"Melodic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Italian terms used as indications of the time to be taken. Of course, no one can be at a loss to distinguish a Largo from a Presto. If the Presto be two in a bar, a tolerably sagacious conductor, from inspection of the passages and melodic designs contained in the piece, will be able to discern the degree of quickness intended by the author. But if the Largo be four in a bar, of simple melodic structure, and containing but few notes in each bar, what means has the hapless conductor of discovering the true time? And in how many ways ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... would divide it in his mind's eye into its different parts. He would never mistake the calyx for a petal, and he would be able to determine at once the peculiarities of each part. In addition to the melodic phrases the pupil should be able to see the metrical divisions which underlie the form of the piece. He should be able to tell whether the composition is one of eight-measure sections or four-measure sections, or whether the ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... and their development into real artistic devices was due, not to a mere increase in the facility of their use, but to the fact that, just as the researches of alchemists led to the foundations of chemistry, so did the early musical puzzles lead to the discovery of innumerable harmonic and melodic resources which have that variety and freedom of interaction which can be organized into true works of art and can give the ancient mechanical devices themselves a genuine artistic character ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... the troops; the red glow of the camp fires illuminating the eager and enthusiastic faces of the young officers grouped around the colonel; the snorting and stamping of the horses nearby; an occasional melodic outcry of a sentinel out in the night; all these things merging into an unforgettable scene of great romanticism and beauty. That night I lay for a long while stretched near the smoldering ashes ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... the streets of the city rose a sacred song. It came like a slowly increasing torrent of sound, soft and low, rising with impetuous fervor until it seemed to engulf us in its melodic tide. Individual tones were heard in it, but its solidity and mass were most impressive. I shook and trembled beneath the impact of its vibrations; in its surging glory of sound I became fully reincarnated. ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... Pratibha.[45] The tunes in this musical drama are mostly Indian, but they have been dragged out of their classic dignity; that which soared in the sky was taught to run on the earth. Those who have seen and heard it performed will, I trust, bear witness that the harnessing of Indian melodic modes to the service of the drama has proved neither derogatory nor futile. This conjunction is the only special feature of Valmiki Pratibha. The pleasing task of loosening the chains of melodic forms and making them adaptable to a variety ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... a quiet rhythmical, mournful movement, which suddenly changed to a raging presto. The melodic figure was shattered like a bouquet of flowers in a waterfall almost before it had had time to take shape and display real composure. The dissipated elements, scattered to the four corners of the earth, then returned, hesitatingly and with evident contrition, ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... ecclesiastical modes is too long a subject, and too abstruse for a paper of this sort, even if I were competent to discuss it;—I shall therefore content myself by stating that the ecclesiastical modes have, for melodic purposes (which is all that we are considering), advantages over the modern scale, by which they are so surpassed in harmonic opportunities. Even such a thoroughgoing admirer of the modern system as Sir Hubert Parry writes on this subject, ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges
... of music, with the exception of intentionally rhapsodic utterances, begins with some group of notes of distinct rhythmic and melodic interest, which is the germ—the generative force—of the whole, and which is comparable to the text of a sermon or the subject of a drama. This introductory group of notes is called, technically, a motive or moving force and may be defined as the simplest unit of imaginative ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... strains His spirit must have nightly floated free, Though still about his hands he felt his chains. Who heard great "Jordan roll"? Whose starward eye Saw chariot "swing low"? And who was he That breathed that comforting, melodic sigh, "Nobody knows ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson
... the defective melody of his verse; for both metre and rhythm have a physiological basis; they represent and express the harmony which is in the body when the body is finely attuned to the spirit. Dull senses and a sluggish body are never found in connection with a great command of the melodic quality ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... me") is an unaccompanied six-part chorus in imitative style, of very close harmony. The "Dies Irae" ends with the "Lachrymosa," the longest and most interesting number in the work. It is thoroughly melodic, and is peculiarly strengthened by a pathetic and sentimental accompaniment, which, taken in connection with the choral part against which it is set, presents an almost inexhaustible variety of rhythms and an originality of technical effects which are astonishing. Its general ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... waltzes, Dancing in Vienna at the time of Maria Theresa, First performance of the opera at New York, "Der Rosenkavalier" and "Le Nozze di Figaro," Criticism of the play and its music, et seq.—Use of a melodic phrase from "Die Zauberflote," The language of the libretto, The music, Cast of ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... (medic), Infant's Compendium of the Universe (cosmic), Let's All Chortle (hilaric), Canvasser's Vade Mecum (journalic), Loveletters of Mother Assistant (erotic), Who's Who in Space (astric), Songs that Reached Our Heart (melodic), Pennywise's Way to Wealth (parsimonic). A general rush and scramble. Women press forward to touch the hem of Bloom's robe. The Lady Gwendolen Dubedat bursts through the throng, leaps on his horse ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... melody, doubtless would defend his act with the argument that he is not writing "serious music," only melodies for the passing hour and therefore that he ought to be permitted the artistic license of weaving into his songs themes that are a part of the melodic life of the day. [1] But, although some song writers contend for the right of free use, they are usually the first to cry "stop thief" when another composer does the same thing to them. However, dismissing the ethics of this matter, right here there lies a warning, not of art or of ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... symphonic work, is the visual image, introduced by the psychic image, produced? In the event of a break in the melodic web (see my Psychologie dans l'Opera, pp. 119-120). Here are given, without orderly arrangement, some of the ideas that have ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot |
