"Harpsichord" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Punctuality. I can not say success, for alas! my silence while she played seemed not in the least to displease her; on the contrary she actually said to me one day "Well Charlotte, I am very glad to find that you have at last left off that ridiculous custom of applauding my Execution on the Harpsichord till you made my head ake, and yourself hoarse. I feel very much obliged to you for keeping your admiration to yourself." I never shall forget the very witty answer I made to this speech. "Eloisa (said I) I beg you would be quite ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... looking across the chamber at his enemy. Did no feeling of compassion disturb his sombre breast? The man was not wholly evil; he loved flowers (I have been told) and sweet music (he was himself no mean performer on the harpsichord); and, let it be frankly admitted, the idyllic nature of the scene stirred him profoundly. Mastered by his better self he would have returned reluctantly up the tree, but for ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... situation of my beloved home when this letter reaches you. I think I see you and my good aunt, seated on the blue sofa in your dressing-room, with your needle work on the little table before you; I see Mary in her usual nook—the recess by the old harpsichord—and my dear father bringing in this happy letter from your son! I must confess this romantic kind of fancy-sketching makes me feel rather oddly: very unlike what I felt a few months ago, when I was a mere coxcomb—indifferent, ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... who gave his child an excellent training. She became well known as a pianist and singer, and among other works produced songs, piano sonatas, violin pieces, and even a concerto for piano, or rather harpsichord. Miss Linwood devoted herself more entirely to vocal compositions, and published a number of songs and the oratorio, "David's First Victory." Two operas by her were left ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... arrived at the height of the carnival. Whatever effect Venice, with its weird and mysterious beauty, with its marble palaces, facades, pillars, and domes, its magnificent shrines and frescoes, produced on Handel, he took Venice by storm. Handel's power as an organist and a harpsichord player was only second to his strength as a composer, even when, in the full zenith of his maturity, he composed ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... of the same period have as little mystery for him, and his women and girls have altogether the poetry of a by-gone manner and fashion. They are not modern heroines, with modern nerves and accomplishments, but figures of remembered song and story, calling up visions of spinet and harpsichord that have lost their music today, high-walled gardens that have ceased to bloom, flowered stuffs that are faded, locks of hair that are lost, love-letters that are pale. By which I don't mean that they are vague and spectral, for Mr. Abbey has in the highest degree the art ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... spreading out the fingers of each hand as if the table's edge was a harpsichord, and ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... music adapted for the use of societies and churches. Nearly everybody sang by note, and she was dull of ear or wits who could not bear her part at sight in any simple church tune. The pianoforte took the place of our grandmother's spinet and harpsichord, and every girl in every family was taught to play upon it after a fashion. She who had not taste or talent for music gave it up after her marriage. In this particular she was no more derelict than the "performer" of our times, whose florid flourish of classic music costs thousands ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... there are many faded drawings of the present generations, which cannot stand in competition with the glowing and faithful colours of the silk and worsted of former times; and many of the hours spent at a stammering harpsichord, might, surely, with full as much domestic advantage, have been devoted to the embellishment of chairs and carpets. We hope that no one will so perversely misunderstand us, as to infer from these remarks, that we desire to see the revival of old tapestry work; or that we condemn ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... drawing-room, on the walls of which art was represented by the old as well as modern masters, might be seen and sometimes heard—for the Misses Harbordeens often entertained—a well-tuned Broadwood, and a Bucksen harpsichord. I will describe this old-world abode, not as I first saw it, for when I first visited my aunts Amelia and Deborah, I was only one year old, but as I first remember it—a house with the glamour of a many-gabled roof ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... things in the collection besides books," said Allison "Some queer old musical instruments,—a harpsichord and a lute, and an old violin worth its weight in gold. Some of the most noted violinists in the world have played ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... very well, child," said he encouragingly. "But I want you to do better. Dr. Pepusch will play the music for these verses on the harpsichord. You must listen closely to the melody and take particular note of the way he plays it. Then you will sing it. Here are the words and the music. Study them while ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... piano had a case specially made for it, painted a dull sage-green and finished in a manner to give it a look of the less massive harpsichord. ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... among other diversions to "Les Charmettes", the famous abode of Rousseau—kept much as when he left it: I visited it with my wife perhaps twenty-five years ago, and played so much of "Rousseau's Dream" as could be effected on his antique harpsichord: this time I attempted the same feat, but only two notes or thereabouts out of the octave would answer the touch. Next morning we proceeded to Turin, and on Wednesday got here, in the middle of the last night ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... ennobled) had been born poor, but aspiring, esurient; with talents, audacity, adroitness; above all, with the talent for intrigue: a lean, but also a tough, indomitable man. Fortune and dexterity brought him to the harpsichord of Mesdames, our good Princesses Loque, Graille and Sisterhood. Still better, Paris Duvernier, the Court-Banker, honoured him with some confidence; to the length even of transactions in cash. Which confidence, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... wool, and that in the midst of the rumbling and crashing of the thunder they had heard the sweet tones of harps. Many of the burghers said that they too had heard it, and the ducal Maker of Musical Instruments declared that the notes sounded as if they had come from a fine harpsichord—though not from one of the best—which some one had played ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... school of Callander. An early taste for music induced him to proceed to Edinburgh, there to cultivate a systematic acquaintance with the art. Acquiring a knowledge of the science under the celebrated Tenducci and others, he became himself a teacher of the harpsichord and of vocal music, in the metropolis. As an upholder of Jacobitism, when it was scarcely to be dreaded as a political offence, he officiated as organist in a non-juring chapel in the vicinity of Nicolson Street; and while so employed had the good fortune to form the acquaintance of Burns, who ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... the keys of the harpsichord, She cleaned the hilt of the family sword, She cleaned my lady, she cleaned my lord, All the pictures in their frames, Knights with daggers and stomachered dames— Cecils, Godfreys, Montforts, Graemes, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... black, and wonderful. Boy as I was, I knew that, in spite of that bloated face, this woman had once been very beautiful. She put out a hand, with all the fingers going as if she were playing on the harpsichord, and she touched Jim ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the 25th of September. Since that I have received yours of October the 25th, enclosing a duplicate of the last invented tongue for the harpsichord. The letter enclosing another of them, and accompanied by newspapers, which you mention in that of October the 25th, has never come to hand. I will embrace the first opportunity of sending you the crayons. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... assiduity: he may delight in seeing the beauties of his estate miniatured by your pencil, or the foliage of a favourite tree doomed to perpetual spring on your obedient canvass; or, peradventure, delight more in the soft touching of your lute or harpsichord: whatever it may be, study to do it quickly, and cultivate your taste unto his pleasure. I say, do it quickly, in the early days of marriage, because habit is a most tyrannical master. Then, when your affections ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... visitor, "I am not at home." Confucius himself certainly came very near to doing so. It is on record that when an unwelcome visitor came to call, the sage sent out to say that he was too ill to receive guests, at the same time seizing his harpsichord and singing to it from an open window, in order to expose the hollowness of ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... after-life, though under very different circumstances, in London. Bononcini, who was of a sour and jealous disposition, soon conceived a dislike for the gifted little fellow, and attempted to injure him by composing a piece for the harpsichord full of the most extraordinary difficulties, and then asking him to play it at sight. The boy, however, at once executed it without a mistake, and thus the malicious schemer was foiled by his own device. Attilio was of a different disposition; he praised the young musician to the skies, and was ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... unpretending little houses of the seventeenth or eighteenth century, from behind whose iron window-gratings and blistered green shutters one expects even now, as one passes in the silence of the summer afternoons, to hear the faint jangle of some harpsichord-strummed minuet, the turns and sudden high notes of some long-forgotten song by Cimarosa or Paisiello. It is a region of dead walls, over which bend the acacias and elms, over which shoot up the cypresses and cedars ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... possible to months and years. It is as much at your arbitration on what theme you shall meditate, as in what meadow you shall botanize; and you have as much at your option the choice of your thoughts, as of the keys in your harpsichord. ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... good-natured simpleton, as soft as butter, and as easily melted — not that she's a fool — the girl's parts are not despicable, and her education has not been neglected; that is to say, she can write and spell, and speak French, and play upon the harpsichord; then she dances finely, has a good figure, and is very well inclined; but, she's deficient in spirit, and so susceptible — and so tender forsooth! — truly, she has got a languishing eye, and reads romances. — Then there's her brother, 'squire Jery, a pert jackanapes, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... the court yard closed he opened it with the aid of a large stone. Soon he dismounted, went to a billiard room, and simulated all the movements of one playing. In another room he struck with his empty hands a harpsichord, and finally returned to his bed. He appeared to be irritated when anybody made a noise, but a light placed under his nose was apparently unnoticed. He awoke if his feet were tickled, or if a horn ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... the tune of Le Carillon National, in 1789, while preparations were being made for the F[^e]te de la F['e]deration. It was a great favorite with Marie Antoinette, who was for ever "strumming the tune on her harpsichord." ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... satirized as being necessarily ugly, which is but the resource of an angry child or a jealous woman, it serves no purpose but to produce a disagreeable result. There is no reason why the farmer's daughter in the old caricature who is squalling at the harpsichord (to the intense delight, by the bye, of her worthy father, whom it is her duty to please) should be squab and hideous. The satire on the manner of her education, if there be any in the thing at all, would be just as good, if she were pretty. Mr. Leech would have made her so. ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... be recorded of his life in Hainburg save that Frankh worked him hard. Indeed, much later Haydn declared himself thankful to Frankh for forming in him the habit of working hard. He sang, played the fiddle and harpsichord, and went to school; and suddenly one George Reutter came on the scene. He came, heard, and was conquered by Haydn's voice. He was Hofcompositor and Kapellmeister at St. Stephen's Church in Vienna, and he took the boy ...
— Haydn • John F. Runciman
... all, but sets of incidental pieces and songs for plays, and some of the sets are very short. Thus Dryden talks of Purcell setting "my three songs," and there are only half a dozen "curtain-tunes," i.e. entr'actes. Many of the harpsichord pieces are of tiny proportions. The sonatas of three and four parts are no larger than Mozart's piano sonatas. Still, taking into account the noble quality that is constantly maintained, we must admit that Purcell used astonishingly the short time he was given. ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... them both. "The Princess and her waiting-maid," said Unity demurely, "will come very soon." She rose from the green bench. "The waiting-maid is going now to her harpsichord!" Her eyes rested upon the younger Cary. "Will you be so very good as to ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... faded Like an old opera tune Played upon a harpsichord; Or like the sun-flooded silks Of an eighteenth-century boudoir. In your eyes Smoulder the fallen roses of out-lived minutes, And the perfume of your soul Is vague and suffusing, With the pungence of sealed spice-jars. Your half-tones delight ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... Apollo's sons repair, Swift rides the rosin o'er the horse's hair! In unison their various tones to tune. Murmurs the hautboy, growls the hoarse bassoon; In soft vibration sighs the whispering lute, Tang goes the harpsichord, too-too the flute, Brays the loud trumpet, squeaks the fiddle sharp, Winds the French-horn, and twangs the tingling harp; Till, like great Jove, the leader, figuring in, Attunes to order the chaotic din. Rejected Addresses: The ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... lay in her power to the satisfaction of all present, she in the afternoon regaled them with a tune on the harpsichord, accompanied with her voice, which, though not the most melodious in the world, I dare say, would have been equally at their service could she have vied with Philomel in song; and as the last effort of her complaisance, when dancing was proposed, she was prevailed on, at the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... "There is Yu's harpsichord," exclaimed the Master—"what is it doing at my door?" On seeing, however, some disrespect shown to him by the other disciples, he added, "Yu has got as far as the top of the hall; only he has ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... himself, he looked upon the advice as injurious to his talents, and cried out, with all the violence of affronted pride, "What! you teach me music? The music is good music: confound your words! Here," said he, thrumming his harpsichord, "are my ideas; go ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... for the same little town, it appeared, and as the sun was setting we reached it together. I entered the town over the bridge, and the stream under it, washing the walls of the high-piled, many-gabled old inn where I proposed to pass the night. I should hear it still rippling on with its gentle harpsichord tinkle, as I stretched myself down among the cool lavendered sheets, and little by little let ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... Frenchman, was a fine performer on the violin and harpsichord. At the representation of Arsinoe and the other earliest operas, he played the harpsichord and Haym the violoncello. Dieupart, after the small success of the design set forth in this letter, taught the harpsichord in families of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... an instance of it.—You must know I was once a journeyman sonnet-writer to Signor Squallini. Now, his method, when seized with the furor harmonicus, was constantly to make me sit by his side, while he was thrumming on his harpsichord, in order to make extempore verses to whatever air he should beat out to his liking. I remember, one morning, as he was in this situation, thrum, thrum, thrum, (moving his fingers as if beating on the harpsichord,) striking out something ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... about Gray's Inn Fields "humming to myself (which is now my constant practice) the trillo." He learned to play the lute, the flute, the flageolet, and the theorbo, and it was not the fault of his intention if he did not learn the harpsichord or the spinet. He learned to compose songs, and burned to give forth "a scheme and theory of music not yet ever made in the world." When he heard "a fellow whistle like a bird exceeding well," he promised to return another day and give an angel ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... of such a place," she said, "where everything would be sympathetic; it's a pity that one can't have a piano taken out into the fields, the way I remember reading that Haydn used to do with his harpsichord. If I were a violinist, that's the way I'd do all my playing, because then one would not need to be afraid to open his eyes; oh, it would ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... were always lively? And I must pardon you if you expect too much?—Upon my soul, this is highly comic! Expect too much! And there is danger then that I should not equal your expectations?—Prithee, my good girl, jingle the keys of your harpsichord, and be quiet. Pore over your fine folio receipt book, and appease your thirst after knowledge. Satisfy your longing desire to do good, by making jellies, conserves, and caraway cakes. Pot pippins, brew rasberry wine, and candy orange ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... most of whose life was spent in trying to perfect his Clavecin oculaire, an instrument on the order of the harpsichord, intended to produce melodies and harmonies of color. He also wrote L'Optique des couleurs (1740) and Sur le ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... hiding each its hopes and dreams, Its tragi-comic dreams. And all this throng Will be forgotten, mixed with dust, crushed out, Before this book of music is outworn Or that tall organ crumbles. Violins Outlast their players. Other hands may touch That harpsichord; but ere this planet makes Another threescore journeys round its sun, These breathing listeners will have vanished. Whither? I watch my moving hands, and they grow strange! What is it moves this body? What am I? How came I here, a ghost, to hear that voice Of infinite compassion, ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... wax-lights in the chandeliers above. An indescribable air of distinction marked every face. Numerous servants moved about noiselessly, and the musicians of the chateau, placed in a recess, played upon violins and a harpsichord. The table was a fairy sight. Flowers, silver statuettes, and candelabra, were placed at intervals down the middle. Between and around these a miniature landscape, representing winter, was extended, with ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... Klaviermusik (1899), p. 54, &c.). Contemporary writers speak in the highest terms of Bull's skill as a performer on the organ and the virginals, and there is no doubt that he contributed much to the development of harpsichord music. Jan Swielinck (1562-1621), the great organist of Amsterdam, did not regard his work on composition as complete without placing in it a canon by John Bull, and the latter wrote a fantasia upon a fugue of Swielinck. For ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... her guests, the mistress of the house, an ideal of beauty, Cythera herself, was seated at the harpsichord, her neck and shoulders hidden by her wonderfully beautiful golden hair. When M. Cambray, in his plain brown coat buttoned to the chin, with black gloves and dull buckle-shoes, appeared in the doorway of the boudoir, which was not ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... the French term for a small harpsichord, at that time called in England a spinet. It was named from a fancied resemblance of its quill plectra ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... which his musical taste and talent became distinguished at an early age, he appeared on the stage as singer, and in one of his own operas, after singing his role upon the stage, came back into the orchestra in order to conduct from the harpsichord the performance, until his role required him again upon the stage. Indeed, it was this eccentricity which occasioned a quarrel between him and Haendel, who resented the implication that he himself was incapable of carrying ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... reason not very long after the jubilee, which celebrated the fiftieth year of his reign (1809). Once, in a lucid interval, he was found by the Queen singing a hymn and playing an accompaniment on the harpsichord. ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... delivered himself up to their guidance. Overwhelmed with professional engagements, he still contrived to snatch some moments for the stars; and between the acts at the theatre was often seen running from the harpsichord to his telescope, no doubt with that "uncommon precipitancy which accompanied all his actions."[12] He now rapidly increased the power and perfection of his telescopes. Mirrors of seven, ten, even twenty feet focal length, were successively ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... well she plays the harpsichord and harp! How well she sings to them! Whoe'er would prove The power of song, should hear thy neighbour ...
— The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles
... prospect of your succeeding in the application of keys to it. It will be the greatest present which has been made to the musical world this century, not excepting the Piano-forte. If its tone approaches that given by the finger as nearly only as the harpsichord does that of the harp, it will be very valuable. I have lately examined a foot-bass newly invented here, by the celebrated Krumfoltz. It is precisely a piano-forte, about ten feet long, eighteen inches broad, and nine inches deep. ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... was formerly written for solo instrument only (harpsichord, clavichord, piano) but modern composers like Dvo[vr]ak, Lachner, Moszkowski, and others have written suites for full ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... from Halfman that he might not see the tears in her eyes, and so turning did not see the tears that stood in his. She moved towards the harpsichord and dropped into the chair that served it. Her fingers fluttered over the keys and a tinkling music answered them and underlined ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... resource! it will not be easily conjectured what kind of book this was—it was a music book. Among the talents she had cultivated, music was not forgotten; she had a tolerable good voice, sang agreeably, and played on the harpsichord. She had taken the pains to give me some lessons in singing, though before I was very uninformed in that respect, hardly knowing the music of our psalms. Eight or ten interrupted lessons, far from putting me ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... existence. They are fond of old friends and old books, and indulge in music and simple pleasures. Her sisters help Rosalba by preparing the groundwork of her paintings. She pays visits, and writes rhymes, and plays on the harpsichord. She receives great men without much ceremony, and the Elector Palatine, the Duke of Mecklenburg, Frederick, King of Norway, and Maximilian, King of Bavaria, come to her to order miniatures of their reigning ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... Miss Tox (D. & S.) was the harpsichord, and her favourite piece was the 'Bird Waltz,' while the 'Copenhagen Waltz' was also in her repertoire. Two notes of the instrument were dumb from disuse, but their silence did not impoverish the rendering. Caddy Jellyby found it necessary to know ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... fish and game in brake and pool Must I have for my own preserve 550 And as for my house it must never swerve From an even temperature, cool In summer and in winter warm. Yes, and a comfortable bed Would not do me any harm, 555 All of it of cedar-wood, A harpsichord hung at its head: So do I find a monk's life good. I would lie and take my rest And sleep on far into the day 560 So that I could not my matins say For noise of the whistling and the singing Of shepherdesses' songs clear ringing. On partridge would I sup and dine, Of stockfish should my ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... of music, arose in Italy during the Renaissance. In the sixteenth century the three-stringed rebeck received a fourth string and became the violin, the most expressive of all musical instruments. A forerunner of the pianoforte also appeared in the harpsichord. A papal organist and choir-master, Palestrina (1526-1594 A.D.), was the first of the great composers. He gave music its fitting place in worship by composing melodious hymns and masses still sung in Roman Catholic churches. ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... Sistine Choir at Rome directed the singers with a roll of paper (called a "sol-fa"), held in his hand. By the latter part of the seventeenth century it had become customary for the conductor to sit at the harpsichord or organ, filling in the harmonies from a "figured bass," and giving any needed signals with one hand or the head as best he could. Conducting during this period signified merely keeping the performers ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... weeks the half-conscious animal 'learned to read tolerably well, to count, to write figures' (that he could do when he arrived, Feuerbach says), 'he made progress in writing a good hand, and learned a simple tune on the harpsichord,' pretty well for a ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... and Gentlemen will find the Family at Home every day in the week from 12 to 2 o'clock and have an opportunity of putting his talents to a more particular proof by giving him anything to play at sight or any Music without a Bass, which he will write upon the spot without recurring to his harpsichord." ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... whom she is not intimate. The other day there came to see her a Norfolk heiress: the young gentlewoman had not been three hours in the house, and that for the first time of her life, before she notified her talent for singing, and invited herself up-stairs, to Lady Mary's harpsichord; where, with a voice like thunder, and with as little harmony, she sang to nine or ten people for an hour. "Was ever nymph like Rossvmonde?"-no, d'honneur. We told her, she had a very strong voice. "Lord, Sir! my master says it is nothing to what it was." My dear child, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... her boudoir, had her education embraced any such French phrase. It was strewn about with a few old books, and a work-basket, and a dusty writing-desk; and had, on one side, a large black article of furniture, of very strange appearance, which the old gentlewoman told Phoebe was a harpsichord. It looked more like a coffin than anything else; and, indeed,—not having been played upon, or opened, for years,—there must have been a vast deal of dead music in it, stifled for want of air. Human finger was hardly known to have ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... old double-banked harpsichord of the early Eighteenth Century in the Morgan collection at the Metropolitan Museum that would be a fine form for a piano, if it would hold the "works." It is long and narrow, fitting against the wall so that it really takes up very little room. ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... why the legend grew up above the name, why the name attached itself, in many instances, to the bravest work of other men. The Concert in the Pitti Palace, in which a monk, with cowl and tonsure, touches the keys of a harpsichord, while a clerk, placed behind him, grasps the handle of the viol, and a third, with cap and plume, seems to wait upon the true interval for beginning to sing, is undoubtedly Giorgione's. The outline of the lifted finger, the trace of the plume, the very threads of the fine linen, which fasten ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... of his hand, which moved on the shoulder of his companion as the fingers of a player on the keys of a harpsichord, betrayed his burning impatience, so ill concealed at certain times, and particularly at that moment, under the icy and sombre expression of ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... Mrs. Unwin and her son, I have generally the pleasure of religious conversation till tea-time. If it rains, or is too windy for walking, we either converse within doors or sing some hymns of Martin's collection, and by the help of Mrs. Unwin's harpsichord, make up a tolerable concert, in which our hearts, I hope are the best performers. After tea we sally forth to walk in good earnest. Mrs. Unwin is a good walker, and we have generally travelled about four miles before we see home again. When the days are short we make ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... us to inspect other parts of the house. We passed to the adjoining room, which contains many rare old prints and paintings and quaint old furniture—"everything old," as Mme. Busoni said, with a smile. In this room stands a harpsichord, with its double keyboard and brilliant red case. It is not an antique but an excellent ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... agitations of mind in Jones, and was at no loss to discover the cause; for, indeed, she recognised it in her own breast. In a word, she was in love with him to distraction. It was not long before Jones was able to attend her to the harpsichord, where she would kindly condescend for hours together to charm him with the most ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... room. Over the fireplace a black frame, projecting from the wall, and mournfully contrasting with the general brilliant appearance of the apartment, inclosed a picture of a beautiful female; and bending over its frame, and indeed partly shadowing the countenance, was the withered branch of a tree. A harpsichord and several cases of musical instruments were placed in different parts of the room; and suspended by broad black ribbons from the wall, on each side of the picture, were a guitar and a tambourine. On a sofa of unusual size lay ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... step back. I noticed something new just beside the door: a high-legged, short-keyboard piano. Then I saw that the legs were those of a table. The piano was just a box with yellowed keys. Spinet? Harpsichord? ...
— No Great Magic • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... wit and sprightliness of Chloe were so famous as to be considered medical, he affirmed; she was besieged for her company; she composed and sang impromptu verses, she played harp and harpsichord divinely, and touched the guitar, and danced, danced like the silvery moon on the waters of the mill pool. He concluded by saying that she was both humane and wise, humble-minded and amusing, virtuous yet not a Tartar; the best of companions for her Grace the young duchess. Moreover, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... something curiously feminine and intoxicating in the quality of its charm, something that evokes the silver-pensive mood. One visions it as a graceful spinster—watered silks, ruffles, corkscrew curls, you know, with lily fingers caressing the keys of her harpsichord. Pass down Cheyne Walk at whatever time you will, and you are never alone; little companies of delicate fancy join you at every step. The gasworks may gloom at you from the far side. The L.C.C. cars may hum and clang. But fancy sweeps them away. It is like sitting amid the barbarities of ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... upon his old rum-soaked and emaciated brain, and ennui, like a mighty canker, ate away large corners of his moth-eaten soul, she would sit in the gloaming and sing to him, "Hard Times, Hard Times, Come Again No More," meantime accompanying herself on the harpsichord or the sackbut or whatever they played in those days. Then she instituted theatricals, giving, through the aid of the nobility, a very good version of "Peck's Bad Boy" and ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... instruments, songs, printed music generally, and accounts of the early musicians and their works. Treatises upon the violin are fairly numerous;[85] but I do not remember having come across many works on the Jew's harp or ocarina. There are interesting old books on the virginals, harpsichord, and spinet. Before the end of the fifteenth century a number of Missalia, Gradualia, Psalteria, and Libri Cantionum ('quas vulgo Mutetas appellant') had appeared from the press. The 'Theoricum Opus Musice Disciplina' ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... scarcely say that the production of music for the piano has kept pace with the advance of the instrument. Dr. Burney mentions, in his History of Music (Vol. IV. p. 664), that when he came to London in 1744, "Handel's Harpsichord Lessons and Organ Concertos, and the two First Books of Scarletti's Lessons, were all the good music for keyed instruments at that time in the nation." We have at this moment before us the catalogue of music sold by one house in Boston, Oliver Ditson & Co. It is a closely printed volume ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... "Thom. Ken of New Coll., a Junior" (afterwards Bishop Ken, one of the seven bishops who were deprived at the Revolution), who could "sing his part." All the rest played either viol, violin, organ, virginals, or harpsichord, or were "songsters." ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... who came anxiously to meet him, told the girls that he had come for them, and, without referring to Martha's letter, took them back to Paris. The account-book shows that after this incident the young ladies did not diminish their attention to the harpsichord, guitar, and dancing-master. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... precipices all around, and snow-clad summits continually unfolding themselves; Murray is right in calling the valley above Venosc a scene of savage sterility. At Venosc, in the poorest of hostelries was a tuneless cracked old instrument, half piano, half harpsichord—how it ever found its way there we were at a loss to conceive—and an irrelevant clock that struck seven times by fits and starts at its own convenience during our one o'clock dinner; we returned to Bourg d'Oisans at seven, and ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... after the house, and preparing dinner for the family. At first she found it very hard, for she was not accustomed to work like a servant, but at the end of a couple of months she grew stronger, and her health was improved by the work. When she had leisure she read, or played the harpsichord, or sang at ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... tale—"dressed the linen, cleaned the house, made ready the dinner, mended the children's stockings and other clothes, made what she could for them, and in short did everything." She was very musical and loved playing and singing, but when, for a small sum, a harpsichord was bought, it was her younger sister, Christian, who was the performer, and by it "diverted" her parents, and the girls had many a joke over their different occupations. Yet even with all her other work she found time to take an ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... despite Wagner, I was soon happy in the old haunts of the man whose music I adore. I went through the Mozart collection, saw all the old pictures, relics, manuscripts, and I reverently fingered the harpsichord, the grand piano of the master. Even the piece of "genuine Court Plaister" from London, and numbered 42 in the catalogue, interested me. After I had read the visitors' book, inscribed therein my own humble signature, after talking to death the husband and wife who act ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... think Bella employed herself while I was writing?—Why, playing gently upon my harpsichord; and humming to it, to ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... my lady very well, reclining in her father's great chair. Her hall was roomy enough; it had its space for Sam Winnington's easel as well as Clary's harpsichord, and, what was more useful, her spinning-wheel, besides closets and cupboards without number. Sam Winnington entertained Clarissa; he was famous in years to come for keeping his sisters in good humour. He told her of the academy and the president's parties, ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... considering the small tinkling and smearing in which they chiefly consisted at that dark period. She smiled and looked up at her betrothed with grateful eyes. If he had always been asking her to play the "Last Rose of Summer," she would have required much resignation. "He says there is only an old harpsichord at Lowick, and it is ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... and stuck pegs thereby, corresponding to the former row; and from each peg on one side, to the opposite peg on the other, I tied a like length of my mat-line, quite through the whole number of pegs; when the work looked like the inside of a harpsichord. I afterwards drove pegs in like manner along the whole length of the two outermost longer lines, and tied shorter lines to them, so that the whole affair then represented the squares of a racket; the corners of each of ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... this; for if old Mr. Falconer's violin had taken woman-shape, it would have been that of a slight, worn, swarthy creature, with wild black eyes, great and restless, a voice like a bird's, and thin fingers that clawed the music out of the wires like the quills of the old harpsichord; not that of Mary St. John, who was tall, and could not help being stately, was large and well-fashioned, as full of repose as Handel's music, with a contralto voice to make you weep, and eyes that would have seemed ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... of the vicarage parlour, in which we used a harpsichord, and were accused of pedantry for our pains, did not look so well at the Lyceum as at the Court. The stage was too big ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... sad when I pushed open the heavy door, which closed with a pulley whose creaking echoed through the vestibule. What was then my surprise to hear, in the midst of general mourning, the tones of a song and harpsichord! Monsieur de la Vablerie was singing, and Mademoiselle Jeanne accompanying him. I knew not, in those days, that the misfortune of one was often the joy of others, and I said to myself with my hand on the latch: "They have not heard the ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... mother's private parlor. They were a beautiful group. The empress, in their midst, held little Ferdinand in her arms. Close-peeping through the folds of their mother's rich dress, were three other little ones; and a few steps farther were the Archduchesses Christine and Amelia. Near the open harpsichord stood the graceful form of the empress's eldest child, the Princess Elizabeth, who now and then ran her fingers lightly over the instrument, while she awaited the arrival ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... poor queen!" she said, with a sad ring in her expressive voice, when they came to the large salon; "and she sat here and played on her harpsichord—and I wonder if she and Fersen were ever alone—and I wonder if she ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... spent in walks, in the shade of the woods, in the thousand windings of the park. In the evening I played the harpsichord, and I sang. It often occurred that I danced, danced for him. In the middle of a dance that would have excited a furor at the opera, I fell at his feet, completely overcome; he raised me up, pressed me to his heart and forgave me for having danced. I always hear his ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... her studies were confined to French. Metastasio taught her Italian; Gluck, whose recently published opera of "Orfeo" had, established for him a reputation as one of the greatest musicians of the age, gave her lessons on the harpsichord. But we fear it can not be said that she obtained any high degree of excellence in these or in any other accomplishments. She was not inclined to study; and, with the exception of the abbe, her masters and mistresses were too courtly to be peremptory ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... times has had his eyes more clearly purged with euphrasy and rue. Poetry is with him, in the language of Mr. E. Paxton Hood ('Eclectic and Congregational Rev.', Dec., 1868), "no jingle of words, or pretty amusement for harpsichord or piano, but rather a divine trigonometry, a process of celestial triangulation, a taking observations of celestial places and spheres, an attempt to estimate our world, its place, its life amidst the boundless immeasurable sweeps of space and time; or if describing, then ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... A bird sings from nature; George did not come into the world with a fiddle in his hand," says Mrs. Warrington, with a toss of her head. "I am sure I hated the harpsichord when a chit at Kensington School, and only learned it to please my mamma. Say what you will, dear sir, I can not believe that this fiddling is work for persons ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the countess re-appeared among us, followed by two servants in livery bearing salvers of fruit; and while we ate she seated herself at the harpsichord ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... of delicate landscape, with here and there a group of figures dancing or picnicking in the shadow of tall trees or under fantastical porticos. The furniture of the room is no less marvellous than its hangings. One turns from a harpsichord of vernis-martin to the clock, a relic from Louis XIV.’s bedroom in Versailles; on to the bric-à -brac of old Saxe or Sèvres in admiring wonder. My host drifts into his showman manner, ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... upon them hung a picture: a landscape of George Morland, lustily English, a Cotman, a Cuyp—cows in twilight—a Reynolds, faded but exquisitely genteel. A lovely little harpsichord—meditating on Scarlatti—stood in one angle, a harp, tied with most delicate ribands of ivory satin powdered with pimpernels, in another. Many waxen candles shed a tender and unostentatious radiance ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... respect to the proportions above mentioned. This might be performed by a strong light, made by means of Mr. Argand's lamps, passing through coloured glasses, and falling on a defined part of a wall, with moveable blinds before them, which might communicate with the keys of a harpsichord; and thus produce at the same time visible and audible music in unison with each other. The execution of this idea is said by Mr. Guyot to have been attempted by Father Cassel without much success. If this should be again attempted, there is another curious coincidence between ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... have carnal knowledge of a woman; also to play badly on the harpsichord; or any other stringed instrument. A strummer of wire, a player on ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... [Footnote: The rebeck probably had been borrowed from the Mohammedans.] by the addition of a fourth string and a few changes in form, became the sweet-toned violin, the most important and expressive instrument of the modern orchestra. As immediate forerunner of our present-day pianoforte, the harpsichord was invented with a keyboard carried to four octaves and the chords of each note doubled or ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... characteristic motive. We are fortunate in having from Bach himself, that consummate master of polyphony, two sets of such Inventions: fifteen for two voices, and fifteen for three. These flights of fancy—in which art so subtly conceals art—though originally composed for the clavichord and harpsichord (the precursors of the pianoforte), are very effective on our modern instrument and should be in the possession of every music-student.[36] A brief analysis is now given of the first one in the set for two voices, and Nos. 4, 8 and 10 in this set are particularly recommended for study; also Nos. ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... very fine-toned old instrument, considering the many improvements which have been made since that date, and if put in good repair, (which might easily be done, it being quite playable in its present state,) it would not disgrace the name of a Kirkman, or of any of our latest and best harpsichord makers; indeed, it is very far superior to any other instrument of the kind I ever heard. The case is good, particularly in the inside, which is of exquisite workmanship, and beautifully ornamented with (as far as I recollect) gilt scroll work; on the keys ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... desolate as if it was yesterday you left me. In society the same fancy pursues me, and scarcely ever quits me.' Music, as might be surmised in so sensitive a nature, drove him almost beside himself with its mysterious power of intensifying the dominant emotion. 'Whenever by any chance I hear the harpsichord,' he says, 'melancholy seizes me. The sound of the violin gives me such a heavy heart, that I am fain to leave the company and hasten home.' He tossed in his bed at night, thinking he heard the sound of weeping at Turin, making a thousand ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... mantelshelf; Venetian mirrors, dainty water-colours sunk into the panels, cases of rare books (among them, as I remember, a set of the Cabinet des Fees, bound in rose-coloured morocco and stamped with the Royal arms of France), stands of music, and a priceless harpsichord inlaid with ivory. Next to the airiness of the house, which stood high above reach of the valley mists with their malaria, what most sharply impressed me, and the ladies in particular, was its exquisite cleanliness. ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... sight of her carried off the feelings of the "young stranger" from the peculiarity and mystery of his own lot, and riveted his attention to every thing she did or said. She spoke little, and it was on the most serious subjects. She played on the harpsichord at her father's command, but it was hymns with which she accompanied the instrument. At length, on a sign from the sage, she left the room, turning on the young stranger, as she departed, a look of inexpressible anxiety and interest. The old man then conducted the youth to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... while in the midst of all the widow Margaret, her face lighted with a smile which came there from far-off years, holding in her hand as we see an angel in the sunny clouds in old pictures, the ancient harpsichord, which till now had been laid away and out of use for many a ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... other than derives from contact with nature and emotion. If we ask what equipment he had for his task, we answer: enthusiasm, so deep, so tempered in all its qualities, that, though in a few years he became the ablest performer of his time upon the harpsichord and organ, yet never once is the term "virtuoso" associated in our thought with the purity of aspiration which characterized him. His enthusiasm was religious, deep-seated, his vision far and wide, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... 'Water Music' was produced, only happened in 1717, when peace had long been made, and pardon sealed with a grant to Handel of 200 pounds a year. The ice was, perhaps, broken by Geminiani, the great violinist, who, when he was to play his concertos at court, requested to be accompanied on the harpsichord by Handel, as he considered no one else capable of doing it. The petition was powerfully seconded by Kielmansegge, and acceded ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... sitting by the table, making shoes; and near him, leaning sorrowfully upon an old-fashioned harpsichord, sat a young girl, with a profusion of light hair falling over her bent face. Both were cleanly but very poorly dressed, and both started and turned ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... in lovely Chambery, making various excursions in all the picturesque region about, and again visiting "Les Charmettes," which Miss Browning had not before seen; as before, Browning sat down to the old harpsichord, attempting to play "Rousseau's Dream," but only two notes of the antique instrument responded to his touch. Through all the wonderful scenery of the Mont Cenis pass they proceeded to Turin and thence to Venice, where they arrived ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... and convenient house. Mr. Richard Colley Wesley, who was then the proprietor, planted and laid out the grounds with much taste. They lived magnificently, and at the same time without ceremony. There was "a charming large hall" with an organ and harpsichord, where all the company met when they had a mind to be together, and where "music, dancing, draughts, shuttlecock and prayers took their turn." The house is now in ruins, having been sold to Roger O'Connor, and burnt accidentally afterward. Mrs. Delany speaks ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... tenderness, the distance which was soon to separate us. "But we shall meet again," said he, "when the honors of war shall have rewarded the bravery of my son." Louisa grew pale, a half suppressed sigh escaped her, and, to conceal her emotion, she turned to her harpsichord. ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... from her momentary confusion, which she was very conscious had not escaped the observation of Pierre,—and the thought of that confused her still more,—she rose and went to the harpsichord, to recover her composure by singing a sweet song of her own composition, written in the soft dialect of Provence, the Languedoc, full of the sweet sadness of a ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... "Undoubtedly," cries Jones, "for she is in herself a fortune; so beautiful, so genteel, so sweet-tempered, and so well-educated; she is indeed a most accomplished young lady; sings admirably well, and hath a most delicate hand at the harpsichord." "I did not know any of these matters," answered the old gentleman, "for I never saw the lady: but I do not like her the worse for what you tell me; and I am the better pleased with her father for not laying any stress on these qualifications in our bargain. I shall always think it a proof ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... splendour that it demanded. On the rare occasions when he plays Bach, something that no one of our time has ever perceived or rendered in that composer seems to be evoked, and Bach lives again, with something of that forgotten life which only the harpsichord can help us to remember under the fingers of other players. Mozart and Weber are two of the composers whom he plays with the most natural instinct, for in both he finds and unweaves that dainty web of bright melody which Mozart made out of sunlight ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... MacDowell in his lessons, as illustrations of eighteenth century music, and were published in two books about a dozen years after his death. They have not met with unanimous approval, for his transcriptions of the old pieces for the harpsichord and clavichord, in a manner suited to the modern pianoforte, is considered by many purists to be too free. The fact is that in their original form they are quite unsuitable for the modern pianoforte, ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... gentlemen entered. Mam'selle played on the harpsichord, and there was conversation until ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... was selected from the Opera House; but the singularity most attractive consisted of an organ combined with a harpsichord, played by clock-work, which exhibited the movements of an orrery and air-pump, besides solving astronomical and geographical problems on two globes, and showing the moon's age, with the ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 25. Saturday, April 20, 1850 • Various
... afterwards to a similar establishment at Nuernberg. Here Schubart began to flourish with all his natural luxuriance; read classical and domestic poets; spouted, speculated; wrote flowing songs; discovered 'a decided turn for music,' and even composed tunes for the harpsichord! In short, he became an acknowledged genius: and his parents consented that he should go to Jena, and perform ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... shelves. He had endeavoured also to be her preceptor in music; but as he began with the more abstruse doctrines of the science, and was not perhaps master of them himself, she had made no proficiency farther than to be able to accompany her voice with the harpsichord; but even this was not very common in Scotland at that period. To make amends, she sung with great taste and feeling, and with a respect to the sense of what she uttered that might be proposed in example to ladies of much superior musical talent. Her natural good sense taught her that, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... learned by imitation and inquiry all that they learned by instruction and direction; so that, in short, I learned to dance and speak French as well as any of them, and to sing much better, for I had a better voice than any of them. I could not so readily come at playing on the harpsichord or spinet, because I had no instrument of my own to practice on, and could only come at theirs in the intervals when they left it, which was uncertain; but yet I learned tolerably well too, and the young ladies at length got two instruments, that is to say, a harpsichord and ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... once enthroned, In tattered damask stand; In gray neglect a faun extends A mutilated hand; And silence makes the festal board Mute as the stringless harpsichord. ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... of towers, so that it is looked upon as impregnable. In the great church they have a set of bells, which are not rung out as in England, (for that way of ringing is not now known in this country,) but are played on by the hand with keys, like a harpsichord, the person playing having great leather covers for his fists, which enables him to strike with the more force; and for the larger bells there are treddles, which he ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... attached to me, and I felt flattered by his affection and by the praise he lavished upon me. I was only twelve years of age; he proposed to teach me music, and finding that I had a fine voice, he cultivated it carefully, and in less than a year I could accompany myself on the harpsichord. His reward was that which his love for me induced him to ask, and I granted the reward without feeling any humiliation, for I worshipped him. Of course, men like yourself are much above men of his species, but Salimberi was an exception. His beauty, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... winter vacation when Payson, Sr., fagged from his long day at the office sought the "Frolics" or the "Folies," Payson, Jr., might be seen at a concert for the harpsichord and viola, or at an evening of Palestrina or the Earlier Gregorian Chants. Had he been less supercilious about it this story would never have been written—and doubtless no great loss at that. But it is the prerogative of youth to be arrogantly merciless in its judgment of the old. ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... galleries; there was no music, except the amateur torture of strings which led the country dance, or the martial inflammation of fife and drum, or the sentimental dawdling here and there over the ancient harpsichord, with the songs of love, and the broad or pathetic staves and choruses of the convivial table; and there was no ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... readily learns to discern their variations. This difference is clear in the use of musical instruments. The harsh and painful touch of the 'cello, bass-viol, and even of the violin, hardens the finger-tips, although it gives flexibility to the fingers. The soft and smooth touch of the harpsichord makes the fingers both flexible and sensitive. In this respect the harpsichord is ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... Beauvan, President Henault, the witty Pont de Veyle, Mairan, the versatile scientist, and the Prince de Conti. In the midst of this group the little Mozart, whose genius was then delighting Europe, sits at the harpsichord. The chronicles of the time give us pleasant descriptions of the literary diversions of this society, which met by turns at the Temple and Ile-Adam. But the Prince as well as the clever Comtesse had a strong leaning towards philosophy, and the amusements ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... region has grown into an emphatic provincialism. Frank, in return, is a devout admirer of her accomplishments, and although he does not pretend to have an ear for music, he is in raptures at her skill on the harpsichord, when she plays at night for the children to dance; and he sometimes sets her to singing "The Twins of Latona," and "Old Towler," and "The Rose-Tree in Full Bearing" (she does not study the modern music), for the entertainment of his company. On these occasions, ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... behaviour, attributing his position rather to the slowness of his horse. In the second, an unwelcome visitor calling on Confucius, the Master sent out to say he was sick, at the same time seizing his harpsichord and singing to it, "in order that Pei might hear him." Dr Legge lays no stress on the last half of this story—though it is impossible to believe that its meaning can have escaped his notice altogether. Lastly, when Confucius was once taken prisoner by the rebels, he was ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... supply of soft water for domestic purposes be secured. One of the Graces, however, suggested to her a happy thought. She planted a row of morning-glories round the bottom of her barrel, and drove a row of tacks around the top, and strung her water-butt with twine, like a great harpsichord. A few weeks covered the twine with blossoming plants, which every morning were a mass of many-colored airy blooms, waving in graceful sprays, and looking at themselves in the water. The water-barrel, in fact, became a celebrated stroke ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... as the year 1400 claviers had appeared whose strings were plucked by quills attached to jacks at the end of the key levers. To this group belonged the virginal, or virginals, the clavicembalo, the harpsichord, or clavecin, and the spinet. Stops were added, as in the organ, that varied effects might be produced, and a second keyboard was often placed above the first. The case was either rectangular, or followed the outlines of the harp, a progenitor of this clavier type. It was often highly ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... despise.'[255] Bentham at last started homewards. He travelled through Poland, Germany, and Holland, and reached London at the beginning of February 1788. He settled at a little farmhouse at Hendon, bought a 'superb harpsichord,' resumed his occupations, and saw a small circle of friends. Wilson urged him to publish his Introduction without waiting to complete the vast scheme to which it was to be a prologue. Copies of the printed book were already abroad, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... calls the servant sir, and insists on not troubling him to hold her plate. The housekeeper patronizes her. The children's governess takes upon her to correct her when she has mistaken the piano for a harpsichord. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... quite so crazy. To keep a decent countenance he turned away from a grotesque bed, contrived by the ingenious cook in the case of an old harpsichord, and looked at Marianna's narrow couch, of which the single mattress was covered with a white muslin counterpane, a circumstance that gave rise in his mind to some ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... church organs, and to put new music upon the barrels which he added to them. All this he accomplished to the satisfaction of his employers, after which he proceeded with the construction of a four-stop finger-organ, adapting to it the keys of an old harpsichord. This he learnt to play upon,—studying 'Callcott's Thorough Bass' in the evening, and working at his trade of a miller during the day; occasionally also tramping about the country as a "cadger," with an ass and a cart. During summer he worked ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... discerned some iron-work intended to be serviceable as a fire-escape, for he has a horror of fire. His furniture is neat and select; his books, rather for use than show, are disposed around him. He has a harpsichord in the room. In the corner of one of the apartments is a trunk containing his deceased mother's dresses, carefully folded up and preserved. His fastidiousness, bordering upon effeminacy, is visible in his gait and ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... Piccini, or any of the other strolling vagabonds—so the duke called them—entered his chateau. And he kept his word, did the duke. The Chevalier Gluck, a fine, shapely man, was invited down by the duchess and amused her and her guests by playing his wonderful tunes on the beautiful harpsichord in the great salon. ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... like a new-tuned harpsichord; But Longbow wild as an AEolian harp, With which the winds of heaven can claim accord, And make a music, whether flat or sharp. Of Strongbow's talk you would not change a word: At Longbow's phrases you might sometimes carp: Both wits—one born so, ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... for dismissing her. This was the more noticeable as she continued to appear at the meetings of the Honey-Bees, where she joined freely in the conversation, and sometimes diverted the guests by playing on the harpsichord or by recitations from the poets; all with such art and grace, and withal so much simplicity, that it was clear she was accustomed to the part. Odo was thus driven to the not unflattering conclusion that she had been instructed to avoid his company; and after ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... being lighted with but a loophole of a window, I was at last obliged to desist from this diversion (such as it was), and pass the rest of my time of waiting in a very burthensome vacuity. The sound of people talking in a near chamber, the pleasant note of a harpsichord, and once the voice of a lady singing, bore me a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in the drawing-rooms, and the sound of men's voices laughing, and then of a female voice singing to a harpsichord, were heard distinctly in the hall over the stairs; for old Judge Harbottle had arranged one of his dubious jollifications, such as might well make the hair of godly men's heads stand upright for ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... a burletta projector, Who attempts a mock musical scrap of a lecture. Suppose this thing a harpsichord or a spinnet; We must suppose so, else there's nothing in it; And thus I begin, tho' a stranger to graces. Those deficiencies must be supplied by grimaces, And the want of wit made up ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... Belgians. It was used by them for centuries on account of its simple construction and low price. Mozart always carried one with him as part of his baggage when traveling. The virginal, spinet, and harpsichord followed the clavichord in rapid succession, considering that the last named instrument had been in favor for such a long time, with seemingly no attempt at improvement. All of these three instruments had strings of brass, with ...
— How the Piano Came to Be • Ellye Howell Glover
... of divinity of her, and when we sang "Ave Maria" on Sundays I could not refrain from turning to her, where she knelt, blushing and praying and looking like an angel, as she was. Besides her beauty, Mary had a thousand good qualities; she could play better on the harpsichord, she could dance more lightly, she could make better pickles and puddings, than any girl in Alsace; there was not a want or a fancy of the old hunks her father, or a wish of mine or my uncle's, that she would not gratify if she could; as for herself, the sweet soul had neither wants nor wishes ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... did was to take a number of concertos written for the violin by Vivaldi, and set them for the harpsichord. In this way he learned to express himself and to attain facility in putting his thoughts on paper without first playing them on an instrument. He worked alone in this way with no assistance from any one, and often studied till far into the night to perfect himself ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... shyly curtained window. Hark! You can hear the thin, delicate notes quite plainly: this is such a quiet little street. A piano rather out of tune? Perish the thought! Dear friend, it is a spinet,—a harpsichord. ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... tilled the ground, while Beauty rose daily at four o'clock, and did all the work in the house. At first this drudgery seemed very hard, but after a time she grew stronger, and her health improved. When her work was over she read, played on the harpsichord, or sang as she sat at her spinning-wheel. As to her two sisters, they were perfectly helpless, and a burden to themselves. They would rise at ten, and spend the live-long day fretting for the loss ...
— Bo-Peep Story Books • Anonymous
... the development of the piano from the very early prototypes is an enchanting theme to the lover of music, for there is a far remove from the modern pianoforte, and still newer player piano to the virginal, harpsichord, and spinet which may occasionally be found among the ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... for more than fifty years over a pure Court in England. The German princess of sixteen, with her spare little person and large mouth which prevented her from being comely, and her solitary accomplishment of playing on the harpsichord with as much correctness and taste as if she had been taught by Mr. Handel himself, had identified herself with the nation, so that no suspicion of foreign proclivities ever attached to her. Queen Charlotte bore her trials gravely; ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... the long-debated project, long under consideration, for giving us lessons in music, was carried into effect; and the last impulse to it certainly deserves mention. It was settled that we should learn the harpsichord, but there was always a dispute about the choice of a master. At last I went once accidentally into the room of one of my companions, who was just taking his lesson on the harpsichord, and found the teacher a most charming man: for each finger of the right and left ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... French" from an intelligent emigre, named La Frosse. Here his tender mother watched over his boyhood, proud of his opening promise, and hopeful, yet apprehensive, of his future. Here he and his sister, "excellent Nell," acquired music, first upon an old harpsichord, obtained by his father in discharge of a debt, and afterwards on a piano, to buy which his loving mother had saved up all superfluous pence. Hence he issued to lake country walks with unhappy Robert Emmet. Hither he came—not less proudly, yet as fondly as ever—when ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... 2. Klavier-Uebung (chiefly for harpsichord) in four books comprising: (i.) 15 two-part inventions and 15 three-part symphonies, (ii.) 6 partitas, (iii.) The "Goldberg" variations. 4 duets, and an important collection of organ choral-preludes, with the "St Anne" prelude and fugue in E flat, (iv.) The ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... was never tired of hearing his stories of his campaigns and his life at Vienna, Venice, Paris, and the famous cities of Europe which he had visited both in peace and war. And he sang at my lady's harpsichord, and played cards or backgammon, or his new game of billiards with my lord (of whom he invariably got the better) always having a consummate good-humor, and bearing himself with a certain manly grace, that might exhibit somewhat of the camp and Alsatia perhaps, but that had ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... meal, came music; the student Anselmus had to take his seat before the harpsichord, and Veronica accompanied his playing with her pure clear voice. "Dear Mademoiselle," said Registrator Heerbrand, "you have a voice ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... on, watched, and indulged with a degree of fondness bordering on folly. My clothes were sent for from London; my fancy was indulged to the extent of its caprices; I was flattered and praised into a belief that I was a being of superior order. To sing, to play a lesson on the harpsichord, to recite an elegy, and to make doggerel verses, made the extent of my occupations, while my person improved, and my ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... very quiet all that day, A little dazed, and yet she seemed content. At candle-time, he asked if she would play Upon her harpsichord, at once she went And tinkled airs from Lully's 'Carnival' And 'Bacchus', newly brought away from France. Then jaunted through a lively rigadoon To please him with a dance By Purcell, for he said that surely all Good Englishmen ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... of the conversation: and our noble guests coming in soon after, with Mr. B., the ladies would have departed; but he prevailed upon them to pass the evening; and Miss L., who had an admirable finger on the harpsichord, as I have before said, obliged us with two or three lessons. Each of the ladies did the like, and prevailed upon me to play a tune or two: but Miss Cope, as well as Miss L., surpassed me much. We all sung too in turns, and Mr. B. took the violin, in which he excels. Lord Davers ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... the piano-forte was a wretched piece of mechanism compared with the superb instrument of to-day. It was originally a progressive growth from the ancient lyre, through the harp, psaltery, dulcimer, clavictherium, clavichord, virginal, spinet, harpsichord, to the piano of Christofali in the early years of the last century. At the period of Mr. Chickering's entrance into business, it was still very imperfect, and the various manufacturers of the instrument were earnestly endeavoring to discover some means of remedying the defects of which they were ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr. |
