"Violoncello" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were," says Byron, in his Diary ('Life', p. 31), "rival swimmers, fond of riding, reading, and of conviviality. Our evenings we passed in music (he was musical, and played on more than one instrument—flute and violoncello), in which I was audience; and I think that our chief beverage was soda-water. In the day we rode, bathed, and lounged, reading occasionally. I remember our buying, with vast alacrity, Moore's new quarto (in 1806), and reading it together in the ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... Alsace. Opposite their door, on the other side of the well staircase, dwelt one Monsieur Cliquot, an elderly employe in some public office; next to him, Signor Milanesi, an Italian refugee who played in the orchestra at the Varietes every night, was given to practising the violoncello by day, and wore as much hair about his face as a Skye-terrier. Lastly, in the apartment to my right, resided a lady, upon whose door was nailed a small visiting-card engraved ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... was a fine performer on the violin and harpsichord. At the representation of Arsinoe and the other earliest operas, he played the harpsichord and Haym the violoncello. Dieupart, after the small success of the design set forth in this letter, taught the harpsichord in families of distinction, but wanted self-respect enough to save him from declining into a player at obscure ale-houses, where he executed for the pleasure of dull ears solos of Corelli ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... orchestra, as the only instrument for the deepest adorations in man; . . . when our young women shall ask themselves for any serious reason why they should all, with one accord, devote themselves to the piano instead of to the flute, the violin, the hautboy, the harp, the viola, the violoncello, the horn instruments which pertain to women fully as much as to men, and some of which actually belong by nature to those supple, tactile, delicate, firm, passionate, and tender fingers with which ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... rapt in the story. His voice had the deep tone of the violoncello, powerful, vibrant, and colorful. He had lived in that strange past, and the things he recalled were ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... of stoves, a violoncello, Wesley's hymns, and a choir split the church in twain. These old Scotch Presbyterians were opposed to all innovations that would afford their people paths of flowery ease on the road to Heaven. So, when the thermometer was twenty degrees below zero on the Johnstown Hills, ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... evenings. They were most kind, gentle, and genial. The eldest brother was in Sir William Forbes's bank. George was agent for Mr. Patrick Maxwell Stuart in connection with his West India estates, and the third brother was his assistant. The elder brother was an admirable performer on the violoncello, and he treated us during these Saturday evenings with noble music from Beethoven and Mozart. My special friend George was known amongst us as "the worthy master." He was thoroughly versed in general science, and was moreover a ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... ourself to say whether he was or was not as drunk as that. We are rather inclined to think that fiddlers, as a class, are maligned, and that they are no worse than their neighbours in this respect, perhaps not so bad. Certainly, if any fiddler really deserves the imputation, it must be a violoncello player, because he is, properly ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... the first time; a measure of the melody trembled through the upper strings, and then his own voice took up the words in tones breathed out so easily that the highest never seemed to be high, nor to cost him more effort than ordinary speech. Of all instruments the violoncello can yield notes most like such a voice, when the bow is in ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... greatest friend and was notable for three things, his enormous size, his surpassing skill on the violoncello and his devoted attachment to the veriest shrew of a little sharp-boned wife that ever crossed from Germany into England. For all these things Peter loved him, but Herr Lutz was never very actively conscious of Peter because from ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... unhappy when his daughter left the room, and he had recourse to an old trick of his that was customary to him in his times of sadness. He began playing some slow tune upon an imaginary violoncello, drawing one hand slowly backwards and forwards as though he held a bow in it, and modulating the ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... of enterprise and character! Ever since the first water-power mill in this country; the first powder mill in this country; the first chocolate mill in this country, and thus through a whole line of "first" things—the first violoncello, the first pianoforte, the first artificial spring leg, and the first railroad to see the light of day saw it in this grand old town—the name of Milton has been synonymous with initiative and men and ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... in which Elisabeth is represented by the wood-wind—by the clarinets and bassoons in the hour of her deep affliction and abasement, and by the flutes and hautboys when her soul has finally cast off all the trammels of earth—and Wolfram by the violoncello. The feelings of the two are so exquisitely portrayed by the orchestra, that the scene would be easily comprehensible if it were carried on—as indeed much of it is—without any words ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... to Campagnola. Said to be Titian and Giorgione, playing violin and violoncello. The former attribution to ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... people hereabouts are truly respectful," whispered Christina to me, "they know their betters."), and take their seats in a long row against the wall. The choir clamber up into the gallery with their instruments—a violoncello, a clarinet and a trombone. I see them and soon I hear them, for there is a hymn before the service, a wild strain, a remnant, if I mistake not, of some pre-Reformation litany. I have heard what I believe was its remote musical progenitor ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... the rifle, when the poor captain only scored 18; give him twenty in fifty at billiards and beat him; and draw tears from the professional Italian people by her exquisite performance (of voice and violoncello) in the evening;—I say, if a novelist would be popular with ladies—the great novel-readers of the world—this is the sort of heroine who would carry him through half a dozen editions. Suppose I had asked that Bearded Lady to sing? Confess, now, miss, you would not have been ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... into a most interesting and animated discussion upon the subject of Glueck's music; and suddenly, some piece from the "Iphigenia" being mentioned, she shouted for her man-servant, to whom on his appearance she gave orders to bring her a chair and footstool, and "the big fiddle" (the violoncello) out of the hall; and taking it forthwith between her knees, proceeded to play, with excellent taste and expression, some of Glueck's noble music upon the sonorous instrument, with which St. Cecilia is the only female I ever saw on terms of ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... rim of the overcoat was a white woollen scarf, and the sleeves of the overcoat were finished off with white woollen gloves. Under one arm he carried a vast inanimate form whose extremity just escaped the ground. This form was his violoncello, fragile as a pretty woman, ungainly as a navvy, and precious as honour. Mrs Swann looked down the street, which ended to the east in darkness and a marl pit, and up the street, which ended to the west in Trafalgar Road and electric cars; ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... musicians are tuning up. The beautiful duchess is soon recognized, and as soon in deep gossip with her friends. But who is that gentlemanly man leaning over the chamber-organ? That is Sir Roger L'Estrange, an admirable performer on the violoncello, and a great lover of music. He is watching the subtile fingering of Mr. Handel, as his dimpled hands drift leisurely and marvelously over the keys of ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... Lucy Bertram, who sung her native melodies very sweetly, was accompanied by her friend upon the instrument, and Julia afterwards performed some of Scarlatti's sonatas with great brilliancy. The old lawyer, scraping a little upon the violoncello, and being a member of the gentlemen's concert in Edinburgh, was so greatly delighted with this mode of spending the evening that I doubt if he once thought of the wild ducks until Barnes informed the company that ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... hard when in meditation; but all that vanished when he spoke and smiled. In the pocket of his cassock there was always a deck of cards, but that was only for the game of solitaire. You have your pipe or cigar, your flute or violoncello; he had his little table under the orange-tree and his ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... by Bach's appointment as Kapellmeister to the duke of Coethen, a post which he held from 1717 to 1723. The Coethen period is that of Bach's central instrumental works, such as the first book of the Wohltemperirtes Klavier, the solo violin and violoncello sonatas, the Brandenburg concertos, and the French ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... of exclamations, one knows how readily these may be imitated upon the violin, or in the case of the deeper or more guttural sounds, on the violoncello. The natural effect is greatly aided by the sliding of the finger along the note, especially in the case of the lowing of cattle; but there are other exclamations that are readily reduced to music. Gardiner gives one or two interesting cases, and the common ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... carried out on to the lawn for the occasion, and Miss Lowe, the music mistress, took her seat at it. She was supported by a small school orchestra of three violins and violoncello, and together they struck up some Eastern music. When it was well started there was a flashing of white among the bushes on the farther side of the lawn, and out came tripping a bevy of charming wood nymphs. ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... howl of a wolf, deprived of her young, to the precipitate rhythm of a gay tarantella, forgetful of every earthly sorrow; from the articulate song of a human voice, to the vague majestic accords of a violoncello, from merry child's laughter to angry sobbing. And all this was repeated in every direction by mocking echo, as if hundreds of fabulous forest maidens, disturbed in their green abodes, answered the appeal of the wild ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... circumscribed at the instant, by the arrival of a party of five or six musicians; one of whom, a German, under the patronage of the Duke of Buckingham, was particularly renowned for his performance on the violoncello, but had been detained in inactivity in the antechamber by the non-arrival of his instrument, which had now ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... it was as though they had become an integrant part of the forest. Her voice was truly a woman's voice in the ineffable tenderness and the grand passion of it, but there lay in its tones a depth of strong uncompromising nobility which lives in an organ's notes or in the rich low chords of a violoncello. Truly, as Monsieur Gabriel had said, her voice belonged by right to the shadowy cathedrals, for each note seemed a sacred thing, a homage to God, and itself deserving to be worshipped in reverent devotion. During the song Wilhelmine had not heard the sound of approaching footsteps, nor ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... of his deep, bass-like, violoncello notes, gathering up all the others and fusing them into a pealing strain, it was electin'. Everybody sang. Old voices, that had not sung for a quarter of a century or more, joined in. It was a furor: Dalgetty swung his tartan cap, Sandy his hat; handkerchiefs ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... sweet and rich, vibrating with the intense pathos of minor chords in a mellow old violoncello, and either from physical weakness, or the weight of woe, it quivered at last into a thrilling cry. Tears were dripping over Leo's cheeks, as she went up to the chancel railing, and leaning across, put out her ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Opus 6. Prelude and Nocturne. Sarabande. Petite Valse. (For left hand alone.) Polonaise. Three pieces for piano. No opus number. Impromptu in G Minor. Gavotte in B Minor. Sarabande and Courante from the Violoncello Sonatas of Bach. Arranged ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... all colors," said Hattie, soliloquizing. "Red morocco Bibles and hymn-books. What a white cloud of a turban! Part of the choir, I take it,—those, with their singing-books. Elegant spruce young fellow, isn't he, Aunt? with the violoncello. Venerable old couple, there! over eighty, both of them. Well," continued Hattie, "I will give up, if these ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... instruments of the schalmei family. A bas relief in the church of St. Gregory at Boscherville in Normandy shows an orchestra of several players. This relief is of the twelfth century. It presents first on the left a king who plays a three-stringed gamba, which he holds between his knees, like a violoncello. A woman performer handles an organistrum, a sort of large hurdy-gurdy, sometimes (as apparently in this case) requiring two players, one for the crank and another for the stops. Then comes a man with a pandean pipe, next ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... letters is occupied with masses to be offered up for the health, &c.; and during his sojourn in the Five-fields, Chelsea, he appears to have been in considerable hope that he had converted a Mr. Sipruntini (a Dutch Jew, and a fine violoncello player), to Catholicism. After dedicating a set of sonatas to the queen, and experiencing great patronage from the nobility, Mozart, with his father and sister, in July, 1765, crossed over into the Netherlands. At the Hague, a fever attacked ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various
... any musical instrument?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir. I once bought me a flagelet; but I never made out a tune.' BOSWELL. 'A flagelet, Sir!—so small an instrument[681]? I should have liked to hear you play on the violoncello. That should have been your instrument.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, I might as well have played on the violoncello as another; but I should have done nothing else. No, Sir; a man would never undertake great things, could he be amused with small. I once tried knotting. Dempster's sister undertook ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... friend," Roncivalli answered. The liquid Italian played against the German guttural like the warble of a flute answering the snarl of a violoncello. "I am doing what I know. Until our friend Rossano came to England I had a place from which he was good enough to depose me. You may say what you like, Herr Sacovitch, but the independence of my country is secure. Italy wins; and I desire Italy to ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... good deal more, my dear cousin," said Leon de Lora. "We'll take Paris as an artist takes his violoncello, and show you how it is played,—in short, how people ...
— Unconscious Comedians • Honore de Balzac
... seems a sort of satire in making one of the most silent of savage monsters a medium for the conveyance of sweet sounds. The Ta'khay is a stringed instrument of considerable power, and in tone is not unlike a violoncello. The three strings pass over eleven frets or wide movable bridges, and the shape of the body is rather like that of a guitar. It is placed on the ground, raised on low feet, and the player squats beside it. The strings are sounded by a plectrum, ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... which he had formerly delighted, he could not endure to hear from others, after the loss of his first son; though a few months before the death of the second, he had begun to accompany him when he sang, on his own favourite instrument, which was the violoncello. Afterwards, as may be supposed, the sound of it was painful to him. He still took some pleasure in books, and in the company of a very few amongst his oldest friends. This was his condition till the beginning of April 1799, when he was seized ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... names of Messrs. Aldridge, Bartleman, Cooper, Greaves, Halewood, Hime, Jackson (a distinguished violoncello player, by the way), Langhorne, Maybrick, Tayleure (a distinguished double bass), and Vaughan. In "Bombastes Furioso," King Artaxomines was personated by Mr. Richmond; Fusbos by Mr. Clay; General Bombastes ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... as above; the commentators say that giovani di tromba marina is a name given to those youths who go trumpeting about everywhere the favours accorded them by women; but the tromba marina is a stringed (not a wind) instrument, a sort of primitive violoncello with ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... eyes, stepped forward and began to call the roll. He rattled off the names in a thin, piping voice, while the men, who had come up and ranged themselves in front of him, responded in accents of varying pitch, from the deep rumble of the violoncello to the shrill note of the piccolo. But there came a ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... disquieted by no jealousy of the many conferences enjoyed by Mr Carker, and felt a secret satisfaction in having duties to discharge, which rarely exposed him to be singled out for such distinction. He was a great musical amateur in his way—after business; and had a paternal affection for his violoncello, which was once in every week transported from Islington, his place of abode, to a certain club-room hard by the Bank, where quartettes of the most tormenting and excruciating nature were executed every Wednesday evening by ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... Heliobas. "But you are to be congratulated on having attained this verdict. Everything that people cannot quite understand is called CLAP-TRAP in England; as for instance the matchless violin-playing of Sarasate; the tempestuous splendor of Rubinstein; the wailing throb of passion in Hollmann's violoncello—this is, according to the London press, CLAP-TRAP; while the coldly correct performances of Joachim and the 'icily-null' renderings of Charles Halle are voted 'magnificent' and 'full of colour.' But to return to yourself. ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... chants—rather declaims—his woes and occasional joys to the music of the Viennese composer, whose score requires a reciter (female), a piano, flute (also piccolo), clarinet (also bass clarinet), violin (also viola), and violoncello. The piece is described as a melodrama. I listened to it on a Sunday morning, and I confess that Sunday at noon is not a time propitious to the mood musical. It was also the first time I had heard a note of Schoenberg's. In vain I had tried to get some of his ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... the cleverest of them being a festal march, written for his father's birthday, and a grand funeral march. He shares his father's intense devotion to Bach and Handel, as well as his fondness for the works of Mendelssohn, Beethoven and Mozart, and is a most accomplished performer on the violoncello, being a pupil of the well-known master of that instrument, Professor Luedemann. Prince Albert's sister, the widowed Duchess William of Mecklenberg-Schwerin, has been particularly active as a composer of songs for mezzo ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... well known to the members of all big families! His eldest brother, Hugh, was bent on making an all-round athlete of him; another brother saw in him an embryo county cricketer, while a third was most particular about his music, giving him lessons on the violoncello with clockwork regularity. The games were terribly thrilling and dangerous, especially when the schoolroom was turned into a miniature battlefield, with opposing armies of tiny lead soldiers. But Donald never turned a hair if Hugh were present, even at the ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... explored the chamber, touching old objects with reverent finger-tips. He came on a leather case like an absurdly overgrown beetle, hidden in a corner, and a violoncello was in it. He had seen such things before, but he had never touched one, and when he lifted it from the case he had a moment of feeling very odd at the pit of his stomach. Sitting in his underthings on the edge of the bed, he held the wine-coloured creature ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various |
