when the boys taking the soprano parts, accompanied by some most extraordinary deep bass tones of the men, swelling and filling the entire cathedral; all this, with occasional recitations from their sacred books, without any knowledge of their contents, excited in us the most serious and delightful ...
— A Journey in Russia in 1858 • Robert Heywood
... begin it, Raise their high-pitched voices in it, And the shrill soprano piping sets the pace; Then the others join the singing Till the echoes soon are ringing With the big green-coated leader's double-bass. All the lilies are a-quiver, And the grasses by the river ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... door was opened a flood of music floated out. A divinely sweet mezzo-soprano voice was singing to the accompaniment of a harp. As the master of the house flung wide the sitting-room door and announced the visitor, the sounds ceased, but the musician sat with her hands resting upon the gilded strings for a moment, her eyes turned in inquiry ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... extensive sense, instead of to a narrow one like touch. From the experience I have had with voices I guess how the eye distinguishes shades in the midst of light. While I read the lips of a woman whose voice is soprano, I note a low tone or a glad tone in the midst of a high, flowing voice. When I feel my cheeks hot, I know that I am red. I have talked so much and read so much about colours that through no will of my own I attach meanings to them, just as all people ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... having music constantly on tap means to a pilgrim from a town where two concerts in a winter is a gorge, and where about the only regular musical diversion is going to church on Sunday morning and betting on where the veteran soprano in the choir is going to hang on to the key or skid on the high turns. You laugh at me because I can't eat down-town unless I am encouraged by a bull fiddle, and because I gulp at free concert tickets like a young robin swallowing worms. But ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... replied, after a long silence, her voice solemn and veiled like that of an emotional soprano, "I love you because you, too, have something in your face that resembles those of my race, and yet you are as distinct from them as is the servant from the master. I love you... I don't know why. In me there dwells the soul of the ancient Jewesses of the ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... was not pure: it had the rich depth and pathos of contralto, and the vibrant clearness of soprano. Now it threaded a tremulous pathway among the pathetic minor notes, while the fingers seemed to drop a faint sigh ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... twice to the San Carlo, which we were the more pleased to do, because when we were here before, that fine theatre was closed. The singing is so-so, and the tenor especially is gifted with limbs rather than with voice or ear. But there is a baritone worth hearing and a soprano, whom the Neapolitans delight to honour ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... courtship unshaken by doubts and fears must be that in which the lovers can sing together. The sense of mutual fitness that springs from the two deep notes fulfilling expectation just at the right moment between the notes of the silvery soprano, from the perfect accord of descending thirds and fifths, from the preconcerted loving chase of a fugue, is likely enough to supersede any immediate demand for less impassioned forms of agreement. The contralto will not care to catechise the bass; the tenor ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... on that evening a basso did bleat, it may be that he was not bubonic. Moreover he was followed by a soprano who, whether trullish or not, at any rate was not Berlinese and whose voice had the lusciousness of a Hawaiian pineapple. But the selections, which were derived from old Italian cupboards, displeased Paliser, who called them ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... strings of a piano; the larger ones of stringed instruments generally; bass voices; and large bells. Familiar high pitches are right-hand piano strings; smaller ones of other stringed instruments; soprano voices; small bells; and the voices of most ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... without great expense. Mlle. Caroline Salla was given the part of Helene. With her beauty and magnificent voice she was certainly remarkable. But the passages which had been written for the light high soprano of Madame Carvalho were poorly adapted for a dramatic soprano. They concluded, therefore, that I didn't know how to ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... brown thrasher breaks into a melody from the top of a wild cherry, and then it is as if a famous operatic coloratura soprano had joined the village choir. For power and continuity of song he is without a peer. With head erect and long tail pendant he pours forth such a flood of melody, so varied and so sweet that we forget the exquisite hymn-like ...
— Some Spring Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... ground at Miss Jenny Ann's feet the girls sang the splendid song. They forgot the story that had suggested their music. Their voices rang true and sweet. Madge sang the soprano part and Phil the alto. The tune inspired the two girls and gave Miss Jenny Ann fresh courage for the unpleasant interview which she thought ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... the soprano looked very interesting with her wet eyelashes, the tears stopped halfway in their course down her rounded cheek. The closing hymn promised endless peace and rest, but was voiced in the same tragic and hopeless music ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... every Man should wed two wives—" "Why two?" asked I. "You carry your affected simplicity too far", he cried. "How can there be a completely harmonious union without the combination of the Four in One, viz. the Bass and Tenor of the Man and the Soprano and Contralto of the two Women?" "But supposing," said I, "that a man should prefer one wife or three?" "It is impossible," he said; "it is as inconceivable as that two and one should make five, or that the human eye should see a Straight Line." ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... sings the anthem, Cum appropinquaret etc. When the procession is in the portico, two soprano singers reenter the basilica, and shut the door: then turning towards the door, they sing the first verse of the hymn Gloria, laus et honor[38] and the other verses alternately with the choir, which remains without. The subdeacon knocks at the gate with the cross, ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs
... that was new to me, evidently Brewer's sparrow. Its favorite resort was in the low bushes growing on the border of the mesa and along the edge of the cliff. Its song was unique, the opening syllable running low on the alto clef, while the closing notes constituted a very respectable soprano. A few extremely shy sparrows flitted about in the thickets of a hollow as we began our descent, and I have no doubt ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... ears. But there were other sounds which enchained my attention more than these voices of nature. As the skilled leader of an orchestra hears every single sound from each member of the mob of stringed and wind instruments, and above all the screech of the straining soprano, so my sharpened perceptions made what would have been for common mortals a confused murmur audible to me as compounded of innumerable easily distinguished sounds. Above them all arose one continued, ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... made a quartet. Susan was ready with her beautiful contralto, Mrs. Blair sung the soprano, Mr. Blair the ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... not believing it to be a bird, but rather some joyous dreamer in the gloom. Removing her large straw hat, Sina Karsavina now began to sing a Russian popular air, sweet and sad like all Russian songs. Her voice, a high soprano, though not powerful, was ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... usually find, even in large cities and in musical institutions, I exempt from any special criticism, for they would not be able to understand my views. They permit soprano voices to sing scales in all the five vowels at once; begin with c instead of f; allow a long holding of the notes, "in order to bring out the voice," until the poor victim rolls her eyes and grows dizzy. They talk only of the fine chest-tones ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... come and see the Kamtchatkans in Scriptural opera-ballet! Only second to Noe is La Femme de Lot, with dear Sarkavina, in clouds of white, doing a sensational whirling dance as she turns into the Pillar, while that amazing soprano, Scriemalona, sings the mysterious Salt Music. Bishops quite swarm at these performances. They say they consider it their duty to go, and that they never really understood the true character of NOAH till they saw Ternitenky's beautiful flying leap into ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various
... words were being doled out at long and impressive intervals, like the tolling of a heavy bell, more than half a hundred soprano voices were hastily getting in their requisite number ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... actor and singer, Cavalier Nicolino 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 ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... all the garden wakes to sound, for not a bird is mute: The robin pipes the piccolo; the blackbird plays the flute; While high upon a cedar-top a thrush with bubbling throat Lifts up to this accompaniment her clear soprano note. ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... studious school-boy, whistling over his Latin Grammar; that wild, long note is poor Mrs. Fondle's farewell of her dead boy; the ugly barytone, rising from the tap-room, is what Wandering Willie calls a sculduddery song—shut your ears, and pass on; and that clear soprano, in nursery, rings out a shower of innocent idiotisms over the half-stripped baby, and suspends ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... at her own freedom from nervousness. She sang neither better nor worse than usual—sang in the clear and pleasant soprano which she flattered herself was not unmusical. ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... this time," said Pete Murphy. "Beautiful, all of them. Soprano, high and clear. They've got a language, all right, too. What did you think of ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... day. Busy, busy, busy ..." sounded suddenly from the street in Ellen's thin soprano. Doctor June looked down at her, his expression scarcely changing, because it was always serenely soft. But the young clergyman saw with amazement the strange little figure with her unbound hair and her arms high and swaying, and as she took some steps of her dance ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... He had not asked her to do that. Had not, on the contrary, her marriage really furthered it? Was she not more of a person to-day than the discouraged young woman he had found singing for pittances the leading dramatic soprano roles in the minor municipal operas of Germany and Austria? Wasn't that what she had said this morning—that falling in love with him was the best thing that could possibly have happened to her? He had taken ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... the victim, in consideration of being educated, and maintained, and paid a certain amount, is bound, legally bound, to devote her services to a master for a given time. The impresario of the 'Fenice' had often heard from travellers of that wonderful mezzo-soprano voice which was captivating all Rome, where the beauty and grace of the singer were extolled not less loudly. The great skill of these astute providers for the world's pleasure is evidenced in nothing more remarkably than the instinctive quickness with which they pounce upon the indications ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... and change my dreaming. This is S. Stephen's Church in Wien. Inside, the lamps are burning dimly in the choir. There is fog in the aisles; but through the sleepy air and over the red candles flies a wild soprano's voice, a boy's soul in its singing ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... The boy soprano, clad in white surplice, stood in the organ loft. The light shone full upon his crown of fair hair, and his pale face, with its serious blue eyes, looked paler than usual. Perhaps it was something in the tender thrill of the voice, or in the sweet words, but there were tears ...
— The Bird's Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the piano and sang in a thin but trained soprano. The song was a ballad with a quaint air full of sadness and heartbreak. To Raphael, who had never heard the psalmic wails of "The Sons of the Covenant" or the Polish ditties of Fanny Belcovitch, it seemed also full ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... be high or low according to the number of vibrations which the ligaments are capable of producing, or in other words, according to their dimensions and their tension. This difference is easily seen by comparing the voicebox of a soprano with that of a bass, because there the proportions are so manifestly smaller in the one than in the other. There are similar distinctions between soprano and contralto on the one hand, and between tenor ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... lesser canals, rose the manifold noises of Venetian life. All other sounds were dominated by the monotonous shouts of the gondoliers. Somewhere close at hand, perhaps in the opposite palace (was it not the Fogazzari palace?), a woman with a fine soprano voice was practising; the singer was young—someone who could not have been born at the time when Casanova ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... main altar, tearing half a yard of crimson damask and nearly upsetting the priest officiating; and then, while Caper (red in the face, and totally unfit to hear the fine chorus of voices, among which Mustafa's, the soprano, came ringing out) was composing himself to listen, Pepe grabbed him with a 'Music's over; andiamo (let's go). Did you hear Mustafa? Bella voce, tra-la-leeeee! Mustafa's a contadino; I know his ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... was beautifully sung. Quincy had a fine well-trained tenor voice, while Miss Putnam's mezzo-soprano was full and melodious and her rendition fully as artistic as that of her companion. One, two, three, four, five, six encores followed each other in quick succession, in spite of Professor Strout's endeavors to quell the applause and take up the next number. The ovation given earlier in ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... primitive harmony was a perfect fifth resulting from the attempt of men with different ranges to sing together. The difference between a bass and a tenor voice is just about a fifth. Between an alto and a soprano it is about a fourth. The difference in these voices made it impossible to sing melodies of wide range in unison, and so the basses and tenors sang in consecutive fifths. When women took up the chanting, they sang either ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... mountains donned their royal purple, the intervening shadows of valleys making the folds of their robes. As they approached the shore the resonant song of the robins blended with the human voices. Burt, however, heard only Amy's girlish soprano, and saw but the pearl of her teeth through her parted lips, the rose in her cheeks, and ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... picture theatres, and the "Kursaal" and "Casino" where variety entertainments were given nightly—mostly by French artists. Some very good turns were to be seen at the Kursaal, the popular favourite being a soprano, Mimi Pinson, who could bring the house down by her rendering of "Two Eyes of Grey." At the Casino the audience sat about at tables and consumed cool drinks whilst listening to or watching the performers ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... us immediately, and I prefer to direct the singer's chief attention to the second occurrence.) One part may press toward the palate, the other toward the cavities of the head. The division of the breath occurs regularly, from the deepest bass to the highest tenor or soprano, step for step, vibration for vibration, without regard to sex or individuality. Only the differing size or strength of the vocal organs through which the breath flows, the breathing apparatus, or the skill with which they are used, are different ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... and I will have to follow the trails together, yes?" She smiled down into Doris' piquant, freckled little face, and just at this moment there came from the living-room, where Helen was dusting, Dinorah's Shadow Song, sung in a clear, girlish soprano. ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... young gentleman named Valentine Veery, who was a distant cousin of Jolly Robin's, was the singing leader. He had been chosen on account of his being able to sing both alto and soprano at the same time. And as soon as everybody had found a comfortable seat ...
— The Tale of Jasper Jay - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... inopportune times and unsuitable places, creating the inevitable commotion which the blunder and tactless are born to make. As it whisks aimlessly around, it may hit the clergyman's nose in the most pathetic sentence of his sermon, or drop into the soprano's mouth at the supreme climax of her trill. Satan himself could scarcely produce a more complete absence of devotion than is often ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... whole days the town was excited and amused by the scandal; then there came other news—a victory in Germany; doubtful accounts from America; a general officer coming home to take his trial; an exquisite new soprano singer from Italy; and the public forgot Lady Maria in her garret, eating the hard-earned meal ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... as last Sunday morn I pass'd the church, Winds of autumn, as I walk'd the woods at dusk I heard your long-stretch'd sighs up above so mournful, I heard the perfect Italian tenor singing at the opera, I heard the soprano in the midst of the quartet singing; Heart of my love! you, too, I heard murmuring low through one of the wrists around my head, Heard the pulse of you, when all was still, ringing little bells ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... this time lightly, joyously, and we re ponded to her mood like harp-strings all in accord. The room, awakened to melody after the long years of silence, seemed transformed by Una's splendid gift, a fine, clear soprano, not big nor yet thin or reedy, but rounded, full-bodied and deep with feeling. Jerry was smiling now, the shadow seemed to ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... that the great demand to-day is for dramatic, and not for lyric, singers. Formerly, it was the bravura singer who bought dukedoms with his shekels; to-day, with the solitary exception of Patti, it is the dramatic soprano or tenor that gets from $500 to $1,000 a night. When will teachers and pupils wake up and recognize the new situation? When will American girls cease flocking by the hundreds to Milan to learn such roles as Lucia ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... head and smiled provocatively. Martin fled to the cloak-rack near the door. Hurriedly he donned top-coat and hat. Until he finally closed the front door behind him, a tinny wail poured out of the little parlor and assailed his ears, a reedy soprano declaiming passionately that she had raised no son of hers to ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... their plaintive hinney. There are dogs, too, that howl and bark, with other sounds that come from farther off—from the wild denizens of the wilderness; cries of the cougar in contralto, wolf-barkings in mezzo-soprano, screaming of eagles in shrill treble, snorting of bears in basso, and hooting of scared owls in lugubrious tone, to be likened only to the wailing of ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... Days Are Over." Bert and Mary joined in; but when Billy attempted to add his voice he was dissuaded by a shin-kick from Bert. Saxon sang in a clear, true soprano, thin but sweet, and she was aware that ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... you take me for a soprano?" cried the boy, laughing, as he washed off the paint and the gum where the beard had stuck. Presently he got into his frock, which, as I told you, was a real one, provided by Ercole's brother, the Franciscan—quite quietly, of course, for it would seem a dreadful thing to use a real monk's frock ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... yodle, in which both the baritone of the cliff and the Alpine soprano united, was so melodious that Mr. Hahn sprang to his feet and swore an ecstatic oath, while Fritz, from sheer admiring abstraction, almost stuck the lighted end of his cigar into ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... luring her on, a young choir soprano leaves the little village where she was born and the limited audience of St. Jude's to train for the opera in New York. She leaves love behind her and meets love more ardent but not more sincere in her new environment. How she works, how she ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... Sebastian left his brother's roof and entered the Latin school connected with the Church of St. Michael at Lueneburg. It was found he had a beautiful soprano voice, which placed him with the scholars who were chosen to sing in the church service in return for a free education. There were two church schools in Lueneburg, and the rivalry between them was so ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... and A Maid Sings Light form one of the gramophone records made for "His Master's Voice" series by Alma Gluck. This lyric soprano has sung the two MacDowell songs with sympathy and perfect phrasing. The accompaniments were played by a Mr. Bourdon, who unfortunately disregarded the composer's tone ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... at the piano and her rich soprano voice faultlessly led her straggling chorus, filled for the most part by the men grouped outside on the wide porch. He could see them through the long, French windows, sitting or standing as each felt inclined, but all with that earnest seriousness of demeanor which befitted the day and ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... Lil's attraction for Dicky Graham, anyway?" the soprano voice queried. "She's a good seven years older than he is, and both her past and her youth are rather frayed at ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... upon the ears of the waiting multitude the glorious soprano voice of Mrs. Jones. So far above, yet so thrillingly sweet and distinct, one could scarcely refrain from imagining that the Pearly Gates had opened, and we were listening to the voice of one of the Redeemed. ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... call of Simon Peter and his brethren is next described in a tenor recitative; and the acceptance of the glad tidings is expressed in an aria, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me," which, by an original but appropriate conception, is given to the soprano voice. In the next number, the disciples are dramatically represented by twelve basses and tenors, singing in four-part harmony, and alternating or combining with the full chorus in description of the aims of the new religion. The ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske |
