"Oboe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Vincenzo. The finale of this act, with its strong aria ("Qui mi prostro innanzi ate"), is very spirited, and in fact may be considered the only dramatic episode in the whole work. The third act opens with the quaint little song of Andreluno, the shepherd boy ("L'alba tranquilla"), with oboe accompaniment. It also contains a plaintive song for tenor ("Ah! se de preghi miei"), and closes with a waltz song ("O d'amor messagera"), which is fairly gorgeous in bravura effects, and Hanslick says was a concession ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... correctness not instinctive but studied—the marks our new-sprung obstreperous aristocracy has made familiar to us all. It would have struck upon a sense of humor like a trivial twitter from the oboe trickling through a lull in the swell of brasses and strings; but Hiram Ranger had no sense of humor in that direction, had only his instinct for the right and the wrong. The falseness, the absence of the quality ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... Poland. These visits took place usually once a year, and lasted from, August to December, but sometimes were more frequent, and shorter or longer, just as occasion might call for. Among the members of the Polish band—which consisted of a leader (Premier), four violins, one oboe, two French horns, three bassoons, and one double bass—we meet with such well-known men as Johann Joachim Quanz and Franz Benda. Their conductor was Alberto Ristori, who at the same time held the post of composer to the Italian actors, a company that, besides plays, performed ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... like the note of a wind instrument—an oboe adding its slow note to the boom of the kettle-drum, the clang of gold-colored cymbals, and the singing ecstasy ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... Then, beneath it, as foundation to it, rose a rustling sound as of a forest of reeds through which a breeze went rhythmically. Into this stole the broken song of a thin instrument with a timbre rustic and antique as the timbre of the oboe, but fainter, frailer. A twang of softly-plucked strings supported its wild and pathetic utterance, and presently the almost stifled throb of a little tomtom that must have been placed at a distance. It was like a ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... of the fair one. The third movement is called "In the Fields," and contains a duet between the two lovers in the guise of a shepherd and shepherdess. They are portrayed by an English horn and an oboe, the result being one of the great instrumental dialogues that are sometimes found in-works of the tone masters. An effective touch is the introduction of a thunder-storm, after which the English horn begins ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... from the trembling string When wizard fingers sweep Dreamily, half asleep; When through remembering reeds Ancient airs and murmurs creep, Oboe oboe following, Flute answering clear high flute, Voices, voices—falling mute, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... pleasure, we found that a running passage, even of semitones, could be executed upon it, if not with all the distinctness of a Drouet or a Nicholson, with as much clearness as on any organ. As an accompaniment to the piano-forte, it will be found an admirable substitute for the flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, or even violoncello; but perhaps its widest range of usefulness will be discovered in small orchestras, where the set of wind instruments is incomplete—the effects of any, or even all of which, may be supplied by one or two performers on the Aeolophon ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 472 - Vol. XVII. No. 472., Saturday, January 22, 1831 • Various
... every race and nationality whose blood is in his veins, and that's half a dozen or I'm a liar. He worships me because I'm the only man in the world who can play better ragtime than he can. We used to sit together on the wharfs down on the New York water-front, he with a bassoon and me with an oboe, and we'd blend minor keys in African harmonics a thousand years old until the rats would crawl up the posts and sit round groaning and squeaking like dogs will in front ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... blackbirds with their oboe voices make The sweetest broken music, all about The beauty of the day, for beauty's sake, And all about the mates whose love they won, And all about ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... fingers and gave clear signs of the unpleasant feelings they were suffering from. But it was quite different when they heard the higher-toned instruments, especially those of wood, as the flute, the clarionet and the oboe. The pure, vibrating notes gave them intense enjoyment judging from the pleased expression of their countenances ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments, It is not the violins and the cornets, it is not the oboe nor the beating drums, nor the score of the baritone singer singing his sweet romanza, nor that of the men's chorus, nor that of the women's chorus, It is nearer ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... addition to this general musical training, about the same for all students of music, each student must acquire technical command of the chosen instrument. This is necessarily acquired by practice on the instrument, whether it be piano, violin, oboe, or whatever else. In the same way, vocal technique is acquired by practice in actual singing. Practice makes perfect, with the voice as ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... Dewys; and that's saying a great deal. There was Nicholas Puddingcome, the leader, with the first fiddle; there was Timothy Thomas, the bass- viol man; John Biles, the tenor fiddler; Dan'l Hornhead, with the serpent; Robert Dowdle, with the clarionet; and Mr. Nicks, with the oboe—all sound and powerful musicians, and strong-winded men—they that blowed. For that reason they were very much in demand Christmas week for little reels and dancing parties; for they could turn a jig or a hornpipe out of hand as well as ever they could turn out a psalm, and perhaps better, ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... pleading, passionate strain The yearning theme, and let the flute reply In placid melody, while violins complain, And sob, and sigh, With muted string; Then let the oboe half-reluctant sing Of bliss that trembles on the verge of pain, While 'cellos plead and plead again, With throbbing notes delayed, that would impart To every urgent tone the beating of the heart. So runs the andante, making plain The hopes and ...
— Music and Other Poems • Henry van Dyke
... pattern in gold on a blue ground produce the same sensations in you as a red pattern on black or green? In these, as in music, there are no figures, no expression of feeling; they are purely artistic, and yet no one looks at them with indifference. Has not the oboe the peculiar tone that we associate with the open country, in common with most wind instruments? The brass suggests martial ideas, and rouses us to vehement or even somewhat furious feelings. The strings, for which the material is ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... indicate my intention of associating the spirit of the performer with the orchestral effects, and to render apparent, in the narrow limits of the piano, sonorous sounds and different nuances. With this in view I have frequently noted down the names of the instruments: oboe, clarinet, kettle- drums, etc., as well as the contrasts of strings and wind instruments. It would certainly be highly ridiculous to pretend that these designations suffice to transplant the magic of the orchestra to the piano; nevertheless I don't consider ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... the girls saw a tall edifice, the long upper story of which seemed to be a dancing hall. The windows of that were also open, and through them they heard the scream of the jiggered and tortured violin, and the pump, pump of the oboe, and saw the moving shapes of men and women in quick transition, ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... flute-players; this characteristic Italian instrument was really a primitive oboe played with a reed, and usually of the double form (two pipes with a connected mouthpiece), ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... present and as real as any sixty instruments could make them. Exquisitely did those three violoncellos sketch the first scene of soft, cool sunset on the unruffled lake; the mellow Corno Anglaise, male partner to the oboe, sweetly woke the flute-like mountain echoes; the low moan and whistle of the storm rose life like in the crescendo of the violins, and as it died away the startling quick-step of liberty leaped strong and simultaneous from such a tutti as we have ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... to the Pan's pipes and its direct descendants, the flute, the clarinet, and the oboe. We shall find that they had no connection whatever with religious observances. Even in the nineteenth century novel we are familiar with the kind of hero who played the flute—a very sentimental gentleman always in love. If ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... absolutely disembodied art, when it is heard, and no more than a proposition of Euclid, when it is written. It is wholly useless, to the student no less than to the general reader, to write about music in the style of the programmes for which we pay sixpence at the concerts. "Repeated by flute and oboe, with accompaniment for clarionet (in triplets) and strings pizzicato, and then worked up by the full orchestra, this melody is eventually allotted to the 'cellos, its accompaniment now taking the form of chromatic passages," ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... years, and is, together with his brother Michael, distinguished as a composer. Maria Barbara, the youngest daughter of Michael, became Sebastian Bach's first wife. One Johann Jacob Bach was an oboe-player in the Swedish guard, and followed Charles XII. to his defeat at Pultowa, later ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... others of such delicate shades and gradations as to defy the ear of man. If we listen to one of these concerts, we will quickly recognise the tones of every familiar instrument, such as the drum, pipe, horn, trombone, oboe, piccolo, 'cello, and violin. The greatest of these musical festivals directly precedes the mating season, and is a dramatic instance of a manifestation of an inner rhythm which corresponds to an ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... she did impart, How love lay rankling at her heart: Which, when I smelt, desire was slain, And they breathed forth perfumes in vain. Their angel voice surprised me now; But Mopsa, her Too-whit, Too-whoo, Descending through her oboe nose, ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... Mr. Kenington was saying rather impatiently. "Does he play something like our violin or clarinet or oboe, or what?" His father, George had noticed, was becoming impatient more frequently since he had become Secretary. The ...
— George Loves Gistla • James McKimmey
... to have received the model of that commonwealth from the oracle of Apollo at Delphos, the words whereof are thus recorded by Plutarch in the life of that famous legislator: "When thou shalt have divided the people into tribes (which were six) and oboe (which were five in every tribe), thou shalt constitute the Senate, consisting, with the two Kings, of thirty councillors, who, according as occasion requires, shall cause the congregation to be assembled between the bridge and the river Gnacion, where the Senate shall propose to the people, ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... discussions on music and on philosophy, and of the little sister Caroline, destined in later years for an illustrious career. William soon learned all that his master could teach him in the ordinary branches of knowledge, and by the age of fourteen he was already a competent performer on the oboe and the viol. He was engaged in the Court orchestra at Hanover, and was also a member of the band of the Hanoverian Guards. Troublous times were soon to break up Herschel's family. The French invaded Hanover, the Hanoverian Guards were overthrown in the battle of Hastenbeck, and ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball |
