"Overture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... voortrekker[Afrikaans]. prelude, preamble, preface, prologue, foreword, avant-propos[Fr], protasis[obs3], proemium[obs3], prolusion[obs3], proem, prolepsis[Gram], prolegomena, prefix, introduction; heading, frontispiece, groundwork; preparation &c. 673; overture, exordium[Lat], symphony; premises. prefigurement &c. 511; omen &c. 512. Adj. precursory; prelusive, prelusory, preludious[obs3]; proemial[obs3], introductory, prefatory, prodromous[obs3], inaugural, preliminary; precedent &c. (prior) 116. Phr. "a precedent embalms ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... find a more perfect morning than this in early March. The sun was heralded over the hills in a blaze of glory; meadow larks strung like beads on a telegraph wire were calling their cheery notes, and robins were singing their overture to the morning sun. ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... "Tannhaeuser," and the "Schildbuerger." His "Phantasus" (1812) contained original tales conceived in the same spirit. Scherer says that Tieck uttered the manifesto of German romanticism in the following lines from the overture of his "Kaiser Octavianus": ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... playing?' I should have started up with light grace, and without overturning my glass or stumbling over the bench, but in a curved posture, moving one step and a half forward, I should have answered: 'Give me leave, Mademoiselle! it is the overture of the Donauweibchen;' or, 'It is just going to strike six.' Could any mortal in the world have taken it ill of me? No! I say; the girls would have looked over, smiling so roguishly, as they always do when I pluck up heart to show them ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... indeed, that she, the grand-daughter of Henry the Great, Mademoiselle d'Eu, Mademoiselle de Dombes, Mademoiselle d'Orleans, Mademoiselle the King's first cousin, the Mademoiselle destined to the throne, should ask the King's permission to marry a Gascon cadet. Louis, as the sequel to an overture made to him by several nobles collectively, friends of Lauzun, with M. de Montausier at their head, granted his permission. But when the question arose, thanks to the blind vanity of Lauzun, of their union being celebrated at the Louvre and ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... presented to Lord Grenville; but its inutility, or danger, in the proud and exacting mood then prevalent at Paris, is obvious. The confidential reports sent by "M. S." from Paris to Lord Grenville do not refer to any such overture to the Cabinet.[153] ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... the devil, and not to be convinced, till too late, I replied to his peaceful overture by the most insulting irony: "You were not afraid to fire at a poor boy in the water," said I, "though you do not like to stand a shot in return. Come, come, take your ground, be a man, stand up, ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... she could not ride away from the party, after Mrs. Maxwell assailed her with a motive for her conduct, Joanna could not repel his overture. It was incredibly trying to her. He saw how differently she was affected from her sisters. He was aware of another influence. He felt very uncomfortable. Why, the very flesh of his arm, which she touched lightly enough, crept, when the superstition of the old ordeal of the bier flashed upon ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... beset the doors of the theatre. A flashing of silks, satins, brocades, tulle and jewelry, distinguished the throng pressing eagerly into the lobbies, and seeking with more confusion than grace seats in the dress circle. The orchestra has played an overture, and the house presents a lively picture of bright-colored robes. Mr. Snivel's handsome figure is seen looming out of a private box in the left-hand procenium, behind the curtain of which, and on the opposite side, a mysterious ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... had arrived at the gate before the courthouse. Here, too, however, the crowd was densest, having gathered at the spot as if the roar of powder from the camp was an overture to Weir's arrest and appearance. It had proved a prelude to his appearance, at any rate. The crowd perceived him with Madden and it believed him a prisoner even if not handcuffed and marched with a ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... I no longer sigh the nights alone. But should the fair, affected, vain, or nice, Scream with the fears inspired by frogs or mice; Cry, 'Save us, Heaven! a spectre, not a man!' Her hartshorn snatch or interpose her fan: If I my tender overture repeat; Oh! may my vows her kind reception meet! May she new graces on my form bestow, And with tall honours ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... the affirmative, wondering if this were a friendly overture. He had noticed that Mr Smith's eyes had a sort of inward look as though he had disliked or disdained his surroundings. The captain's wife had disappeared then down the companion stairs. Mr Smith said ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... was not long before my father had as many scholars as he could find time to attend. And when they assembled at my father's to make little concerts, I was frequently called to join the second violin in an overture, for my father found pleasure in giving me sometimes a lesson before the instruments were laid by, after practising with DIETRICH, for I never was missing at those hours, sitting in a corner with my knitting and ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... elbow. Very many of the Sonnets I do not care for: mostly because of the Subject: but there is pretty sure to be some beautiful line or expression in all; and all pure, tender, noble, and—original. Old Spedding supplies a beautiful Prose Overture to this delightful Volume: never was Critic more one with his Subject—or, Object, is it? Frederick Tennyson, my old friend, ought to have done something to live along with his Brothers: all who will live, I believe, of their Generation: and he perhaps would, if he ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... nods and facetious remarks to their friends in the audience (familiarities from which a paid orchestra would have been totally cut off), the musicians dashed into a new overture, composed by Signor Mancussi, also "expressly ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... one laying hold of the bow, and the other the stern, they swung it between them, as two washerwomen might a basket of dirty clothes. I must confess that I was a great deal mortified at seeing my command treated thus slightingly, which mortification was not a little increased by an overture that they kindly made to me, saying, that if I were at all tired, they would, with all the pleasure in the world, carry me in ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... the overture, up went the curtain. If it was a play, and the play was in German or Russian or Italian, I had but to touch Mary's little finger to understand it all—a true but incomprehensible thing. For well as I might understand, I could not have spoken ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... the award as not obligatory and advised me to open a further negotiation, the proposition was immediately made to the British Government, but the circumstances to which I have alluded have hitherto prevented any answer being given to the overture. Early attention, however, has been promised to the subject, and every effort on my part will be made for a satisfactory settlement of this question, interesting to the Union generally, and particularly so to one ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... siege of which had already reached near twice the duration of that of Troy. To supply the deficiencies of the Turkish marine, which had been almost ruined by the repeated naval victories of the Venetians, an overture was made to the English ambassador, Lord Winchilsea, for permission to hire the services of a number of British vessels; but this strange request being evaded, the expedition was postponed for a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... evidently taken great pains with his dress (a bright pink satin cravat was rather striking) and thanked the butler most gratefully every time he handed him a dish—"Je vous remercie beaucoup, Monsieur." We had our two grand pianos and were going to play the overture of Tannhaeuser, one of the simplest and most melodious of Wagner's compositions. The performers were Francis and I, Mlle. Dubois and the organist. It was a little difficult to arrange who he should play with. He was very nervous at the idea of playing with Mlle. Dubois—rather frightened ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... vindicating the laws in such a spirit of energy, as though he had resolved upon allowing no escape for the enemy; he opened a locus penitentiae, noiseless and indulgent to the feelings of the offenders, with so constant an overture of placability as if he had resolved upon letting them all escape. The kindness of the manner was as perfect as the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... was infamous and extraordinary. No reasonings can explain it. It was both ridiculous and provoking. At first, he employed himself in fomenting quarrels, and devising schemes to embark the sultan in his cause. Vizier after vizier was flattered and assailed. He rejected every overture for his peaceable return. He lingered five years in endless intrigues and negotiations, in order to realize the great dream of his life—the dethronement of the czar. He lived recklessly on the bounty of the sultan, taking no hints that even imperial hospitality ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... Parisian breeding of Mademoiselle Viefville to preserve her gravity during this overture, though she kept her bright animated, French-looking eyes, roaming over the assembly, with an air of delight that, as Mr. Bragg would say, made her very popular. No one else in the party from the Wigwam, Captain Truck excepted, dared look up, but each kept his or her eyes riveted on the floor, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... Monteverde. Charm in exploring resources of instrumentation. Operatic overture. Forge of genius. Dance of obscure origin. Craving for individual expression. Touch of authority by Corelli. Cardinal Ottoboni's palace. Symphony, a sonata for orchestra. Purcell, Scarlatti, Sammartini and the Bachs. Monophonic style. Contrasting movements. ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... to marry, and the emperor, my master, who is very fond of you, has a sister touching whom I have orders to speak to you if you will be pleased to hearken." It was to Charles V.'s eldest sister, Eleanor, widow of Manuel the Fortunate, King of Portugal, that allusion was made. This overture led to nothing at the time; but the next year, in 1522, war was declared between Francis I. and Charles V.; the rupture between Francis I. and the Duke of Bourbon took place; the Bourbon lawsuit was begun; and the duke's mother-in-law, Anne of France, daughter of Louis XI., more concerned for the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... study the musical construction of the overture with which the music-drama opens, as it is well known that Wagner in his Preludes prepares the spectator's mind for the impressions that are to follow. Several of the leading motives appear in this Vorspiel and must be appreciated to be understood. ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... and kind; with cures for all these evils; and to end finally by a grand climax of supplication, invocation, imprecation, resignation, and beatification, in the regular crash of a stout-expiring overture. ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... the overture. It was a skilfully arranged medley of well-known popular war-songs, interlarded with the Dessauer and Hohenfriedberger march, as if the enthusiasm of the audience were to be carried to the highest ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... often looked at it when he was not too busy with something else. He had even championed his goddess against Lucia, when she pronounced that Wagner was totally lacking in knowledge of dramatic effects. To be sure she had never seen any Wagner opera, but she had heard the overture to Tristram performed at the Queen's Hall, and ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... seen, it is probable you have been equally favored, Miss Melville, since you were together," said Ernest, in the same cold undertone. The orchestra was playing a magnificent overture, there was laughter and merriment around us, so the conversation in ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... the best of the marriage, especially as the groom is of royal blood. Next, an alliance with the French king against the emperor. Why not; was not Francis once ready to treat even with Solyman to defeat Charles, an overture which shocked Christendom? And while Charles' energies are bent to the task of protecting his country from the Turks, a new leader appears; ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... telephone number without being measured for his wedding coat. On the Continent of Europe, and especially in the Latin countries, where class barriers are more formidable, the situation differs materially, and to the disadvantage of the girl. If she makes an overture, it is an invitation to disaster; her hope of lawful marriage by such means is almost nil. In consequence, the prudent and decent girl avoids such overtures, and they must be made by third parties or by the man ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... an overture by Elgar, and the full solemn sonorous music had drawn to its properly majestic close. Beside me sat an artist friend who is a lover of music, and regularly attends these Promenade Concerts. He removed the cigarette from his lips and chuckled softly to himself for some moments. Then he replaced ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... artillery to join Sir John. About eight o'clock, when within about three miles of Ghuzni, we heard the first symptoms that the game of war was beginning: our batteries were firing on the place, and the garrison were returning it with good effect; it served as a sort of overture to the opera in which we knew ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... Marie Antoinette admired them or not, she had far too proper a sense of dignity to allow herself to be entrapped into the acceptance of an obligation by one whom she so deservedly despised. She replied coldly that she had jewels enough, and did not desire to increase the number. But the overture thus made by Madame du Barri could not be kept secret, and more than one of her partisans followed the hint afforded by her example, and showed a desire to make their peace with their future queen. The Duc d'Aiguillon ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... Afghanistan, and Dost Mahomed, both in rage and terror, began to look around him for a foreign alliance. His grand aim was to secure the friendship of the British; but this was scornfully refused. The governor-general, with exquisite irony, replied to his overture: 'My friend, you are aware that it is not the practice of the British government to interfere with the affairs of other independent states!' and a British envoy to Cabool, while refusing everything that was important for him to ask, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... The overture was practically an admission of his own responsibility in the matter, but the astronomer was only impressed by the fact that for some reason the bishop had ceased to regard him with disfavour. Could it be that he ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... developed Sonata-allegro form is the design in which the classic overture and the first movement of the symphony, sonata and concerto are usually framed. The student must be careful not to confound this musical form with the complete sonata of three or four movements. It is not to be called the "sonata form," but the "sonata-allegro form." ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... poured forth with rapidity and yet with distinctness, rather astonished the girls. They were afraid they had lost Mrs. Ellsworthy for their friend, and they, every one of them, hailed this overture of kindness with delight. Innocent Primrose never even suspected that a pound a week for the lodging and maintenance of three girls was at all unusually cheap. She little guessed that Mrs. Ellsworthy had written to her special friend, Mrs. Moore, telling ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... perfectly civilly the Superintendent received the overture. "It was quite evident, Miss Malgregor, that you were not altogether responsible at the moment," she conceded in ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... To show forth the mind of the Master, who guides With baton unerring Time's mixture of tides, The good with the evil, the blessing and bane, The Amazon rushing far into the main, Until, from this skill'd combination of notes, Bound earth to the heavens His overture floats!" ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... had been over; the Allied planes had retaliated. Houses, emptied like cart-loads of bricks into the street, were significant of the ruin that was pending. Any moment the orchestra of destruction might break into its overture. Without cessation one could hear a distant booming. The fiddlers ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... she never afterward remembered. It was all merely a succession of delicious sensations for the palate, for the eye, for the ear when the excellent orchestra was playing some gay overture from one of the newer musical ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... fowl going through a quickset hedge, and Mr Saltzburg, brandishing his baton as if he were conducting an unseen orchestra, plunged through the scenery at the left upper entrance and charged excitedly down the stage. Having taken his musicians twice through the overture, he had for ten minutes been sitting in silence, waiting for the curtain to go up. At last, his emotional nature cracking under the strain of this suspense, he had left his conductor's chair and plunged down under the stage by way of the musician's ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... were disposed over a hundred mines. These mines were for the defence of the Golden Gate. Any one of these mines was capable of destroying a dozen battleships, and there were over a hundred mines. The destruction was terrific, but it was only Gluck's overture. He played his flashes down the Mare Island shore, blowing up five torpedo boats, the torpedo station, and the great magazine at the eastern end of the island. Returning westward again, and scooping in occasional isolated magazines on the high ground back from the ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... newspapers were full of the war from the moment of its breaking out. The arrangements for special correspondents and news from the front were more complete than they had ever been before, and as the astounding drama swiftly advanced from the trivial overture at Saarbruck to the overwhelming catastrophe at Sedan, the civilised world had eyes and ears for nothing else. Barely seven weeks elapsed between the declaration of war and the surrender of the Emperor and the fall of his empire. During those seven weeks, public opinion in this ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... junction of the Miami and Le Glaize rivers, he, in August, 1794, went down the Miami River, with about one thousand men, until he came close to a British post, at the foot of the rapids of the river. Here he sent a last overture to the Indians, promising peace if they would lay down their arms. Upon their rejecting this, he, on August 20th, moved to the head of the rapids, and attacked them with such vigor, using again his favorite weapon, the bayonet, that their ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... waits,) by Willibald Alexis, the scenes of which are laid in Poland at the time of Napoleon's fatal Russian expedition. "This background was the theme of the music, which consisted of little more than the overture and entr'actes, but was held by musicians of note to be both grand and profound. The character of the campaign of 1812, especially, was given in the overture with terrible truth of expression. Still, however, the work did not succeed." 3. "Undine's Greeting," ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... photograph to Freshmen, but has he no successor? How about the old fellow who sold hot chestnuts at football games—"a nickel a bush"—a rare contraction meant to denote a bushel—in reality fifteen nuts and fifteen worms. Does George Felsburg still play the overture at Poli's, reading his newspaper the while, and do comic actors still jest ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... ample funds by the munificence of citizens who remained, and sent forward to Virginia, to make their breasts a shield for the proud old "Mother of Presidents." The battle of Bethel was regarded as part of an overture to the opera of Blood, yclept "Subjugation," and people watched in silence for the crimson curtain to rise on the banks of the Potomac. Russell Aubrey had succeeded in raising a fine full company for the war, as contra-distinguished from twelve-months ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... permission. {27} For almost simultaneously came the news of a Bulgarian loan contracted in the Austro-German market—an event which made him abandon all hopes of conciliating Bulgaria and profiting by the British overture. During the months when the revival of the Balkan League was perhaps still practicable, he had combated the only expedient which might have given it a chance of realization: by the time he became a convert, it was ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... tenor came who could be counted on to make a sensation with his high notes in the familiar trio of men, Auber's opera, its inspiration as a type, had had so few representations that it had passed out of memory except for its overture. But the history of "La Muette" is full of anomalies. Its story is Neapolitan and there is Neapolitan color in its music; but it is nothing if not French. It inspired Rossini to write "William Tell" and Meyerbeer to write "Les Huguenots" for the French stage, and ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... loaded with gold and tinsel, and sparkling stones and spangles, all doubled in splendour by the reflection of a mirror in the background. The figures, set in motion by the same machinery which grinds the incomprehensible overture, perform a drama equally incomprehensible. At the left-hand corner is Daniel in the lion's den, the lion opening his mouth in six-eight time, and an angel with outspread wings, but securely transfixed through the loins by a revolving brass pivot, shutting it again to the same lively movement. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... people as a means of provisional or potential coercion in the proper case arising. One traitor cannot exist as a public and demonstrative character without many minor traitors to back him. To Great Britain it ought to cost no visible effort, resolutely and instantly to trample out every overture of insubordination as quietly, peacefully, effectually, as the meeting of conspirators at Clontarf on the 8th day of October 1843. Ireland is notoriously, by position and by imaginary grievances—grievances ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... I see it is time for us to withdraw; the Actors are preparing to begin. Play away the Overture. ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... man takes a fancy to any one [of the young women,] it is not considered as absolutely necessary, that he should make an overture to the girl herself. The first object is to agree with the parents, concerning the recompense to be given them for the loss of the company and services of their daughter. The value of two slaves is a common price, unless the girl is thought very handsome; in which case, the parents will raise ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... heavy artillery may be only the preliminary overture to the desperate engagement; and it seems to me that several days might be spent in manoeuvring into position before the shock of arms occurs, which will lay so many heads low in ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... the Dessalines School in the 1700 block on 12th Street, North, Mississippi colonists are in preponderant majority. The towns represented here are located in the northeastern part of that State. In the vicinity of the L'Overture School are distinct colonies from west Tennessee and Alabama. On Lawton Avenue, another popular street, Mississippians also are in majority. What makes migration to St. Louis from these States easy is probably its convenient location and direct railway communication with them. ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott
... I know how abruptly this chosen calm of my life was to be broken nor how these same studies were to be turned in a new and strange direction. But if on this night which was to witness the overture of a horrible drama, I had not hitherto experienced any premonition of the coming of those dark forces which were to change the whole tenor of my existence, suddenly, now, in sight of the elm tree which stood before my cottage ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... nature, cannot be doubted. She possessed the faculty of telling interesting stories and novelettes, and with this apparently inexhaustible fund of invention she would amuse him between his periods of work. The description that we have of the composition of the great "Don Giovanni" overture gives a pleasing illustration of this phase of the family life. Owing to rehearsals and other work, the day before the performance arrived with no overture yet written. In the evening, according to his custom, Mozart began the task by sketching out the themes and a general plan of construction for ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... from his box on the roof of the Grand Stand, Mr. Isidore gave the signal for which the orchestra waited. With a loud outburst of horns and trumpets and a deep rolling of drums the overture began. ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Mother Superior, alas! would be sure to make inquiries as to the friends whom she had visited—the magic violin of M. Szmera played its first notes, accompanied by Madame Odinska on the piano, and by a delicious little flute. They played an overture, the dreamy sweetness of which extorted cries of admiration ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... the Balkan complications of the last ten years, which form the overture to the present war, the Jewish organisations in Western Europe and America—chiefly the London Jewish Conjoint Committee—lost no opportunity of keeping the grievances of the Rumanian Jews before the Great Powers and of maintaining the liberties ...
— Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question • Lucien Wolf
... your ear. I bring no overture of war, no taxation of homage: I hold the olive in my hand; my words are as full ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... misquote his author's meaning while he is picking off his outside sentences. He may make as great a blunder as that simple prince who praised the conductor of his orchestra for the piece just before the overture; the musician was too good a courtier to tell him that it was only the tuning ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the supervisor answered sharply. He recognized the overture for what it was, felt relieved that he wouldn't have any more insubordination, was willing to let bygones be bygones—after a suitable period of punishment. "What's been happening?" he asked with a curiosity that got the better of ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... and looking at the friendly propounder, 'that's nae bad overture, as they say in the General Assembly. I have heard waur motions than ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... Once, after she had grown into magnificent young womanhood, he very angrily refused an earnest supplication for an introduction from the manager, himself. On the nights when she came to the theatre he took her to the box, before the overture began, and she sat there, quite alone, until he went to her after the audience had been ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... last word—word of words in the epiphany of life and love. The scent of the flowers, the booty of the bee, the primal drip of spring waters, the overture of the lark, the twist of lemon peel on the cocktail of creation—such is the bride. Holy is the wife; revered the mother; galliptious is the summer girl—but the bride is the certified check among the wedding presents that the gods send in when man ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... city, the mayor took possession, and sallied forth to meet the commander of the National forces for the purpose of surrendering the town, making terms for the protection of property, etc. Sherman paid no attention at all to the overture, but pushed forward and took the town without making any conditions whatever with its citizens. He then, however, co-operated with the mayor in extinguishing the flames and providing for the people who were rendered destitute by this destruction of their homes. When he left there ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... of the glaciers shaped itself suddenly into an organ, and there was one whose face I well knew sitting at the keyboard, smiling and pluming himself like a bird as he thundered forth a giant fugue by way of overture. I heard the great pedal notes in the bass stalk majestically up and down, like the rays of the Aurora that go about upon the face of the heavens off the coast of Labrador. Then presently the people rose and sang the chorus "Venus ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... would not get out of the chaise; he said he would get out, and he did get out, and I took him into our bar parlour; when he got there I said, I am led to suppose, that you are the bearer of some very good news to this country;"—a very natural overture to conversation on the part of an innkeeper, and to extract a little intelligence from him; "he said, he was, that the business was all done—that the thing was settled; I asked him, if I might be allowed to ask him what was the nature of ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... indicates peace, and as an emblem was given to Judith when she restored peace to the Israelites by the death of Holofernes.[3] Shakespeare, in "Twelfth Night" (Act i. sc. 5), makes Viola say:—"I bring no overture of war, no taxation of homage; I hold the olive in my hand; my words are as full of peace as of matter." Similarly, the palm, which, as the symbol of victory, was carried before the conqueror in triumphal processions, is generally regarded as denoting victory. Thus, palm-branches were scattered ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... 1800 and 1815 he composed the first six of his great symphonies, the music to "Egmont," the best of his chamber-music pieces, fourteen pianoforte sonatas, among them the "Pastorale" and the "Appassionata," and his only opera "Fidelio." This opera, which was first named "Leonore," with an overture that was afterward abandoned, had its first public performance in Vienna just before Napoleon's entry into the capital in 1805. After three representations it was withdrawn. Nearly ten years later, after complete revision by Beethoven, "Fidelio" achieved its first great success. The great ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... dominion they aimed at, a dominion as universal as that of Rome; and so intoxicated were they with that vast ambition that under all their present distress and danger they haughtily rejected every overture for a treaty or a cessation of arms; that the war was a just and necessary measure, advised by the Parliament itself from the conviction that, at any rate, Delenda est Carthago—such a government'must be destroyed; and that therefore the King may well say it was their ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... a profound political pamphlet under the guise of a brilliant novel may find it in "Sibyl, or The Two Nations." The gay overture of "The Eve of the Derby," at a London club, with which the curtain rises, contrasts with the evening amusements of the proletaire in the gin-palaces of Manchester in a more than operatic effectiveness, and yet falls rather below than rises above the sober ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... are expected to sing chromatic passages like the violin and the clarinet. As the point is of some interest, I should like to bring it before the reader with some examples. The essential character of the horns is nowhere more truly conveyed than in the soft passage near the beginning of the overture to Der Freischuetz, and it is the contrast between the two nature scales on the C horn and the F horn which gives the character to this lovely idyll. The trumpets are capable of even less variety of expression than the horns, as their ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... returned by the Duke of Argyle to Lord Mar's overture was this: that "he had no sufficient powers to treat with the Earl of Mar and his Council as a body, but that he would ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... every effort he made to stop. After returning to Vienna he obtained another libretto from Da Ponte, that of "Don Giovanni," which was produced at Prague, October 29, 1787. It is told, as a characteristic incident of Mozart's method of working, that the overture of this opera had not been written until the night before the performance. At every suggestion Mozart answered, tapping his forehead, "I have it all here." But not a line had been written. Late at night he set about writing it. ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... date, Wagner was revealed to me in "Lohengrin." I had heard at the Academy of Music in New York, little or nothing by him when the overture to "Lohengrin" thrilled me as a new revelation. Here was a genius, indeed, differing from all before, a new ladder upon which to climb upward—like ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... or less) to the words, "Heil Dir Im Siegel Kranz," and the Swiss to "Rufst Du mein Vaterland." It was sung in Sweden, also, and till 1833 it was in public use in Russia commonly enough to give it a national character. Von Weber introduced it in his "Jubel" overture, and Beethoven, in 1814, copied it in C Major and wrote piano variations on it. It has been ascribed to Henry Purcell (1696), to Lulli, a French composer (1670), to Dr. John Bull (1619), and to Thomas Ravenscroft ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... Harmer who spoke, as Frederick very well knew. The young men had been boys together, and as Reuben was two years the elder, he assumed a tone in speaking which Frederick now keenly resented. But it was no time to repel an overture of help, and he sullenly forced himself to accept Reuben's good offices. The great clotted periwig was with some difficulty got off, and then it was possible to remove the worst of the tar from face and eyes. Frederick at last could see clearly and breathe freely, but presented so ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... was much agitated on the reception of this letter. Though he every day declared his determination to have nothing to do with the Princes, yet he hesitated whether or no he should reply to this overture. The numerous affairs which then occupied his mind favoured this hesitation. Josephine and Hortense conjured him to hold out hope to the King, as by so doing he would in no way pledge himself, and would gain time to ascertain ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... set a gouty father to sleep, and a capriccio may operate successfully on the nerves of a valetudinary mother. A slight indisposition may be removed by a single air, while a more obstinate case may require an overture or a concerto. The tastes of the patient should ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... sent both to Grant and to the Secretary of War copies of Johnston's overture and his own answer. He added that he should "be careful not to complicate any points of civil policy;" that he had invited Governor Vance to return to Raleigh with the civil officers of the State, and that ex-Governor Graham, ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... perspicuity, perspicacity permeate, pervade permit, allow perseverance, persistence pertain, appertain pictorial, picturesque pitiable, pitiful pity, sympathy pleasant, pleasing politician, statesman practicable, practical precipitous, precipitate precision, preciseness prejudice, bias prelude, overture pride, vanity principal, principle process, procedure procure, secure professor, teacher progress, progression propitious, auspicious proposal, proposition tradition, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... influence. Lord Buntingford was asked, and he and his family were good old Whigs. But he was nephew to Lord Alfred Grendall, first cousin to Miles Grendall, and abstained on behalf of his relatives. An overture was made to Sir Damask Monogram, who certainly could afford the contest. But Sir Damask did not see his way. Melmotte was a working bee, while he was a drone,—and he did not wish to have the difference pointed out by Mr Melmotte's supporters. Moreover, ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... of the emperor's mouth-piece. And now was heard a rustling of ladies' silks, and of cavaliers' velvets, and the grateful spectators took their seats, while the emperor, with a look of extreme satisfaction, opened the score of the Porno d'Oro, laid it on the ledge of the box, and began to hum the overture. ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... Vane. "Can't they even leave a hospital alone?" The next minute any lingering hope was destroyed. Both men heard it—the well-known whistling whooce of the bomb—the vicious crack as it burst; both men felt the ground trembling through their beds. That was the overture . . . the play was about to commence. ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... thoughts, rather than the old "Scorn!—to be scorned by one that I scorn." And when the glorious tones of the anthem ceased, and the calm steady voice of the chaplain was heard alone, uttering in the sudden hush the grand overture ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... not be necessary for him to tell me his debts, because he thinks I know them so well. He tells me, that for the match propounded of Mrs. Mallett for my Lord Hinchingbroke, it hath been lately off, and now her friends bring it on again, and an overture hath been made to him by a servant of hers, to compass the thing without consent of friends, she herself having a respect to my Lord's family, but my Lord will not listen to it but in a way of honour. The Duke hath for this weeke or two been very kind to him, more ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... but still this friendly overture might be merely a feint to open the way for a home thrust. Sam was silent. So Yan said, presently, "We ain't allowed to use anything but what the Indians had or ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... gifted performer, but never until that day did I accompany myself with words. Boy like, I had chosen for my "piece" a poem sweetly expressive of those peaceful virtues which I most heartily despised. So that my performance, at the inauguration of the strike, as Mr. Hinman conducted the overture, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... inquiries of matrimony, which would seem to indicate that I have no plan on the subject. Such is the fact. You are or were my projector in this line. If perchance I should have one, it will be executed before you will hear of the design. Yet I ought not to conceal that I have had a most amiable overture from a lady "who is always employed in something useful." She was, you know, a few months past, engaged to another; that other is suspended, if not quite dismissed. If I should meet her, and she should challenge me, I should probably strike at once. She is not of that cast, yet a preference ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... rapid, the 4-4 measure will probably be given only two beats, but in an adagio movement, as, e.g., the first part of the Messiah overture, it may be necessary to beat eight for each measure in order to insure rhythmic continuity. There are many examples of triple measure in which the movement is so rapid as to make it impracticable to beat three in a ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... How beautiful she looked! Her hair had fallen down, the officers threw her flowers. She clutched them to her heart. She put back her hair, and smiled all round. Her eyes met Pen's. Down went the curtain again: and she was gone. Not one note could he hear of the overture which the brass band of the dragoons blew by kind permission ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... not to be had for the asking. Humours must first be accorded in a kind of overture or prologue; hour, company and circumstance be suited; and then, at a fit juncture, the subject, the quarry of two heated minds, spring up like a deer out of the wood. Not that the talker has any of the hunter's pride, though ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... reached the remote Opera House, fought their way past the misanthropic door-keeper, and gained their seats, are first reduced to a state of mental chaos by the performance of a maddening overture, and are then fitted to appreciate the play, which ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... this piece, though it enchanted the musical part of the audience, disgusted the promenaders, and was received but coldly. This, however, was made up for when the drumming, smashing, and brass-blurting of the overture to "Zampa" was noised forth: this was encored with ecstacies, and so were some of the quadrilles. Happy musical taste! Beethoven's septour, arranged as a set of quadrilles, is a desecration unworthy of Musard. For ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the deep-toned organ, and a full choir of voices, which gradually decayed upon the ear, until it died away in distant sound, as if a flight of angels had raised the song in their ascent to heaven. Yet the chords hardly ceased to vibrate after the expiration of this overture, which ushered in a composition in the same pathetic style; and this again was succeeded by a third, almost without pause or intermission, as if the artist's hand had been indefatigable, and the theme never to ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... much thought of the coming spectacle, till the conductor's rap was heard upon his desk, and the orchestra broke into the overture to Mozart's Nozze. Before they were half through, it was clear that we should not enjoy that evening the delight of perfect music added to the enchantment of so brilliant a scene. The execution of the overture was not exactly bad. But it lacked absolute precision, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... amazement. Demetri Agryopoulo, salaried hanger-on to the Persian embassy, was glaring like a roused wild beast at these two shadowy figures in the shadow of the orchestra. The band was crashing away at the overture to 'Tannhaeuser,' the people were laughing and chattering as they circled, and not an eye but Barndale's regarded this drama in the corner. The Greek's hand was in his bosom, where it clutched something with an ugly gesture. His face was in the sideway glare ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... ballot-box, and fight their way to the polls through negroes and others who are not the best of company even at the polls, to say nothing of the disgrace of association with them. You would paralyze one-third at least of the women of this land by the very vulgarity of the overture made to them that they should go struggling to the polls in order to vote in common with the herd of men. They would not undertake it. The most intelligent and trustworthy part of the suffrage thus placed upon the land would never be available, while that which was ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... it, and not restricted to what adults think good for them. Just at present our young people are going mad over ragtimes, apparently because syncopated rhythms are new to them. If they had learnt what can be done with syncopation from Beethoven's third Leonora overture, they would enjoy the ragtimes all the more; but they would put them in their proper place as ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... wars of the Indian tribes is scarcely more than a truce. Nevertheless, it is concluded with considerable form and ceremony. The first advance toward a cessation of hostilities is usually made through the chief of a neutral power. The nation proposing the first overture dispatches some men of note as embassadors, accompanied by an orator, to contract the negotiation. They bear with them the calumet[279] of peace as the symbol of their purpose, and a certain number of wampum ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... not buried in matter. This is the spirit- [1] ual dawn of the Messiah, and the overture of the angels. This is when God is made manifest in the flesh, and thus it destroys all sense of sin, sickness, and death,—when the brightness of His ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... by certain signs and sounds gave me to understand that, if it pleased me, he would dress first and then leave me to dress afterwards, leaving the whole apartment to myself. Thinks I, Queequeg, under the circumstances, this is a very civilized overture; but, the truth is, these savages have an innate sense of delicacy, say what you will; it is marvellous how essentially polite they are. I pay this particular compliment to Queequeg, because he treated me with so much civility and consideration, while I was guilty of great rudeness; ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... Piedmont, if Philip, on his side, would repeat the desertion of Crepy, and having brought England into the war, would leave her to endure her own losses, or avenge them by her single strength. With this secret meaning on the part of France, an overture for a peace was commenced in the autumn of 1558, through the mediation of the Duchess of Lorraine. An armistice was agreed upon, and the first conference was held at the abbey of Cercamp, where Arundel, Wotton, and Thirlby attended as ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... him. He did not know them, but he was accustomed to being known. His life had never been a cautious one. He was too modern to be very reticent, and he liked to be wicked in the eye of the crowd. Secret wickedness held little charm for him. He preferred to preface his failings with an overture on the orchestra, to draw up the curtain, and to act his drama of life to a crowded audience of smart people in the stalls. When they hissed him, he only pitied them, and wondered at their ignorance. ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... be delayed, and voicing their disapproval by lusty clapping, stamping, whistling and cat-calls, they are equally ready with noisy approval if the dramatic fare tickle their palate.[49] The tibicen, as he steps forth to render the overture, is greeted uproariously as an old favorite. The manager perhaps appears and announces the names of those taking part, each one of whom is doubtless applauded or hissed in proportion to his measure of popularity. Differences of opinion as to the ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... argument are excluded from the terms of Church Fellowship, on the very face of "Reformation Principles Exhibited;" and the Auchensaugh Covenant expunged from the formula of terms of communion, without submitting them in overture to the people for inspection. We say these steps of defection and apostasy are chargeable to the account of those who made the breach in 1833: First, Because the senior and leading ministers in that ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery
... was extracted, as quite out of place, and sublimity was made to give way to a more temperate and stoical standard. In due time the Rationalists effected their purpose. Secular music was introduced into the sanctuary; an operatic overture generally welcomed the people into church, and a march or a waltz dismissed them. Sacred music was no longer cultivated as an element of devotion. The oratorios and cantata of the theatre and beer-garden were the Sabbath accompaniments of the sermon. The masses consequently began to sing less; ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... the guests assembled; the great dramatic experiment stood on its trial. Magdalen had made the most of her opportunities; she had learned all that the manager could teach her in the time. Miss Garth left her when the overture began, sitting apart in a corner behind the scenes, serious and silent, with her smelling-bottle in one hand, and her book in the other, resolutely training herself for the coming ordeal, ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... scenery, although only a prelude, only an overture to the transcendent oratorios of landscape which were to follow, was in itself a horribly sublime creation. Not twenty minutes after the snapping of the towline the boat had entered one of those stupendous canons which form the distinguishing characteristic ...
— Overland • John William De Forest |
