"Composer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... so the programme was changed. The frog is a diligent songster, having a good voice but no ear. The libretto of his favorite opera, as written by Aristophanes, is brief, simple and effective—"brekekex-koax"; the music is apparently by that eminent composer, Richard Wagner. Horses have a frog in each hoof—a thoughtful provision of nature, enabling them to shine ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... stream, which has interrupted this curve, and is now used as a landing-place for the boats, and for embarkation of merchandise, of which some bales and bundles are laid in a heap, immediately beneath the great tower. A common composer would have put these bales to one side or the other, but Turner knows better; he uses them as a foundation for his tower, adding to its importance precisely as the sculptured base adorns a pillar; and he farther increases the aspect of its height by throwing the reflection of it far down in ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... struck in great chords the air of a gloomy march from the half-forgotten muse of some monastic composer. While she played, Claude de Chauxville proceeded with his delicate touch to play on the hidden chords of an ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... AND HUMANE JOKERS.—TOM COOKE was the leader and composer at the Theatres Royal, and a remarkable performer on a penny trumpet. He occasionally made use of this toy in his pantomime introductions. He was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... George Herbert Rodwell, the celebrated composer and writer, was removed from among the living. His musical compositions and stage productions ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... where every delicacy was sumptuously served up in profusion: a grand concert, too, was given in the chapel-royal, under the direction of the chief musician, the celebrated Haydn; whose famous piece, called the Creation, was performed on this occasion, in a stile worthy of that admirable composer, and particularly gratifying to those distinguished amateurs of musical science, Sir William Hamilton and his most accomplished lady. The prince and princess had, a few years before, during a residence of several months at Naples, received such polite ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... the Life of St. Gilbert; but no Latin life corresponding to our text has been discovered, and as Capgrave never refers to 'myn auctour,' and always alludes to himself as handling the material, I incline to conclude that he is himself the original composer, and that his reference to translation signifies his use of Augustine's books, from which he translates whole passages."[38] In a case like this it is evidently impossible to draw dogmatic conclusions. It may be that Capgrave is using the word "translate" with medieval looseness, ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... this series of somewhat peremptory questions. He replied very placidly, "I am afraid I have but a superficial outside acquaintance with the secrets, the unfathomable mysteries, of music. I can no more conceive of the working conditions of the great composer, ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... These contrasts are to be seen on all hands, and have nothing to do with variations in general intelligence, nor even in the specialized intelligence proper to the faculty in question: for example, no composer or dramatic poet has ever pretended to be able to perform all the parts he writes for the singers, actors, and players who are his executants. One might as well expect Napoleon to be a fencer, or the Astronomer Royal to know how many beans make five any ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... survey of some particular provinces, and to remember that although, in travels of this sort, a lively imagination is a very agreeable companion, it is not the best guide. To speak without a metaphor, the study of history, both sacred and profane, requires a critical and laborious investigation. The composer of a set of lively and witty remarks on facts ill-examined, or incorrectly delivered, ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... and to settle a foundation for a free Parliament. After dinner I back to Westminster Hall with him in his coach. Here I met with Mr. Lock and Pursell, Masters of Music,—[Henry Purcell, father of the celebrated composer, was gentleman of the Chapel Royal.]—and with them to the Coffee House, into a room next the water, by ourselves, where we spent an hour or two till Captain Taylor came to us, who told us, that the House had voted the gates of the City to be made up again, and the members ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... age of fourteen, was the best of all the pupils of the Maestro Porpora, a famous Italian composer, of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... are more subtle, weighted with thought, tinged with autumnal melancholy. He was a most fertile composer, and, like all the men of his time and group, produced too much. Yet his patriotic verse was so admirable in feeling and is still so inspiring to his readers that one cannot wish it less in quantity; and ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... odd feelings. I was, I really believe, in spite of my secret self-disgust, a little flattered to have the attention of these big fellows. I remember particularly a moment of pleasure caused by the praise of Crawshaw—you remember Crawshaw major, the son of Crawshaw the composer?—who said it was the best lie he had ever heard. But at the same time there was a really painful undertow of shame at telling what I felt was indeed a sacred secret. That beast Fawcett made a joke ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... wiped away the perspiration from his bulging forehead, for the third movement of the sonata, marked in the score Allegro con fuoco, had taxed even the technic of its composer. ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... Anderson, successor to Captain Frank Johnson, of Philadelphia, is now one of the most distinguished musicians in the country. Mr. Anderson is an artist professionally and practically, mastering various instruments, a composer of music, and a gentleman of fine accomplishments in other respects. His musical fame will grow with his age, which one day must place him in the front ranks of his profession, among the ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... infantry. The portal of the church was built in 1739, and is composed of columns of the ionic and corinthian orders. The interior has some handsomely decorated chapels and altars; the pictures by Vanloo also are fine. Lulli, the musical composer, lies buried here. In the Rue Notre-Dame des Victoires is the immense establishment of the Messageries Royales, from whence start diligences to all parts of France; we will pass through the yard into the Rue Montmartre, at No. 44, is the ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... assisted her from her carriage. Every one was eager for an introduction to this queen of the evening, and when she went to the piano a great hush fell upon the room. She sang melodies, Slavonic airs, that had never before been heard in Paris, and then an aria of a great composer, and when she concluded there was ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... fulfils, so that his Wild Wales is a desert of blighted literary promises. I believe that the merit of Welsh poetry dwells largely, perhaps overlargely, in its intricate technique, and in the euphonic changes which leave the spoken word ready for singing almost without the offices of the composer. ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... likely to be given during regular seasons. To this end he has consulted the best authorities, adding to the material thus collected his own observations, and in each case presented a necessarily brief sketch of the composer, the story of each opera, the general character of the music, its prominent scenes and numbers,—the latter in the text most familiar to opera-goers,—the date of first performances, with a statement of the original cast wherever it has been possible to obtain it, ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... praiseworthy efforts. An almost too vivacious rendering of the Venusberg music brought the scheme to a strepitous conclusion. It may, however, be submitted that so realistic an interpretation of the Pagan revelries depicted by the composer is hardly in accordance with the best traditions ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... Sousa, the famous composer and bandmaster, said that the reason why there was not so much great music produced in the twentieth as in the nineteenth century was that religious faith had declined. According to him, creation is based on faith. This may ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... the thought of the composer grew in power and beauty he forgot himself and his dilemma in his enjoyment. Two senses were finding abundant gratification at the same time, for it was a delight to listen, and it was even a greater pleasure ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... poem was written Lamartine already knew that she was hopelessly ill. This experience of his colors many poems of his first two volumes. Le Lac has often been set to music; most successfully by the Swiss composer Niedermeyer (1802-1861). For interesting variants in the text see Reyssie, la ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... film "Peg o' My Heart" in nine reels is being distributed throughout the entire world, and while innumerable companies are playing the comedy throughout the United States, Canada and the British Empire, an internationally-known composer, Dr. Hugo Felix, is at work upon the score of a "Peg" operetta in collaboration with its author, so that the young lady may continue her career ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... their work, had read the Poet's verses in one of the minor magazines, had stumbled upon some sketch of the Painter's while bargain-hunting among the dealers of the Quartier St. Antoine, been struck by the beauty of the Composer's Nocturne in F heard at some student's concert; having made enquiries concerning their haunts, had chosen this method of introducing himself. The young men made room for him with feelings of hope mingled with curiosity. The affable Stranger called for liqueurs, and handed round his cigar-case. And ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... of Longfellow's verse meet well the wants of the composer. The songs of the poet are more and more being wedded to music. "The Bridge," "The Rainy Day," "The Day is Done," "The Legend of the Crossbill," "The Silent Land," "Allah," "The Sea Hath its Pearls" (translation), and many other poems have found expression in musical art as inspired and beautiful ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... her sisters, were all handsome, but she who did Cenerentola surpassed them all; she was a perfect beauty and a grace. I think the music of this opera would please the public taste in England. Rossini seems to have banished every other musical composer from the stage. ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... subject; too many side-issues are introduced; everything he imagined is cast upon the canvas, too little is laid aside, so that the poems run to a length which weakens instead of strengthening the main impression. A number of the poems have, that is, the faults of a composer whose fancy runs away with him, who does not ride it as a master; and in whom therefore, for a time, imagination has gone to sleep. Moreover, only too often, they have those faults of composition which naturally belong to ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... week, listens to an anonymous musical selection played by one of its members, and must decide by internal evidence—such as simple cadences, harmonic figuration as applied to the accompaniment and other characteristics—upon the school of the composer, and biographical data. The analysis of the musical selection and the reasons for her decision are set down in her notebook by the listening student. The second-year class concerns itself with "the thematic and polyphonic melody, the larger forms, ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... symbolically never used in our religious services? Still it would have been possible to invent solemn and intricate dances, that might have appeared abundantly significant, if expounded by impassioned music. But that music of Mendelssohn!—like it I cannot. Say not that Mendelssohn is a great composer. He is so. But here he was voluntarily abandoning the resources of his own genius, and the support of his divine art, in quest of a chimera: that is, in quest of a thing called Greek music, which for us seems far more ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... Pedro A. Paterno has made his mark in literature with works too numerous to mention; he is a fluent orator, a talented musician, and the composer of the argument of an opera, Sangdugong Panaguinip ("The Dreamed Alliance"). As a brilliant conversationalist and well-versed political economist he has few rivals in his country. A lover of the picturesque and of a nature inclined to revel in scenes of aesthetic ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... experience you next purchase the same composer's "Spinning Song." This may not appeal to you so much at first. It seems to run along very rapidly without any very clearly defined melody. Still, it is by the same composer as the "Spring Song," so it may be worth trying over again. It is more familiar now, and you ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... the course of this spring that she made the acquaintance of M. de Lamennais, introduced to her by their common friend, the composer, Franz Liszt. The famous author of the Paroles d'un Croyant had virtually severed himself from the Church of Rome by his recent publication of this little volume, pronounced by the Pope, "small in size, immense in perversity!" ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... the second grade are by a composer whose productions are never commonplace. They contain much attractiveness and educational value. Teachers of all ...
— Twelve Preludes for the Pianoforte Op. 25 - I. Prelude in F Major • N. Louise Wright
... been printed. She wrote them down merely by ear, and afterwards translated Me cal Mouri into English (see page 57). The ballad was very popular, and was set to music. She did not then know the name of the composer, but when she ascertained that the poet was "one Jasmin of Agen," she resolved to go out of her way and call upon him, when on her journey to the Pyrenees about two years later.{3} She had already heard ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... are the typical and representative men of the race, and whatever is true of them is true, in a lesser degree, of men in general. There is in the work of every great sculptor, painter, writer, composer, architect, a distinctive and individual manner so marked and unmistakable as to identify the man whenever and wherever a bit of his work appears. If a statue of Phidias were to be found without any mark of the sculptor upon it, there would ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... 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 self-denial was well rewarded. If the Count had married Theodora, he would only have had a graceful drawing-room queen. ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... from side to side,—struck the opening cadence, and then, from the first note to the last, gave the secondo triumphantly. Jumping up, he fairly shoved the man from his seat, and proceeded to play the treble with more brilliancy and power than its composer. When he struck the last octave, he sprang up, yelling ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... if they did the Scythians also would report it, as they do about the one-eyed people. Hesiod however has spoken of Hyperboreans, and so also has Homer in the poem of the "Epigonoi," at least if Homer was really the composer ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... second-rate poet. And wherefore should it be so, when Augustus has at command the genius of such men as Virgil and Varius? They, and they only, are the fit laureates of the Emperor's great achievements; and in this way the poet returns, like a skilful composer, to the motif with which he set out—distrust of his own powers, which has restrained, and must continue to restrain, him from pressing himself and his small poetic powers upon ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... modern European composer so difficult to eat beefsteak to as Wagner. That we did not choke ourselves is a miracle. Wagner's orchestration is most trying to follow. We had to give up all idea of mustard. B. tried to eat a bit of bread with his steak, and got most ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... death, his writings gradually gained pre-eminence, so that, although virtually unknown during the war, he came into high regard. Benjamin Britten, the British composer who set nine of Owen's works as the text of his "War Requiem" (shortly after the Second World War), called Owen "by far our greatest war poet, and one of the most original poets of this century." (Owen is especially noted for his use of pararhyme.) Five of those nine texts ...
— Poems • Wilfred Owen
... mountain. The whole scene equal to anything in Switzerland, as far as the mountains go. The Mont de Lans is opposite the windows, seeming little more than a stone's throw off, and causing my companion (whose name I will, with his permission, Italianise into that of the famous composer Giuseppe Verdi) to think it a mere nothing to mount to the top of those sugared pinnacles which he will not believe are many miles distant in reality. After dinner we trudge on, the scenery constantly improving, the ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... a musical genius yourself and want to do a young composer a good turn, I implore you not to get his opera produced under the pretence that it is yours and wait until it has been received enthusiastically before you announce whose work it is. For that is what Jess ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various
... in common music, shapes are in this music. The composer does not find his theme by picking out single notes; but the whole theme flashes into his mind by inspiration. So it must be with shapes. When I start playing, if I am worth anything, the undivided ideas will pass from my unconscious mind to this ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... Mary heard him say to Paula—"Now fetch out your composer. Where have you had him ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... passed. An occasional party of German students, who are the only real Bohemians left to the world in these days of progress, went sentimentally mad about her for twenty-four hours, and planned serenades in her honour which did not come off. A fashionable Italian composer dedicated a song to her, and Marcello asked him to dinner, for which he was more envied by the summer colony than for his undeniable talent. The Anglican clergyman declared that he would preach a sermon against her wickedness, but the hotel-keepers ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... lady who wore a bonnet of Sweet Sixteen of the time of the Crimea, and with a sense of colour which would wreck the reputation of a kaleidoscope. She it was who had taught her son Orlando the tunefulness of Meyerbeer and Balfe and Offenbach, and the operatic jingles of that type of composer. Orlando Guise had come by his outward showiness naturally. Yet he was not like his mother, save in this particular. His mother was flighty and had no sense, while he, behind the gaiety of his wardrobe and his giggles, had very much sense of a quite original kind. Even ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Edmund Lacy (1420-1455), composer of an office in honour of the Archangel Raphael, left a saintly reputation, and pilgrimages were, for long, made to his tomb. According to Canon Freeman he raised the chapter house ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Exeter - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Percy Addleshaw
... the hearts of ordinary folk, should yet have the power to make a great lady suffer. For a great lady I knew Ysolinde to be even then, when her father seemed to be no more in the city of Thorn than Master Gerard, the fount and treasure-house of law and composer-general ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... development, for, according to him, the more highly organized structures proceed from those of lower organization, and these again form the inorganic under the influence of meteors and stars. The poet laureate Conrad Celtes (b. 1459), a singer of love and composer of four books about it, was a true poet. His incessant wandering, for he was always moving from place to place, was due in part to love of Nature and of novelty, but still more to a desire to spread his own fame. He lacked the naivete and openness to ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... of Handel suggests to most people the sound of music unsurpassed in massiveness and dignity, and the familiar portraits of the composer present us with a man whose external appearance was no less massive and dignified than his music. Countless anecdotes point him out to us as a well-known figure in the life of London during the reigns of Queen Anne and the first two Georges. He lies buried in ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... capering to-day, was common to the Chinese three or four hundred years ago. They heard it from the wild Tartars and Mongols—heard it and rejected it, because it was primitive, untamed, and not to be compared with their own carefully controlled melodies. Mr. Emerson Whithorne, the famous British composer, who is an authority on oriental music, made this statement to the London ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... himself was a composer of Latin hymns and a penman of no mean order, as the Book of Kells, if written by him, sufficiently proves. In all the monasteries which he founded, provision was made for the pursuit of sacred learning ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... distinguished revivalists of a paler skin-pigmentation than his. As the saying goes among the sinful, he saw his Caucasian brethren and went them one better. His musical director was not only an instrumentalist but a composer as well. He adapted, he wrote, he originated, he improvised, he interpolated, he orchestrated, he played. As one inspired, this ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... a very sufficient knowledge of mineralogy, precious stones, antiquities, and curiosities; but I had at my command every possible resource for acquiring these studies, as one of my dearest and best friends, Aristide le Carpentier, a learned antiquary, and uncle of the talented composer of the same name, had, and still has, a cabinet of antique curiosities, which makes the keepers of the imperial museums fierce with envy. My son and I spent many long days in learning here names and dates of which we afterwards made a learned display. ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... found out that, like me, she is intensely musical. She plays beautifully on the piano, and we had long hours together playing Chopin and Beethoven; we also played some of Moussorgsky's duets, but I love her best when she plays Chopin, the composer pre-eminent ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... education in the Irish Convent, Rue du Bacq, Faubourg St. Germain, at Paris, where the immortal Sacchini, the instructor of the Queen, gave me lessons in music. Pleased with my progress, the celebrated composer, when one day teaching Marie Antoinette, so highly overrated to that illustrious lady my infant natural talents and acquired science in his art, in the presence of her very shadow, the Princesse de Lamballe, as to excite in Her Majesty ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... This celebrated composer was married at Bologna, on the 16th of August, after a courtship of 16 years, to Mademoiselle Olympe Bearrien of Paris. It may change the turn of ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... at the piano fingered a chord tentatively, then struck into a popular song, an appealing little melody, the words a lyric set to music by a composer ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... of surpassing interest to the musician. Whatever may be thought the true purpose of music, there can be no question as to one demand made on each individual instrument,—it must produce tones of sensuous beauty. A composer may delight in dissonances; but no instrument of the orchestra may produce harsh or discordant tones. Of beauty of tone the ear is the sole judge; naturally so, for the only appeal of the individual tone ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... are exquisitely harmonious, though we regard not one word of what we hear, yet the power of the melody is so busy in the heart, that we naturally annex ideas to it of our own creation, and, in some sort, become ourselves the poet to the composer; and what poet is so dull as not to be charmed with the child of his own fancy? So that there is even a kind of language in agreeable sounds, which, like the aspect of beauty, without words, speaks and plays with the imagination. While this ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... sum he had to leave L400 undrawn, as he could not get the men to work at the improvements, even for their own good. They all wanted to be gangers or chiefs. It reminded me of Berlioz's reply to the bourgeois who wanted his son to be made a "great composer." "Let him go into the army," said Berlioz, "and join the only regiment he is fit for." "What regiment is ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... MARQUIS DE MASSA, soldier, composer, and French dramatist, was born in Paris, December 5, 1831. He selected the military career and received a commission in the cavalry after leaving the school of St. Cyr. He served in the Imperial Guards, took part in the Italian and Franco-German Wars and was promoted Chief of Squadron, Fifth ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the painter Rosalba Carrera, famed throughout Europe for her crayon miniatures; and the place produced in the sixteenth century the great maestro Giuseppe Zarlino, "who passes," says Cantu, "for the restorer of modern music," and "whose 'Orfeo' heralded the invention of the musical drama." This composer claimed for his birthplace the doubtful honor of the institution of the order of the Capuchins, which he declared to have been founded by Fra Paolo (Giovanni Sambi) of Chioggia. There is not much ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... said Barere,[3250] to the composer of an opera, the performance of which had just been suspended: "as times go, you must not attract public attention. Do we not all stand at the foot of the guillotine, all, beginning with myself?" Again, twenty years ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... appears that Leigh Hunt, who was a great keeper of birthdays and other anniversaries, took it into his head to celebrate the birthday of Papa Haydn by giving a dinner, drinking toasts, and crowning the composer's bust with laurels. Some malicious person told Haydon that the Hunts were celebrating his birthday, a compliment that struck him as natural and well deserved. Hastening to Hampstead, he broke in upon the company, and addressed to them a formal speech, in which he ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... music will naturally do so on a vocational basis, and the question is not of the aim to be sought, but the much easier one of the means of its attainment, since there is no more of a puzzle in teaching an embryo composer or music teacher than there is in teaching an incipient physician ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... King, who had been a great scholar, dreaded to read in Latin now, for it brought the language of the Mass into his mind; he had been a composer of music and a skilful player on the lute, but no music and no voices could ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... having a letter from a friend in Boston who had lately heard a great chorus rendered. He could not be quite sure of the name of the composer because he had read the letter hurriedly and his friend was a blind-writer, but that made no difference to Harry. He could fill in facts enough about the grandeur of the music from his own imagination to make ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... weave purse nets wherein to catch coneys. I am never idle. But now, hither come, some drink, some drink here! Bring the fruit. These chestnuts are of the wood of Estrox, and with good new wine are able to make you a fine cracker and composer of bum-sonnets. You are not as yet, it seems, well moistened in this house with the sweet wine and must. By G—, I drink to all men freely, and at all fords, like a proctor or promoter's horse. Friar John, said Gymnast, take away the snot ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... day I called at the studio unexpectedly to ask for something I'd forgotten, and found Harry improvising at the piano—you know that way he has of improvising from memory—an inaccurate memory—of some well-known composer. I've never known him do it except when he wanted to—please some woman. Well, Lady Walmer was there, leaning over the piano and listening. Should you think from that he's keen, as you ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... paragraphs from Hints and Helps. "'It is best to remark,'" he opened, in an unnatural voice, "'How well you are looking!' although fulsome compliments should be avoided. When seated ask the young lady who her favorite composer is.'" ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... been his share in the takings of the theatre—a share which would doubtless increase as the earlier partners disappeared. He must have speedily become the principal man in the firm, combining as he did the work of composer, reviser, and adaptor of plays with that of actor and working partner. We are thus dealing with a temperament or mentality not at all obviously original or masterly, not at all conspicuous at the outset for intellectual depth or seriousness, ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... brilliant fete, several ladies of the court were amongst the performers, and it was resolved that they should in future be replaced by professional danseuses, the female characters in the ballet having previously been sustained by men." Lully, the celebrated composer, was manager of the opera house, where he amassed a very large fortune. He made himself greatly dreaded by his orchestra, whom he used to belabour over the head with his fiddle. In this manner he is said to have broken scores ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... only demonstrated the scientific value of these aboriginal songs in the study of the development of music, but suggested their availability as themes, novel and characteristic, for the American composer. It was felt that this availability would be greater if the story, or the ceremony which gave rise to the song, could be known, so that, in developing the theme, all the movements might be consonant with the circumstances that had inspired the motive. ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... are more suitable pursuits for young Percival Johnson than doing scram practice up against the playground wall. It may well be that it would be a far, far better thing for mob adoration to be laid at the feet of the composer of the winning Greek Iambic rather than at the cricketing boots of the Captain of the Eleven. It may be so, but, then, most assuredly it may not. ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... are listening to something which belonged originally to Beale Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee. The original "Memphis Blues," so far as it can be credited to a composer, must be credited to Mr. W. C. Handy, a ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... the "Hymn to Coniston," in the reflected glory of whose fame Brampton had shone for thirty years! Whose name was lauded and whose poem was recited at every Fourth of July celebration, that the very children might learn it and honor its composer! Stratford-on-Avon is not prouder of Shakespeare than Brampton of Miss Lucretia, and now she was come back, unheralded, to her birthplace. Mr. Raines, the clerk, looked at the handwriting on the book, and would not believe his own sight until it was vouched for by sundry citizens who ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the accustomed heavy courtesy of the Societe Harmonique. She went early to the hall that she might hear the entire music-making of the evening—Van Kuyp's tone-poem, Sordello, was on the programme between a Weber overture and a Beethoven symphony, an unusual honour for a young American composer. If she had gone late, it would have seemed an affectation, she reasoned. Her husband kept within doors; she could tell him all. And then, ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... the musical composer, has just published a pleasant volume of "Fugitive Pieces and Reminiscences of Lord Byron," with a new edition of the celebrated "Hebrew Melodies," and some never before published, of which the following are three, with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 373, Supplementary Number • Various
... his "Sinfonia Domestica" occupies itself with the same sweet history of the inglenook which is the basis of the Bluebeard libretto. Strauss's symphony is worked out along more tranquil lines, to be sure, but it is only the history of a single day of married life and a day arbitrarily chosen by the composer. It is conceivable that there may have been ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... fond of him, and she knew everyone would be pleased, and also she was pleased herself. He was so young and jolly, and they had always fitted so well, though in his music—he was by way of being a young composer—he ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... 1752-1840: the daughter of Dr. Burney, a musical composer. While yet a young girl, she astonished herself and the world by her novel of Evelina, which at once took rank among the standard fictions of the day. It is in the style of Richardson, but more truthful in the delineation ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... NOTE.—The composer of the music and the author of the mele was a Hawaiian named John Meha, of the Hawaiian Band, who died some ten years ago, at ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... a genuine, systematic knowledge of music might be laid. You might specialise your inquiries either on a particular form of music (such as the symphony), or on the works of a particular composer. At the end of a year of forty-eight weeks of three brief evenings each, combined with a study of programmes and attendances at concerts chosen out of your increasing knowledge, you would really know something about music, even though you were as far off ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... an art. Painting completed whole. Music passing panorama. Not translatable into words. To follow, even anticipate composer. Bach's absolute knowledge. Fire of Prometheus. Inner sanctuary of art. Science of acoustics. Prime elements. Dr. Marx and Helmholtz. Motive. Beethoven's fifth symphony. Phrase. Period. Simple melody. "God Save the King." Our "America." Masters ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... de Prony s'etait engage. avec les comites de gouvernement. a composer pour la division centesimale du cercle, des tables logarithmiques et trigonometriques, qui, non seulement ne laissassent rien a desirer quant a l'exactitude, mais qui formassent le monument de calcul 1e plus vaste et le plus imposant ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... the penalty of a national inheritance so ample and so sweet, and that the comparative absence of traditionary music in England opened the heart of the country to strains more ambitious and classical. However it came about, there is no denying that so it was. If there was any Scottish composer at all, his productions were only imitations or modifications of the old airs. Music continued to be represented by the songs of immemorial attraction, the woodnotes wild of nameless minstrels, pure utterance of the soil. Perhaps the ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... admiration, he was startled by a sudden clangour among the bass-notes—the music seemed to be jumbled into confusion, and the ear was stunned by a painful and intolerable dissonance. On looking more intently, he perceived that the composer had let one hand fall abstractedly upon the key-board, while the other executed, by itself, a passage of extraordinary difficulty and involution. Then, for the first time, the thought struck him that the musician was deaf.[17] Alas! the supposition was too true: Beethoven was cursed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... intimate friend of Scriabin, telegraphed the news of the composer's death to a friend in England. He stated that Scriabin died of the disease of the lip from which he was suffering when in England last year, and that he had just finished the "wonderful poetical text" of the prologue ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... musician's future; a young man whose music-loving family gave him every possible opportunity, and who produced some charming and even joyous songs during the long struggle with tuberculosis which preceded his death, had made a brave beginning, not only as a teacher of music but as a composer. In the little service held at Hull-House in his memory, when the children sang his composition, "How Sweet is the Shepherd's Sweet Lot," it was hard to realize that such an interpretive pastoral could have been produced ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... verdict at the adjourned inquest upon Victor Bidlake, at Soto's American Bar about a fortnight later. They were Robert Fairfax, a young actor in musical comedy, Peter Jacks, a cinema producer, Gerald Morse, a dress designer, and Sidney Voss, a musical composer and librettist, all habitues of the place and members of the little circle towards which the dead man had seemed, during the last few weeks of his life, to have become attracted. At a table a short distance away, Francis Ledsam was seated with a cocktail and a dish of almonds ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... played. It was composed by a German musician by the name of Fyles, the leader of the orchestra, in compliment to the President. The national air will last as long as the nation lasts, while the meritorious composer has ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... sonorous voice echoed over the cemetery as he was approaching the end of his discourse. "The six feet of earth" was repeated again and again, like the refrain upon which a good composer will hang a whole symphony; and each time it seemed to make a deeper impression. The account in the evening papers might perhaps be slightly exaggerated, when it said that not an eye was dry; but certain is it that many wept, and not only women, but men also. Some even of the merchants, who ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... realized in the course of years that Frederick Augustus would not take her back, she changed her mind as to the illegality of her divorce and married, September 25, 1907, Enrico Toselli, an Italian composer and pianist of ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... of society; and the paintings of that period would probably bear the same relation as is confessedly borne by the sculptures to all succeeding ones. Of their music we know little; but the effects which it is said to have produced, whether they be attributed to the skill of the composer, or the sensibility of his audience, are far more powerful than any which we experience from the music of our own times; and if, indeed, the melody of their compositions were more tender and delicate, and inspiring, than the melodies of some modern European ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... his wife. Dressed as a sailor, he conducted her, disguised as Flora, in an ornamented barge, all festooned with garlands, and illuminated with coloured lamps. It was a truly fairy scene, and the Dame Lebrun did not at that time look on the composer of the spectacle as a malignant cobold, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... "But the composer forces it on one—a lesson of despair. Give it all up! No use to make your effort. The Immanent Will broods over you. You must go down in the end. That music is a great lie. It's splendid, it's superb, but it's ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... is conventionally sound she is sure to be in a whirl. She exchanges daylight for gaslight; her daily sustenance is stewed mushrooms with a rich gray gravy, beef-tea, and ice-cream, varied by an occasional mouthful of fillet as a conscience composer. All winter she participates in a feverish round of balls, receptions, luncheons, dinners, teas, theatre parties, with every now and then a wedding. All summer she sails, floats, glides, sits, perches, sprawls, walks, ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... Prometheus. This drama is a sublime enigma. Aeschylus was conservative and deeply religious. How could he write a play the hero of which is a benefactor of man struggling against the tyranny of the king of the gods, and the sequel of which found a fit and congenial composer in Shelley, whose sentiment and manner the "Prometheus Bound" wonderfully anticipates and perhaps helped to form? Again, how could the Athenians, in an age when their piety had not yet given way to scepticism, have endured such dramatic treatment of the ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... music!—the immense building was filled with the sound. The full organ was played, and some of the priest singers took part. Never did music so overcome me. The sublime piece,—as I thought of Beethoven's, surely of some great composer,—performed in this glorious old cathedral, was beyond all that I had ever dreamt of. It seems to me that I might think of it again in my dying hour with delight. I felt as if it created a new soul in me. Such gushes of sweet sound, such joyful fulness of melody, ...
— Travellers' Tales • Eliza Lee Follen
... and another took it up until all four were engaged on it. It was not precisely in tune nor were the performers in unison, but it produced a vaguely pleasant effect, and if not in tune with the notes as the composer wrote them, the sight and sound of those four whistling and idle soldiers was in tune with the air of security of ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... transposed from the fourth degree of the scale (where it is originally announced) to the first, the fifth, and the sixth degrees. We find the same motive given with omissions, with additions, with augmentations, with contractions, and with altered rhythmic values; in short, the composer has turned this motive over and over, and unwittingly developed it much after the manner used by musicians trained in the art of composition. The fact that this motive is given four times rhythmically and melodically intact, besides recurring frequently throughout the composition in one ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... Mozart and Schubert and Wagner, it matters little whether the chiefs of music number two only, or whether they may be so many as four or five. Indeed, it may be admitted at once that the list would need to be widely extended before it would include the name of any composer who was not a scion ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... another at the theatre throughout the year; but he felt, nevertheless, a sort of proprietary interest in these ventures, and was pleased when they secured the approval of the public. Last night's opening, a musical piece by an American author and composer, had undoubtedly made a big hit, and Mac was glad, because he liked what he had seen of the company, and, in the brief time in which he had known him, had come to entertain a warm regard for George Bevan, the composer, who had ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... find far from Slumber-land. His steps led to the apartment of a certain theatrical manager, whom he found engaged in a lively tournament of the chips, jousting with two leading men, one playwright, a composer and a merchant prince. The latter, of course, was winning. The host, contributing both chips and bottled cheer, was far from optimistic until the arrival ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... daughter of a violinist and musical composer, whose name has a place in my memory from seeing it on a pretty musical setting for the voice of some remarkably beautiful verses, the author of which I have never been able to discover. I heard they had been taken out of that old-fashioned receptacle for stray poetical gems, the ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... to a Drama is generally a minor affair, but, in this instance, it is both major and minor, and has been specially written for the piece by Dr. HUBERT PARRY. As this play is not an "adaptation from the French," the music of this Composer is the only article de Parry about the piece, and, being strikingly appropriate, it proves an attraction of itself. It is conducted by the Wagnerian ARMBRUSTER, who, with his Merry Men, is hidden ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 21, 1893 • Various
... a much better Composer of Latin Verses than either Ovid or Lucan, has with great Judgment taken care to follow Virgil's Example in this and many other Particulars. I mean Vanerius. There are a great Number of Lines in his Praedium Rusticum ...
— Letters Concerning Poetical Translations - And Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse, &c. • William Benson
... seemed a trifle strained, as though the music had troubled him. "I know the march, but the composer never wrote what you have played to-night," he said. "It was—may mine be defended from it!—the shuffle of beaten men. How could you have felt what you put into ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... when he exacted it of me, but we agreed not to play that piece for other people, and I doubt if he finds that promise any easier to break than I do, for he would not care to let others see his emotion. I have often wondered what was in the heart of the composer, for it touches my heart like no other piece of music has power to do. I fear I have not made it very plain to you, dear, but I wish you understood it ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... and other, remained the only sources of information respecting the great master, and the history of his works, available to the public, even the German public. Wegeler's "Notizen" are indispensable for the early history of the composer; Schindler's "Biographie," for that of his later years. Careful scrutiny has failed to detect any important error in the statements of the former, or in those of the latter, where he professedly speaks from personal knowledge. Schindler is one of the best-abused ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... painter would not make a primary study of Angelo's anatomical drawings; a composer of lyric forms of music would not study Sousa's marches; nor would a person writing a story look for much assistance in the arguments of Burke. The most direct benefit is derived from studying the very thing one wishes to know about, not from studying something else. ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... noted men who have gone out from the Berkshire region are William Cullen Bryant, Cyrus W. Field and brothers, Jonathan Edwards, Mark and Albert Hopkins, Senator Henry L. Dawes, Governor Edwin D. Morgan, of New York, George F. Root, the musical composer, Governor George N. Briggs, of Massachusetts, Governor and Senator Francis E. Warren, of Wyoming, the Deweys, the Barnards, a list too long for quoting. Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose grandfather was a Berkshire ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... and enlarged, there were several editions of them made, the third in 1654, and the fourth in 1670. The songs in these poems were set to music, or as Wood expresses it, wedded to the charming notes of Mr. Henry Lawes, at that time the greatest musical composer in England, who was Gentleman of the King's Chapel, and one of the private ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... Moliere was like her father in her wit and humor. Beethoven had for a maternal grandmother an excellent musician. The mother of Mozart gave the first lessons to her son. A crowd of composers have descended from John Sebastian Bach, who long stood unrivaled as a performer on the organ, and composer for that instrument. It may be remarked here, that it is almost invariably true that the ability or inability to acquire a knowledge of music is derived from the ancestry. Parents who cannot turn a tune or tell ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... put into a day's painful labor, and some of his slightest sketches are astonishingly and commandingly expressive. Other of his drawings were worked out and pondered over almost as lovingly as his completest pictures. But so instinctively and inevitably was he a composer that everything he touched is a complete whole—his merest sketch or his most elaborated design is a unit. He has left no fragments. His paintings, his countless drawings, his few etchings and woodcuts are all of a piece. About everything ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... sense of disappointment. But after the first few passages had been played the leader lost his self-consciousness and forgot his surroundings. He began to feel the music, to compose it again, and the mechanism of the conductor was lost in the inspiration of the composer. It was a beautiful movement marked andante sostenuto—pathos itself, and Von Barwig drew from his men their very souls, forcing them in turn to draw out of their strings all the suffering he had been going through for the past few days. Then a curious psychic phenomenon took place. Von ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... It is a musical composition which consists of movements fast or slow, sad or playful, according to the varying mood of the composer. ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education |
