"Organist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... opinions as one grows older; very often it is necessary to reverse them. This one on Byrde I adhere to: indeed I am nearly proud of having uttered it so long ago. I had then never heard the Mass in D minor. But in the latter part of 1899 Mr. R.R. Terry, the organist of Downside Abbey, and one of Byrde's latest editors, invited me to the opening of St. Benedict's Church, Ealing, where the Mass in D minor was given; and there I heard one of the most splendid pieces of music in the ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... low, tender music. She learned afterward that the music was Handel's "Largo." She did not know that the organ was one of the finest in the city, nor that the organist was one of the most skilful to be had; she knew only that the music seemed to take her soul and lift it up above the earth so that heaven was all around her, and the very clouds seemed singing to her. Then came ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... packages had been abstracted from his outside pocket. He was afraid to return, and decamped with the other into the country. Whilst in a small town he strolled into a Mission Hall; there happened to be a hitch in the proceedings, the organist was absent, a volunteer was called for, and W., being a good musician, offered to play. It seems the music took hold of him. In the middle of the hymn he walked out and went to the police station and gave himself ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... children, and taught singing to some of them. We had a pair of beautiful old organs in Castlewood Church, on which she played admirably, so that the music there became to be known in the country for many miles round, and no doubt people came to see the fair organist as well as to hear her. Parson Tusher and his wife were established at the vicarage, but his wife had brought him no children wherewith Tom might meet his enemies at the gate. Honest Tom took care not to have many such, ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... up panting, waving his music. "Lucky I've not got to sing," said the young fellow in a jerky voice, and rushed to the vestry-door, where Mr. Clifton fidgeted, watch in hand. After such a race it was natural enough that the young organist should be somewhat flushed as he went up the aisle with a surpliced boy at his heels. But Judith had not hurried—had rather lingered, looking back. What was the meaning of that soft rosy glow upon her cheeks? And why was Thorne so absent, standing up and sitting down mechanically, till the service ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... assisting it to praise Beauty on many lips in naked Light. I wish to consecrate my work on it to that end. Today I have been influenced by Frederick Tennyson, Traherne, and Patmore. In agony lies the highest music. The key is struck by circumstance, Time's organist, and the stars tremble with music. For the full thundering silence of Absolute Beauty a Divine Agony was necessary, so that all Heaven and its choirs and Hell trembled in the majesty of this stricken Doom. Death ...
— The Forgotten Threshold • Arthur Middleton
... arrow-pointed leaves that rustled as they sifted and shifted the gold flakes of sunlight, sounded the low, mysterious harping of wind-fingers as light and yet as profound as those of some dreaming organist. ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... tastes. Their scene was transferred from the play-house to the church. On the anniversaries of the birthdays of the two sovereigns, and upon New Year's day, the Laureate was expected to have ready congratulatory odes befitting the occasion, set to music by the royal organist, and sung after service in the Chapel Royal of St. James. Similar duties were required when great victories were to be celebrated, or national calamities to be deplored. In short, from writing dramas to amuse a merry monarch and his courtiers, an office not without dignity, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... immense Christmas tree was enthroned and brightly lighted. All the servant-folk came in, and Bjoernson spoke, beautifully and warmly, as he well knows how to do. 'Now you shall play a hymn, Grieg,' he said, and although I did not quite like the notion of doing organist's work, I naturally complied without a murmur. It was one of Grundtvig's hymns in 32—thirty-two verses. I resigned myself to my fate with stoicism. At the beginning I kept myself awake, but the endless repetitions had a soporific effect. Little by little I became as stupid ...
— Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson • William Morton Payne
... in church, however, my calm begins to leave me. As time wears on, and the organist invents more and more tunes, I tremble lest the bride has forgotten the day. The choir is waiting for her; the bridegroom is waiting for her. I—I also—wait. What if she has changed her mind at the last minute? But no. The organist has sailed ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... standing beside an organist who was improvising on the swell organ with viol d'amour stop drawn, a spider let herself down from the ceiling of the church and hung suspended immediately above his hands. He coupled on to great organ and commenced ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... proceeded," he went on, with the same maddening conscientiousness of manner, "to Mr Carr (not Mr James Carr, of course; Mr Robert Carr) who is temporarily assisting our organist, and having consulted with him (on the subject of a choir boy who is accused, I cannot as yet say whether justly or not, of cutting holes in the organ pipes), I finally dropped in upon a Dorcas meeting ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... to my father he was sitting buried in a low arm-chair with his eyes closed. His dry, emaciated face, with a shade of dark blue where it was shaved (he looked like an old Catholic organist), expressed meekness and resignation. Without responding to my greeting or opening ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... in aid of funds for bewildering happy savages, and other such enthusiasms of this enlightened country. Her daughter was one of the foremost of the bevy of young women who decorated the churches at Easter and Christmas, was organist in one of those edifices, and had subscribed to the testimonial of a silver broth-basin that was presented to the Reverend Mr. Walker as a token of gratitude for his faithful and arduous intonations of six months as sub-precentor in the Cathedral. ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... Cardinal of Ferrara's organist, sent him budgets of news not less regularly than the secretary of the Duke of Savoy's ambassador at Venice supplied the English agent copies of all the most important letters his master received. See the interesting letter of John Shers to Cecil, Venice, ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... Such imitative music in that age compares with modern imitative music as the painted allegories of the Pigtail age compare with the symbolical paintings of Kaulbach. Johann Jacob Frohberger, court organist to the Emperor Ferdinand III., portrayed the dangers which he incurred crossing the Rhine in an—allemande. To the ear of his contemporaries this portrayal sounded absolutely plain and intelligible. Dietrich Buxtehude described the nature of the planets in seven suites for the piano. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... soon, the fane was filled with majestic notes. Mavis was always acutely sensitive to music. In a moment, her troubles were forgotten; she listened enrapt to the soaring melody. The player was not the humdrum organist of the church, neither did his music savour of the ecclesiastical inspiration which makes its conventional appeal on Sundays and holy days. Instead, it spoke to Mavis of the travail, the joy of being, the night, sunlight, sea, air, the gay and grey pageant of life: the player ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... altered our design to go to Woolwich, and put it off to to-morrow morning, and so went all to Greenwich (Mrs. Waith excepted, who went thither, but not to the same house with us, but to her father's, that lives there), to the musique-house, where we had paltry musique, till the master organist came, whom by discourse I afterwards knew, having employed him for my Lord Sandwich, to prick out something (his name Arundell), and he did give me a fine voluntary or two, and so home by water, and at home I find my girl that run away brought by a bedel of St. Bride's Parish, and stripped her ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... you, my lord; but the Church has been full this hour past; and the organist has played all the wedding music in ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... begun, but is not so well as last year. The Rosa Maricini, who is second woman, and whom I suppose you have heard, is now old. In the room of Amorevoli, they have got a dreadful bass, who, the Duke of Montagu says he believes, was organist at Aschaffenburgh. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... York, and elsewhere in this country, and received several specifications and plans from builders. He proceeded at once, therefore, to Europe, examined the great English instruments, made the acquaintance of Mr. Hopkins, the well-known organist and recognized authority on all matters pertaining to the instrument, and took lessons of him in order to know better the handling of the keys and the resources of the instrument. In his company, Dr. Upham examined some ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... Quite right, Snooks; I forgot myself. Kindly request the organist to sound the Assemble. Those naughty lads are running in ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various
... over heated railways, treading fiery pavements, and lodging in red-hot city hotels. But now the music and the day's decline filled me with a sense of religious calm, and for a moment I envied Berkeley. After his practicing was over the organist locked the chapel door, and we paced up and down in the fir-grove on the matting of dark red needles, and watched the river, whose eastern half still shone in the evening light. After supper we sat out on the piazza, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... is a large staff, including Matron, Dispenser, Organist, etc. The pensioners themselves are formed into six companies, and their pension varies according to their rank, from the colour-sergeants at a shilling a day to privates of the third rank at a penny. The grounds ...
— Chelsea - The Fascination of London • G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton
... and eccentrics; whittled out violins, and transformed simple reeds into lutes, upon which he played music of his own composition. In fact, so great was his skill in music that at twenty they wished to make him official organist and choirmaster of the Cathedral. His personal taste, however, ran more to painting; for some months he worked at his canvases with an ardor too great to last long. If ever a man was touched by the Spirit of the Renaissance, it was surely ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... in peace: some travellers mention yet An organist whose name they all forget. He has a holier and a nobler fame By poor men's hearths, who love and bless the name Of a kind friend; and in low tones to-day, Speak tenderly of him who passed away. Too poor to help the daughter of their friend, They grieved to see the little pittance end; ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... spirit of contentment and grace, or of religious grandeur, but most of them are outbreaks of the wildest anguish and heart-rending pathos. If tears could be heard, they would sound like these preludes. Two of the saddest—those in B minor and E minor—were played by the famous organist Lefebure Wely, at Chopin's funeral services. But it is useless to specify. They are all ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... is the village of Edgeware, with Whitchurch, famous for its association with the musician Handel. He was organist here for several years, and on the small pipe-organ, still in the church though not in use, composed his oratorio, "Esther," and a less important work, "The Harmonious Blacksmith." The idea of the latter came from an odd character, the village blacksmith, who lived in Edgeware ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... Worcester cathedral, where a remarkably fine anthem had been performed, the organ-blower observed to the organist, "I think we have performed mighty well to-day." "We performed!" answered the organist, "if I am not mistaken it was I that performed." Next Sunday, in the midst of a voluntary, the organ stopped all at once. ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... family proved useful helpers of the missionary effort. His wife Marianna was also born a heathen, and named Nukupjuna. She is now a native helper at Hebron. His daughter was exceedingly valuable as the schoolmistress, and when an organist was needed Nicholina fulfilled the office to the best of her ability by playing the melody with one finger on the very little harmonium, which still does duty at Ramah. That was a simple service rendered in simplicity of spirit, yet in such a climate possibly attended with ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe
... improvising a thought that was in my heart, trying to give expression to it, and I could not. I knew what I wanted, and I knew it was in my heart, but how to give it expression I did not know. A celebrated organist came up the stairs and stood beside me. I looked around to him. 'Can't you take this tune,' I said, 'just where I leave it, and finish it for me as I have it in my heart to do? I can't give it utterance. Don't you see what ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... ruined a brain of lesser fiber. But for her it seemed to bring forth all that was clear and fine and polish it with a diamond luster. Twice a week alternately the French and German master from the Applewood Grammar School came to her, and she also learned to read music from the organist at the church, and then played to herself with no ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... artistic tours at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Frederick Augustus (II of Saxony and III of Poland, 1733-1763) dissolved the Polish band, and organised a similar body which was destined solely for Poland, and was to be resident there. It consisted in 1753 of an organist, two singers, twenty instrumentalists (almost all Germans), and a band-servant, their salary amounting to 5,383 thalers, 10 groschen (a little more than 805 pounds). Notwithstanding this new arrangement, the ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... liquid honey, upon which giant rose-leaves had been scattered, and a breeze was stirring in the grasses and among the leaves. The Sisters were busily repacking their baskets. Little Miss Wiercke, and her lank-haired young organist, sat under a bush, gazing in each other's eyes with the happy fatuity of lovers in the second stage, while the young lady who had kept the registers at the Public Library was teaching her Cornish ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... words: I never heard it but that once, but I find that the version you send me is almost identical with my Recollection of it. There is little merit in the Tune, except the pleasant resort to the Major at the two last Verses. I can now hear the Organist's burr at the ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... draw the United States flag, in red, white and blue, Fig. 27, have the school sing "The Red, White and Blue," or have the song sung as a solo or played by orchestra, pianist or organist. This makes a very effective feature, as some time is required to draw the flag. Be careful to construct the flag properly. To save ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... prefigured by a lonely cottage piano and two violins in a desert of expanse, added a nervous chill. When at last the music struck up—somewhat hesitatingly and protestingly, from the circumstance that the player was the church organist, and fumbled mechanically for his stops, the attempt to make up a cotillon set was left to the heroic Brooks. Yet he barely escaped disaster when, in posing the couples, he incautiously begged them to ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... it was, however, a little better than the beginning. As the dancers warmed to their work, their latent enthusiasm for the exercise was awakened; and "Sir Roger" was kept up until the fingers of the organist, who had been engaged to play for them on a piano placed in a corner of one of the passages, ached with the cold and ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... the same as the body—the body that gets old and dies—how can it be? You can't change thought into matter—not conceivably—everybody acknowledges that. Why should the thinking part die then, because the material part dies? When the organ is broken is the organist dead? The body is the hull, the covering, and when it has grown useless it will fall away and the live seed in it will stand free to sunlight and air—just at the beginning of life, as a plant is when it breaks through ...
— The Lifted Bandage • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... is very unequal in character, and some is very poor indeed. The windows at the west, especially one in memory of Mr. Wm. Chater, a late organist, may be regarded as exceptions. There are still, fortunately, many which are not ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Churches of Coventry - A Short History of the City and Its Medieval Remains • Frederic W. Woodhouse
... remembers before the war was when I was in Beaufort. They used to take care of the widows then. Take it by turns. There was a lady, Miss Mary Ann Baker, whose husband had been an organist in the church. When he died they would all take turns caring for Miss Mary Ann. I remember I'd meet her on de street and I'd say, 'Good mornin' Miss Mary Ann.' 'Morning Janie.' 'How you this mornin' Miss Mary Ann?' She'd say, 'Death come in and make alterations, ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... The organist finished the voluntary. The leading tenor of the choir put up the number of the first hymn. The minister ascended the staircase of the great mahogany pulpit, and prayed silently, and arranged his papers in the leaves of the hymn-book, and ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... course, a few minutes until some of the people had gone before they tried to leave the building; perhaps by that time Major Phillips would have disappeared. Judith was still struggling to think of something plausible to say to Miss Ashwell when the lights came on again; and when the organist began "God Save the King" and the audience rose, Judith knew that she must act quickly if she were to to save the situation. Her heart thumped so loudly that there was a buzzing in her ears and ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... Ladra. There is one property, however, which is of too great dimensions to be transportable. The large and fine-toned organ, used in the Prophete, Huguenots, and Robert le Diable, is to the right of the stage, opposite the property-room; and the organist, from his position, being unable to see the baton of Mr Costa, takes the time from a lime-tree baton fixed to the organ, which is made to vibrate by machinery under the control of Mr Costa, from his place in the orchestra. It would take up too much space to enter more at large into the machinery ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... Jean-Christophe is nearly eleven. His musical education is proceeding. He is learning harmony with Florian Holzer, the organist of St. Martin's, a friend of his grandfather's, a very learned man, who teaches him that the chords and series of chords that he most loves, and the harmonica which softly greet his heart and ear, those that he cannot hear without a little thrill running down his spine, are ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... been as white as snow except for a slight yellowish tinge. His eyebrows were still very dark, only just touched with the frost of winter. His hair, too, as I saw when he lifted his hat, was still wonderfully dark for the condition of his beard.—It flashed into my mind, that this must be the organist who played so remarkably. Somehow I had not happened yet to inquire about him. But there was a stateliness in this man amounting almost to consciousness of dignity; and I was a little bewildered. His clothes were ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... the purest-minded see nothing but sensuous beauty in it, which, by the way, doesn't disturb him as much as the size of his income-tax—the repose and fame of this man is offset by the truth and obscurity of the village organist who plays Lowell Mason and Bach with such affection that he would give his life rather than lose them. The truth and courage of this organist, who risks his job, to fight the prejudice of the congregation, offset the repose and large salary of a more celebrated choirmaster, who holds ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... high maneuverability to the boats. By playing on the controls with the skill of an organist, the pilot could ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... at the wedding); Rev. Mr. German, Grace Methodist Church, of whose choir I was a member; the late Colonel William N. Kennedy, of distinguished Nile memory, who was also a member of the choir. The late Mrs. Chambers, formerly of Peterboro', was the organist. I can say with much delight that my acquaintances and associations during the two years were fraught with ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle
... music, our little church owns the sweetest little peal of bells—! [AGNES rises, disturbed.] Ah, I can't promise you their silence! Indeed, I'm very much afraid that on a still Sunday you can even hear the sound of the organ quite a long distance off. I am the organist when I'm at home. That's Ketherick. Will you come? [The distant tinkling of mandolin ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero
... Sonnets, and Songs of Sadness and Piety," the first Elizabethan song-book of importance. Few biographical particulars concerning Byrd have come down. As he was senior chorister of St. Paul's in 1554, he is conjectured to have been born about 1538. From 1563 to 1569 he was organist of Lincoln Cathedral. He and Tallis were granted a patent, which must have proved fairly lucrative, for the printing of music and the vending of music-paper. In later life he appears to have become a convert to Romanism. His last work was published in 1611, and he died ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... Hugh's, who was organist of one of the important college chapels, took him and a couple of friends into the building. It had been a breathlessly hot summer day, but the air inside had a coolness and a peace which revived the languid frame. It was nearly dark, but the great ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... that this was purely instinctive, inasmuch as music received no kind of encouragement at Roughborough. There was no boy in the school as fond of music as he was. He picked up his knowledge, he said, from the organist of St Michael's Church who used to practise sometimes on a week-day afternoon. Ernest had heard the organ booming away as he was passing outside the church and had sneaked inside and up into the organ loft. In the course of time the ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... calling just now were scarcely sufficient, he went next day about the business that had brought him to town, which referred to a situation as organist in a large church in the north-west district. The post was half ensured already, and he intended to make of it the nucleus of a professional occupation and income. Then he sat down to think of the preliminary steps towards publishing ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... both morning and evening services, on Sunday, the mid-weekly prayer-meeting, and Friday evening choir practice. For in the course of time he had been won over to join the choir, and modestly discovered to our edification a barytone voice, wholly untrained but not unpleasing. Mrs. Rogers, our organist, averred his superiority to Packy Soule, whom he superseded, and was supported in this estimate by the remainder of the choir, with the exception of Roland Barnette, who helped with his reedy tenor. Josie Lockwood sang contralto and ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... evidence of the growing self-assertion of the sex, and the rapid progress of events towards the full recognition of the fact that woman's hour has come. Touching deeper and tenderer chords in the human soul than words could reach, the inspiring strains of the celebrated organist, Mr. Ryder, rose ever and anon, now soft and plaintive, now full and commanding, mingled in stirring harmony with prayer and speech. And as loving friends had covered the platform with rare and fragrant ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... that the young organist was also the choir leader, for her expressive face was turned toward the singers, and her lovely head kept time. Now and then a motion of the hand seemed to give a direction or warning. And the choir too sang with ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... was a little florid for the organist of St. Mark's," said the choirmaster whimsically. "My boy, if you will sing it for us at the recital as well as you did just now, you shall ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... relish with his beer, that he made but a poor breakfast on the first morning after his expulsion. Nor did he much improve his appetite for dinner by seriously considering his own affairs, and taking counsel thereon with his friend the organist's assistant. ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... in the gallery over against the organist, and for a year and more Ellen had the place at the corner from which she could look down the hazy candle-lit vista of the nave and see the congregation as ranks and ranks of dim faces and vaguely apprehended clothes, ranks that rose with a peculiar deep and spacious rustle to ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... most favorable place to average and appreciate its powers in. It is true, there were some soft and merciful passages occasionally, but the tramp-tramp of the tourists only allowed one to get fitful glimpses of them, so to speak. Then right away the organist ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... musical composer, was born at Aversa, in the kingdom of Naples, on the 17th of December 1749. His parents were poor, but anxious to give their son a good education; and after removing to Naples they sent him to a free school connected with one of the monasteries of that city. The organist of the monastery, Padre Polcano, was struck with the boy's intellect, and voluntarily instructed him in the elements of music, as also in the ancient and modern literature of his country. To his influence Cimarosa ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... the church; and, though the cottages are poor, the church is, as usual, handsome. Amongst other curiosities there is a Virgin, entirely covered with Indian embroidery. The organist's place is hereditary in an Indian family, descending from father to son. The long-haired Indian who played it for us has such a gentle expression and beardless face, that he looks like a very young woman. Some of the Indians here ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... air-pump with one hand, and with two fingers and a thumb of the other insinuating a peeping-place through the curtain of the organ-gallery, was struck motionless by the double operation of curiosity and fear; while the organist, intent only on his performance, and spreading all his fingers to strike a swell of magnificent chords, felt his harmonic spirit ready to desert his body on being answered by the ghastly rattle of empty keys, and in the consequent agitato furioso of the internal movements of ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... specification (kindly sent by Mr A. H. Brewer, the organist of the cathedral), from which it will be seen that the instrument ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... was alone," he went on. "But some one had come out like a shadow beyond the chancel railing, and of a sudden, beginning wonderfully low and sweet, the great organ began to fill the church with its melody. The organist, too, thought he was alone. He was a little, old man, his shoulders thin and drooped, his hair white. But in his soul there must have been a great love and a great peace. He played something low and sweet. When he had finished he ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... of the principal inn, the "Golden Stag," which had a nice garden, with shade trees reaching down to the riverside, and pleasure boats for hire; and I was the third—Theodor Fischer, son of the church organist, who was also leader of the village musicians, teacher of the violin, composer, tax-collector of the commune, sexton, and in other ways a useful citizen, and respected by all. We knew the hills and the woods as well as the birds knew them; ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... encouraged, would now and then hazard a small pleasantry, such as a man of his low estate might venture to make in the company of high churchwardens and other mighty men of the earth. I found him in company with the deputy organist, seated apart, like Milton's angels, discoursing, no doubt, on high doctrinal points, and settling the affairs of the church over a friendly pot of ale; for the lower classes of English seldom deliberate on any weighty matter without the ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... MARKHAM sat down, there was a silence; then, in order to quiet the rising excitement, the organist struck the first chords of the Masonic Hymn; the words were taken up, and presently not only the whole interior of the building rang with it, but outside, too, the people responded, and the city of London for a few moments became indeed a temple ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... doubt at all that if Balzac had lived, he might have turned out a successful playwright. When he began his career as a dramatic writer he was like a musician taking up an unfamiliar instrument, an organist who was trying the violin, or a painter working in an unknown medium. His last written play was his best. Fortunately, the plot did not deal with any of those desperate love passions which Balzac in his novels has analyzed and described with such relentless and even ...
— Introduction to the Dramas of Balzac • Epiphanius Wilson and J. Walker McSpadden
... was to be given. It was to be a sort of Thanksgiving festival; the best speakers and singers had been engaged and they had spent much time in rehearsal. The bishop was to preside. The hour had arrived, but alas, where was the organist? No word as to the cause of his absence had been received, and a substitute must be found. Who, then, could be organist? John Keyes was the only man among them that was acquainted with the numbers; he had rehearsed them. But yesterday he had rushed ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor
... of the Baldwin United Civic Association, trustee of the Baldwin Public Library, director of the Baldwin Savings and Loan Association, former Fire Commissioner, chairman of the Baldwin Lighting Commission, member of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Baldwin, and organist of the Men's Bible Class, as well as a teacher of the Sunday School. Mr. Bixby's conservative New England training made him a valuable worker for any cause he espoused. He never sought honor and publicity, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... by J.W. ELLIOTT, Organist and Choirmaster of St. Mark's, Hamilton Terrace, London. With some Practical Counsels taken by permission from "Notes on the Church Service," by Bishop ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... five in the morning, and my Lord up, and took leave, a little after six, very kindly of me and the whole company. So took coach and to Windsor, to the Garter, and thither sent for Dr. Childe: [William Child, Doctor of Music, Organist of St. George's Chapel, at Windsor. Ob. 1696, aged 91.] who come to us, and carried us to St. George's Chapel, and there placed us among the Knights' stalls; (and pretty the observation, that no man, but a woman may sit in a Knight's place, ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... exultant music of the Te Deum ceased to swell and in its place crept forth upon the silent air the awful notes of a Miserere. The king had been at the ear of the organist that morning and had planned his effects well. The melancholy music stirred the people to murmurs of ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the world, and had sent her, at an early age, to the convent of Rimouski. There she was brought up under the careful training of Mother Annette, the superioress, and received enough musical instruction to enable her to act as organist at the Father Point church, and to direct the choir ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy
... his head rapidly and repeatedly). No, thank you, General. All my life long people have wanted to make a man of me. When I was a boy, our good priest wanted to make a man of me by teaching me to read and write. Then the organist at Melegnano wanted to make a man of me by teaching me to read music. The recruiting sergeant would have made a man of me if I had been a few inches taller. But it always meant making me work; and I am too lazy for that, ...
— The Man of Destiny • George Bernard Shaw
... the Mizpah hotel. This hotel is unique in that it is run in connection with a Baptist church. The building is a beautiful specimen of Gothic architecture. The surplus money is used for the various church expenses. You may listen to the noted Belgian organist while resting in your own room. This undertaking has proven to be a success in ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... for three hours in the week at the High School, and on two afternoons she learnt from the old organist at Rockstone Church. She went and came alone, except when Miss Mohun happened to join her, and that was not often, 'For,' said that lady to her sister, 'Gillian always looks as if she thought I was acting spy upon her. I wish I could get on with ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... painters may be applied to poetry as well as to art. Very characteristic and significant is the insistence on the deeper value of life, of soul, than of mere expression or technique, or even of mere unbreathing beauty. Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha is the humorous soliloquy of an imaginary organist over a fugue in F minor by an imaginary composer, named in the title. It is a mingling of music and moralising. The famous description of a fugue, and the personification of its five voices, is a brilliantly ingenious tour de force; and the rough humour ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... just as the unseen organist, apparently abandoning his more ambitious efforts, with sure touch swept into the familiar harmonies of the Eventide Hymn, and then, still with his hymnal in mind, jerked out the dozen stops and set the air rocking to the steady beat ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... the musing organist, Beginning doubtfully and far away, First lets his fingers wander as they list, And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay: Then, as the touch of his loved instrument 5 Gives hopes and fervor, nearer draws his theme, First guessed by faint ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... cathedral libraries, let us hope he is proud of his progeny. He, like his contemporaries, was a Catholic, and he dissembled. About his birth it has only been conjectured that he was born in the earlier part of the sixteenth century. He was organist of Waltham Abbey in 1540, and remained there till the dissolution of the monasteries, when he became a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. He and Byrde in 1575 got a patent giving them a monopoly of the printing of ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman
... stubborn resistance. The portcullis was let down, the moat filled to its utmost capacity, while Winchester rifles were served out to the four butlers, sixteen footmen, seven chauffeurs and twenty-four gardeners who compose the staff. The organist was instructed to play martial music to hearten the defenders, while Mr. Carnegie took up his position in the bomb-proof gazebo which is so prominent a feature in the Sutherland landscape. Meantime Mr. Abel, advancing at the head of his volunteers, had taken cover behind an Araucaria ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various
... by the abbey bell, calling us to Vespers, which are chanted by the monks (the music being supplied by the organist Father Bernard), upon the conclusion of which, we take our departure, deeply and favorably impressed with our visit to this monastery, which stands alone, in the Maritime Provinces of the Canadian Dominion, ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... same aggravating sing-song voice of utter indifference: "we don't know whether it was not a man. Our usual organist is ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... "in spite of all, I have never interrupted the study of music." Bach was as simple and loyal a citizen as any land could have, and from the early years when he was a fatherless boy to the days of his sad affliction, he sacrificed always. Think of the miles he walked to hear Buxterhude, the organist; and in the earlier years, when he lived with Johann Christopher, his brother, how eagerly he sought learning in the art that so fascinated him. It was a constant willingness to learn ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper
... societies, and was the leader of a large choir. I had a good alto voice and under his wise dicipline it was cultivated, and I was a certificated reader of music at sight before I was ten years old. Then I taught myself to play the organ, and before I was twenty I was the organist and choir-master of one of the largest Congregational churches of my native town, having often helped my father in the past years to drill and conduct oratorios such as The Messiah, Elijah, The ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... somethin'," groaned Newt Spratt, whose wife was organist in the Pond Road Church. "She'll bust that piano all to smash if she ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... her from the life she led—but after six months of comparative happiness, she had suddenly deserted him, leaving no clue as to where or why she had gone. His grief for her loss, weighed heavily upon his mind—he brooded incessantly upon it—and though his profession was that of a music master and organist, he grew so abstracted and inattentive to the claims of the few pupils he had, that they fell away from him one by one—and, after a bit, he lost his post as organist to the village church as well. This smote him deeply, for he was passionately fond ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... supra. Of the Cardinal of Ferrara's apprehensions and the grounds for them, Shakerley, the legate's own organist, and a spy of the English ambassador, secretly wrote to Throkmorton from the French court at St. Germain: "Here is new fire, here is new green wood reeking; new smoke and much contrary wind blowing against ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... piano-forte and harp. In conversing with several of them on this interesting and (to me) sublime subject, I have heard as an objection to their joining in the psalmody with any extensive power, that there are no persons, exclusively of the organist, to lead the voices, whether treble, counter, tenor, or bass, and yet what a delightful opportunity do these new churches afford; in general the sound is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... These small instruments rarely had more than eight pipes, consequently they possessed only the compass of an octave. With slight variations, they were quite universally used up to the seventeenth century. Organ pedals were invented in Germany about 1325. Bernhard, organist of St. Mark's, Venice (1445-1459), has been credited with the invention of organ pedals, but it is probable that he merely introduced them ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... notorious variety theatres. The other is the silent section which knows better, but is very well content to be publicly defended and privately amused by Mr. Alexander's innocence. To accept a West End manager as an expert in theatres because he is an actor is much as if we were to accept the organist of St. Paul's Cathedral as an expert on music halls because he is a musician. The real experts are all in the conspiracy to keep the police out of the theatre. And they are so successful that even the police do not know as much as ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... remains to me to speak more especially of my own vocation—the editor's—which bears much the same relation to the author's that the bellows-blower's bears to the organist's, the player's to the dramatist's, Julian or Liszt to Weber or Beethoven. The editor, from the absolute necessity of the case, can not speak deliberately; he must write to-day of to-day's incidents and aspects, tho these may be completely overlaid and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... was in the church and he had had much to do with its members in former days. The Select-men of the village were present, and he had made their acquaintance once, in an executive session. The deacons were all there and the pillars of the church and the choir and the organist—a spinster who had actively disapproved when he had put beans in the melodeon one Sunday. Yes, it was best to meet them in a body on a festive occasion like this, when the rigors of the village point of view were ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... in one of the pews in the cheerful and beautiful church of Normalm, which is all that is left of the once famous cloister of St. Clara, and still bears the saint's name. The sermon was finished, and the strong full tones of the organ, called out by the skillful hands of an excellent organist, hovered like the voices of unseen angel choirs in the high vaults of the church, floated down to the listeners, and sank ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... service tent the organist, his countenance still livid in the sunlight, blew a throaty summons on a cornet, and the crowd slowly trailed back within. In the thinning groups Gordon saw the school-teacher, clad in a bright blue ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... me, there arrived a young organist from Valdoste, called the Abbe Palais, a good musician and an agreeable companion, who performed very well on the harpsichord; I got acquainted with him, and we soon became inseparable. He had been brought up by an Italian monk, who ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... the genus bufo, he is by no means a buffo genius. He may be styled the solemn organist of the swamp; slough music being his specialty. Like other out-door performers on wind instruments, he is chiefly heard in pleasant weather, and during the summer his organ is without stops. Being a Democrat, he appreciates the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... plans were supplemented by a group of parish school-children, led by the old organist, who came through the streets, singing Christmas carols: "God save you, merry gentlemen," "Good King Wenceslaus" and ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... it was built with my own hands, Sister Mary John and I. You don't know her yet; she is our organist, ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... designed him for the law, and he studied the institutes at the Philadelphia Law Academy, but like Schumann, he was spoiled for briefs by the stronger pull of music and the cacoethes scribendi. (Grandpa John Huneker had been a composer of church music, and organist at St. Mary's.) In the year mentioned he set out for Paris to see Liszt; his aim was to make himself a piano virtuoso. His name does not appear on his own exhaustive list of Liszt pupils, but he managed to quaff of the Pierian spring ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... gone down to the quay to watch the embarkation of the troops. He felt glad to be the only man there. He tramped noisily up the nave, clanking his spurs till the vaulted roof rang with the sound; he coughed, he talked aloud to himself to let the nuns know, and more particularly to let the organist know that if the troops were gone, one Frenchman was left behind. Was this singular warning heard and understood? He thought so. It seemed to him that in the Magnificat the organ made response which ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... much attention was given to music; he also found many books containing music and songs for children. Returning home, he brought several of these music-books, and placed them in the hands of Mr. Lowell Mason, then a noted composer, organist, and choir leader. Having himself no knowledge of the German language he brought them to me at Andover, where I was then studying theology, requesting me, as I should find time, to furnish him translations of the German words, ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... tentative and unsuccessful experiments. His performance has lately caused a considerable amount of indignation in the parish, for a new organ has been placed in the church, of far louder tone than the old instrument, and my friend the organist is hopelessly adrift upon it. The residents in the place have almost made up their minds to send a round-robin to the Vicar to ask that the pulsator organorum, the beater of the organ, as old Cathedral statutes term him, may be deposed. ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... pass on. I was now nine years of age and organist in the Wesleyan Sunday School, having for the past two years studied music under my father. Added to this, I formed part of the Wesleyan church choir. Sunday therefore to me was a very busy day, made exceptionally so, as apart from church and school work, the intervals were filled ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... doesn't. The people are too deeply interested in football, starting prices, rates, public parks, sliding scales, excursions to Blackpool, and municipal shindies, to concern themselves with organists as such. In the Five Towns an organist may be a sanitary inspector or an auctioneer on Mondays. In Oldcastle an organist is an organist, recognized as such in the streets. No one ever heard of an organist in the Five Towns being taken up and petted by a couple of old ladies. But this may ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... the importance of each item, here are some of the attractions which make this Exposition vocal and harmonious: Edwin Henry Lemare, of London, by general critical agreement declared the greatest living organist, is expected here early in September, when he will begin his series of one hundred organ recitals, to continue till the Exposition closes in December. A unique episode of the Exposition music must not be overlooked in the recital by Madame Schumann-Heink, ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber |
