"Orchestral" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... magnificent symphony in C is one of the most beautiful works of the kind ever written, and lovers of orchestral music always delight to find it on the programme of an evening concert. It is a charm, an enchantment; it awakens feelings that are only active in the soul under exceptional influences. Yet the listener ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... folk-ballad which most nearly resembles that just related is the Scottish ballad of The Demon Lover, which inspired the late Hamish MacCunn, the gifted Scottish composer, in the composition of his weird and striking orchestral piece, The Ship o' ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... his wife. He knew that the angel wings of inspiration had been brushing his brow all the morning, and such visits were too rare to be flouted. He sat at his piano and in a composer's raucous varied voice, imitated the imaginary timbres of orchestral instruments. Sent forth, Mrs. Van Kuyp and Rentgen slowly walked into the little Parc of Auteuil, once the ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... the roar of the flames, the constant explosions of dynamite, the loud vicious crackling of wood, the rending and splitting of masonry, the hoarse impact of walls as they met the earth, was the scene's wild orchestral accompaniment and, despite underlying apprehension and horror, gave Gora one of the few pleasurable sensations ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... above orchestral undertone, The plaining wail of muted violin, The hushed oboe and the distant din, Of muffled drum or viol's raucous groan— Sudden arises one pure voice-like tone, A silver trumpet's tongue that stirs the soul To feel the theme, and the harmonious whole A ...
— The Path of Dreams - Poems • Leigh Gordon Giltner
... frequently used; but an illuminated garden fete such as the Emperor of Austria gave for the Shah of Persia at Schoenbrunn would at that time have been impossible. The same might be said of certain forms of musical entertainment; for example, concerts. Society in that age would have shuddered at the orchestral music of to-day, and the ear-splitting drums would have appeared barbarous to the Italians of the Renaissance, just as would the military parades, which are still among the favorite spectacles with which distinguished guests are either honored ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... Sometimes it is an orchestral conductor who reproaches the solo singers with their want of respect for the composer, because he hears at times interpolations or changes which find no place in his own score. The singers are accused of "altering the composer," of "taking liberties with the text." And yet these ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... Alwynn, as if her reason were a weighty one, his memory possibly recalling the orchestral flourish which as a rule heralded his wife's return to consciousness. "True, true, my dear. I must be going," as the chime ceased. "Are you coming ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... the introduction of harp passages in their orchestral scores, owing to the paucity of harpists. In some cases, composers have written harp passages beyond the possibility of execution by a single harpist, and the difficulty and cost of providing two harpists ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... after Shakespeare's time, orchestral music for the theatre consisted of stringed instruments only (i.e., the violin family, violins, violas, violoncellos, and the sole surviving 'viol,' the double-bass) with harpsichord, for general use; while in the more important ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... something of the fortunes of the family into which Mozart married. The father of Mozart's wife was the older brother of Franz Anton von Weber, father of Carl Maria. This Franz Anton was a strange mixture of stalwart and shiftless qualities. He gave up his orchestral position to fight against Frederick the Great, and brought home a red badge of courage. It is wonderful, by the way, how many musicians have earned distinction as soldiers—what, indeed, would the ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... indicated his tempi a little more clearly," I remarked as I finished Sarka for the third time. "It matters, because he really has something to say. An orchestral accompaniment would be better, ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... and religion went hand in hand, not sharply sundered by castes and professions. But we may not put back the clock, and, if by differentiation we lose something, we gain much. The old choral dance on the orchestral floor was an undifferentiated thing, it had a beauty of its own; but by its differentiation, by the severance of artist and actors and spectators, we have gained—the drama. We may not cast reluctant eyes backwards; the world ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... afterwards served me as the theme for an orchestral composition (in the form of an overture) named Polonia; I shall recount the fate of this work later on. My friend Tyszkiewitcz's passport now arrived, and he made up his mind to go back to Galicia via Brunn, although ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... of him, loomed the dark shadow of a long, low, cottage-like building, and from a window a light twinkled out between the tree trunks; while from beyond again came the roll of surf, low, rhythmic, like the soft accompaniment of orchestral music. ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... smiling, and nodding his great head enjoyingly from time to time. When the people near him applauded the close of an air (as an English audience in such circumstances always WILL applaud), without the least consideration for the orchestral movement which immediately followed it, he looked round at them with an expression of compassionate remonstrance, and held up one hand with a gesture of polite entreaty. At the more refined passages of the singing, at the more delicate phases ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... about 2,000 players of orchestral instruments have been thrown out of employment by the war. It is suggested that, with a view to providing them with more employment, reverses as well as victories should be musically celebrated ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various
... function. Besides, there was a great artillery racket all night long. It appeared to be coming from our sector, so you must have heard it as well. This hospital is not very far back and we get the full orchestral effect of heavy firing. The result is that I am dead tired to-day. I believe I can sleep for ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... secret haven, the profounder aspirations of man's heart are in solitude continually travelling. Obliquely upon our left we were nearing the sea; which also must, under the present circumstances, be repeating the general state of halcyon repose. The sea, the atmosphere, the light, bore each an orchestral part in this universal lull. Moonlight and the first timid tremblings of the dawn were by this time blending; and the blendings were brought into a still more exquisite state of unity by a slight silvery mist, motionless and dreamy, that covered the woods and fields, ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... Mr. Punch's young men thought he would like to hear some orchestral music on Monday week last, so he dropped in at the Queen's Hall to assist at a concert of the new British Symphony Orchestra. The name of the founder and conductor, Mr. RAYMOND ROZE, was already familiar, for Mr. Punch's young man was old enough to remember ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... moral morass, and the world grew weary of them. And then the faint, fading flowers of romanticism were put into albums where their purple harmonies and subtle sayings are pressed into sweet twilight forgetfulness. Berlioz, mad Hector of the flaming locks, whose orchestral ozone vivified the scores of Wagnerand Liszt, began to sound garishly empty, brilliantly superficial; "the colossal nightingale" is difficult to classify even to-day. A romantic by temperament he ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... himself in his then little known earlier work. Prior to the appearance of Pelleas et Melisande, he had put forth, without appreciably disturbing the musical waters, all of the extraordinary and individual music with which his fame is now associated, except the three orchestral "sketches," La Mer (composed in 1903-1905 and published in the latter year), the piano pieces Estampes (1903), and Images, Masques, l'Ile joyeuse (1905), and a few songs. Certain audiences in Paris had heard, nine years before, his setting of Rossetti's "Blessed ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... the evening the hall was filled to overflowing, and ushers were appointed to seat the crowd. Naturally there was much chattering and scraping of feet until suddenly a strain of music, an orchestral selection, began to come out of the horn and there was instant quiet. After ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... accomplish; to know the white glory of mighty midnights and the pale Amen of dawns was his day of days. Songs, pianoforte and violin pieces, trios and quintets for strings, incidental music, symphony, orchestral, and choral works rushed from his fingers. Nor were they laboriously contrived or light, thin things made to meet sudden popularity. Rather they were the flaming bits that must be said and sung,—that could not wait the slower birth of years, so hurried to the world as though ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... similar thoughts crowded themselves into my brain, my attention was attracted by soft strains of music emanating from the room I had just left, and I stood still and listened. Arletta had evidently set the orchestral mechanism in motion again, and was accompanying it by tenderly singing her own requiem. With tremulous modulation, her vocal chords produced sounds such as I had never heard before, and of which I am powerless to give the faintest ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... charge even this to madness. I believe One day he'll have me pardoned for that...crime, When I escaped—deserted, some would say— From those drill-sergeants in my native land; Deserted drill for music, as I now Desert my music for the orchestral spheres. No. This new planet is only new to man. His majesty has done much. Yet, as my friend Declared last night, "Never did monarch buy Honour so cheaply"; and—he has not bought it. I think that it should bear some ancient name, And ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... apartment, and the musicians gathered about it. Fred was surprised and delighted to find that the young Bartons were all really accomplished musicians, and their instruments blended in sweetest harmony. So they played a number of orchestral pieces that were received with great applause by the audience. Then solos, duets, trios, quartettes, choruses, etc., were sung, and it is not probable that the Barton family ever spent so delightful an evening in their lives. And let us just contemplate ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... forest, and these orchestral sounds rise at every sunset from earth to heaven—and float high, high, reaching where there is no creature, where there is nothing only the silvery dust and the milky way of the stars, and above ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... was taking with her. Another deprivation that she would keenly feel would be the music her soul loved. Whenever she was assailed by her remorseless troubles in London, she would hasten, if it were possible, to either the handiest and best orchestral concert, or a pianoforte recital where Chopin was to be played. The loneliness, sorrowings, and longings of which the master makers of music (and particularly the consumptive Pole) were eloquent, found kinship with her own unquiet thoughts, ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... to the bosom of our common mother to rest in death. I love the companionship of the forest. There is an elevation of soul in this communion with incorruptible nature: there is sincerity and truth in the hills and valleys—in the trees and vines, and music—grand orchestral music—in the moaning of the limbs and leaves, played upon by the hurrying winds. I have prayed to be a savage, and ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... when I do it that way, I make very few blunders, but I know I can never be a composer until I have mastered all the branches of musical theory. I am now writing a symphony. I played some parts for Herr Nikisch and he has agreed to produce it. Of course, the orchestral parts will have to be written for me, but I know what instruments I want to ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... Fontana, who was a daily visitor at his parents' house. We have a Polonaise (D minor) and a Nocturne (E minor) of 1827, and another Polonaise (B flat) and the Rondo for two pianos of 1828. The Sonata, Op. 4, and La ci darem la mano, varie for pianoforte, with orchestral accompaniments, belong also to this time. The Trio (Op. 8), although not finished till 1829, was begun and considerably advanced in 1828. Several of the above compositions are referred to in a letter written by him on September 9, 1828, to one of his most intimate ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... In fact, I had always plumed myself on being what one calls "very tolerably musical." But these two were streets in advance of such mediocrity. To begin with, they had a strong contempt for most vocal efforts, considering them as merely a sop for the outside public. Orchestral music was their formula for the highest form of the art, and orchestral music they accordingly played, that queer creature Haigh blinking over the upright grand, and Cospatric behind him bringing sounds out ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... sunny afternoon, when Hadria had returned, thrilled and inspired by a magnificent orchestral performance at the Chatelet, she found Madame Vauchelet, M. Thillard, and the great Jouffroy waiting in her salon. Jouffroy was small, eccentric, fiery, with keen eager eyes, thick black hair, and overhanging brows. M. Thillard ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... eager, melodious hosts, charging in thickening ranks and columns, beating impetuous retreats, and again uniting with one grand emotion the wide-spreading army of sound for the final victory. Besides these, there was one of Liszt's "Rhapsodies Hongroises," an impromptu by Schubert, and several orchestral pieces; but the greater part of the programme was devoted to Chopin, because Halfdan, with his great, hopeless passion laboring in his breast, felt that he could interpret Chopin better than he could any other composer. He carried his audience by storm. As he retired to the dressing-room, after ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... around the head of Ben Kyaw. Sheets of mingled spray and rain were driven in our faces. All round the isle of Aros the surf, with an incessant, hammering thunder, beat upon the reefs and beaches. Now louder in one place, now lower in another, like the combinations of orchestral music, the constant mass of sound was hardly varied for a moment. And loud above all this hurly-burly I could hear the changeful voices of the Roost and the intermittent roaring of the Merry Men. At that hour, ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... held my spirit, tremblingly I saw, Through rushing tears, the sign of angel-grief O'er the false promise of diviner years. From the far glide of some descending strain Of tenderest music I have heard thy voice; And thou hast called amid the stormy rush Of grand orchestral triumph, with a sound Resistless in its power. I feel the light, Which is thine atmosphere, around my soul, When a great sorrow gulfs ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... evening we were all invited to be present at the gammelang, or orchestral and dramatic entertainment, in the harem of this prince. The invitation was gladly accepted, and so novel an exhibition I have seldom witnessed. Many of the musicians were masked, and wore queer-looking, conical ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... musical instruments is more detailed than seems warranted at first sight; but interest in orchestral instruments is real and general, and there is a persistent desire for intelligent information relative to musical instruments. The child of the laborer as well as the child of the merchant finds it possible to attend ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... tradition lives in the whole 'romantic school' of violin playing. Look at his seven concertos—of course they are written with an eye to effect, from the virtuoso's standpoint, yet how firmly and solidly they are built up! How interesting is their working-out: and the orchestral score is far more than a mere accompaniment. As regards virtuose effect only Paganini's music compares with his, and Paganini, of course, did not play it as it is now played. In wealth of technical development, in true musical expressiveness Vieuxtemps is a master. A proof ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... emotions; why should they be a thicket in the way of his work for Christ? The betrothal was sealed in a religious ceremony. Young Zinzendorf composed a cantata for the occasion {March 9th, 1721.}; the cantata was sung, with orchestral accompaniment, in the presence of the whole house of Castell; and at the conclusion of the festive scene the young composer offered up on behalf of the happy couple a prayer so tender that all were moved to tears. His ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... as picturesque as Verdi himself. While the rehearsals of the opera were going on, Mirate, who sang the Duke, continued to complain that he hadn't the MS. of one of his songs. Verdi kept putting him off, till the evening before the orchestral rehearsal, when he brought forth the lines; but at the same time he demanded a promise that Mirate—nor indeed any of the singers—should not hum or whistle the air till it should be heard at the first performance. This signified Verdi's belief that the song ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... with that perfect bearing, that air of all dignity and sweetness, blending a child-like simplicity and half-trembling womanly modesty with the beautiful confidence of 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 ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... amateur musician with a thorough knowledge of orchestral and band instruments, harmony, theory, and orchestration but during the last few years none but intimate frequenters of his home had the privilege of hearing him, although until within the last two or three years he often played ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 13th Annual Meeting - Rochester, N.Y. September, 7, 8 and 9, 1922 • Various
... deepest sleep a thundering summons at his door aroused him. A dream which came between the first prelude to this orchestral drumming and his awaking had advised him of a fainter disturbance, but by the time he was fairly awake the knocking had grown so exigent that it bade fair to ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... the Philharmonic Concert last night, under the direction of Sir Henry Peacham, was successful in bringing together an audience of eminently respectable dimensions. The occasion served for the launching under favourable circumstances of what constituted the chief landmark of the programme—a set of orchestral variations with the quaint title of "The Quangle Wangle," from the prolific pen of Mr. Carl Walbrook. It is satisfactory to be able to record the gratifying fact that this work met with cordial acceptance. In the interests of serious ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... opera, and Archduke Joseph, so well known by the name of the "Gypsy Archduke," who has done more than anyone else in Europe to place on record, both in writing and in print, the weird music and extraordinary quaint melodies of the Tziganes, melodies which he has arranged exquisitely for orchestral use. True, there is not a single archduke or archduchess in Austria and Hungary, who does not play with taste and feeling. Indeed, music seems to be inborn in them, and while the widowed crown ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... of the audience, the mellow tones of the singer, the orchestral accompaniment full of mysterious harmony, seemed to awaken the ineffable joy that love implants in the human heart. How much weakness there is in ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... anything short of perfection. What will such people do in our clanging streets? What of those fine ears tuned to the most exquisite appreciation of sweet sound? What of that refinement of hearing that detects the least departure from the rhythm and pitch in complex orchestral music? And must they bear the crash of steel on stone, the infernal clatter of traffic? Well, yes,—as a matter of fact—they must, at least for a good many years to come, until advancing civilization eliminates the city noise. But it is not always great noises that disturb and distract. There is ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall
... Mozart are like toy-houses compared with the massive architecture of Beethoven's. He not only elaborated the forms, but varied the rhythms, broadened the melody, and deepened the expression of orchestral music. In his works, too, are to be found the germs of romanticism, which others, notably Mendelssohn and Schumann, developed so fascinatingly in their best works. Most of Mendelssohn's compositions have had their day; but Schumann is still a force in modern music and will ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... of the hour. Lovely young women, with roses in their cheeks and their hair, caught the reflection of the radiant electric lights and the glory of the superb decorations, and their natural pulchritude was enhanced in impressiveness thereby. The "frou frou" of silks and satins; the enchanting orchestral offerings; the brilliant illuminations; the alluring decorations, and the intoxication of the dance made the event one of the most markedly successful in the history ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... toys Of simulated stature, face, and speech: It also peradventure may outgrow The simulation of the painted scene, Boards, actors, prompters, gaslight, and costume, And take for a worthier stage the soul itself, Its shifting fancies and celestial lights, With all its grand orchestral silences To keep the pauses of its ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... If the most exquisite orchestral music could be continued without a pause for a series of years, and children were brought up and educated in the room in which it was perpetually resounding, I believe their enjoyment of music, or understanding of it, would ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... first comers, not alone for reasons of thrift, but because we thought they ought to be left for old folks, "a leetle mite hard o' hearin'," or the unfortunates who were "not so fur-sighted" as we. So we seated ourselves in delight already begun, for was not Mr. Gad Greenfield performing one of the "orchestral pieces" which the programme had led us to expect? The piano was an antique, accustomed to serve as victim at Sudleigh's dancing-school and sociables. I have never heard its condition described, on its return to Sudleigh; ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... spoken of his music generally, and now I come to deal (briefly, for my space is far spent) with the orchestral, choral, and chamber music and songs; and first with the choral music. I begin to fear that by insisting so strongly on the distinctive sweetness of Purcell's melody, I may have given a partially or totally wrong impression. Let me say at once, ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... carefully to follow the accompaniment of a melody, try to follow the single voice parts in the chorus, particularly the Bass, Tenor, and Alto. And when you go to orchestral concerts learn early to follow special instruments like the clarinet, ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper
... in great variety were just emerging from the recently watered earth, and the splendid morning did ample justice to the vernal scene. The charm of a beginning seemed to pervade all nature, and the songs of many birds sounded like the orchestral music before the commencement of any theatrical performance. Such a morning, in such a place, was quite incompatible with the brow of care. Here was an almost boundless extent of the richest surface in a latitude corresponding to that of China, yet still uncultivated and unoccupied ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... "Eli," or "Elijah"; the "Requiem" of Mozart, and the "Lobgesang" by Mendelssohn; and for the last, and we trust many last, "Israel in Egypt." All this will be but so much rehearsal for the grander Festival to follow. We have no organized orchestral or symphony society, as we should have; but we have with us always the elements of a good orchestra, who always work well together, and never better than last year under the enterprise and drill of Mr. Zerrahn. Then we had glorious symphonies and overtures, both old ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... "Carol, Brothers, Carol," is to be sung behind the curtains, just before they are drawn for the second picture. A harp, violin, and triangle would assist the piano in making an orchestral effect. A solo voice supplies the closing air, "My Ain Countree." The piano may be played very softly whenever the reader pauses ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg |
