"Adagio" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they fell into a group or tableau, their silken scarfs, of transparent texture and bright and varied colours, floating in the air like rainbows, behind which glanced the houri-like forms of the women. Presently the music glided from the adagio into the allegro; the steps of the dancers became quicker, their gestures more animated, the play of their limbs more voluptuous. With the exception of one couple, every glance and movement of the performers seemed directed or aimed at the Caliph. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... general structure of the work. The founding of Christianity, as illustrated in four principal scenes of the life of St. Peter, supplies the material for the dramatic development of the subject. The overture, beginning with an adagio movement in B-flat minor, gives expression to the vague yearnings of that time of doubt and hesitancy when the "oracles were dumb," and the dawning of a new era of stronger and diviner faith was matter of presentiment rather ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... opens with an adagio introduction for instruments which is of a very dramatic character, and, unlike nearly all of the sacred music of that time, is noticeable for the absence of the fugue. Barbedette, the great French critic, pronounces it ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton |
