"Soprano" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Weymar I spoke to you of Vesque's new opera "Der lustige Rath." Various local circumstances have delayed the performance at Vienna of this really pretty, nicely worked out opera. The mise-en-scene does not require any special efforts; the piece only requires a somewhat piquant and not unskillful soprano singer. Altogether the opera appears to me to be written in a charming style, not too superficially conservative, and to be one of the best among the new operas mezzo-carattere. In case you still have ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... always satisfied our ideal of Apollo, and the soprano were always as sylph-like as she is described in the libretto, even then I should doubt the average operatic chorus being regarded by the connoisseur as a cheap and pleasant substitute for a bas relief from the Elgin marbles. The great thing required of that operatic chorus is experience. ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... hands and raised their childish faces. Cliantha had a thin, high piping soprano like a small flute, and Pendrilla sang "counter" to it. They were repositories of all the old ballads of the mountains—ballads from Scotland, from Ireland, from England, and from Wales, that set the ferocities and the love-making of Elizabeth's time or earlier most quaintly ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... such a spectacle before. He that will prefer Dilettantism in this world for his outfit, shall have it; but all the gods will depart from him; and manful veracity, earnestness of purpose, devout depth of soul, shall no more be his. He can if he like make himself a soprano, and sing for hire;—and probably that is the ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... an enormous excavation, and behind the summer-house I happened upon a bear asleep and retreated hurriedly. But on going towards the house I heard a well-known voice. "That is Augusta Holmes singing her opera," I said; "she sings all the different parts—soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass." At this time we were all talking about her, and I stood by the window listening until suddenly a well-known smell interrupted her. It was Ninon's cat that had misconducted herself. A window was thrown open, but ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... Reaching the large chamber at the top, we paid our respects to the seven bells, whose intricate changes I had so many times tried to follow. Their ringing is a puzzle. In the middle hung the melancholy campanone, with a silvery soprano by its side—a very ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... the voice at first in the chest register, and then gradually to extend the compass of the voice upward. "Every student can for himself with perfect ease recognize the difference between these two separate registers. It will suffice therefore to commence by singing the scale, for example, if a soprano, from G to d;[10] let him take care that these five notes are sonorous, and say them with force and clearness, and without effort." For uniting the registers, "the most certain means is to hold back the tones of the chest and to sing the transition notes in ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... enchained my attention more than these voices of nature. As the skilled leader of an orchestra hears every single sound from each member of the mob of stringed and wind instruments, and above all the screech of the straining soprano, so my sharpened perceptions made what would have been for common mortals a confused murmur audible to me as compounded of innumerable easily distinguished sounds. Above them all arose one continued, unbroken, agonizing cry. It was the voice of suffering womanhood, a sound ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Ballycoran"; Emily Bronte published her first novel, "Wuthering Heights," while her sister, Charlotte Bronte, at the same time achieved an immense success with her story of "Jane Eyre." These successes were more than rivalled by that of Jenny Lind, the great soprano singer, who made her first appearance in London during this season. Another event for intellectual England was the sale at auction of Shakespeare's house at Stratford. It was acquired by a united committee of Shakespeare lovers for the ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... the earlier in life the castration takes place. A number of secondary sexual characters remain undeveloped. The beard does not grow; in many instances a thick panniculus adiposus is formed; there are changes in the growth of the bones; the voice remains a soprano; and the other reproductive organs are imperfectly developed, the penis and the prostate remaining comparatively small An early castration does not, of course, result in the obliteration of all differences between the male and the female; ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... has been christened as a shadowy ghost, or a royal symbol. The veriest urchin steers her, with a little fat hand on the heavy tiller twelve feet long, and a hunch of good rye-bread in his other fist. Now and then he sings out in a thin soprano, "Fayther, boat's a'ead," and his father, (hidden below), answers deep-toned, from the cabin, "Keep 'er away, lad." From him I asked, "How old is your boy?" and the parent's head popped up to see, but it was the child that smartly answered, "Eight years old." He looked five. Round ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... German town. And so personal force, musical genius, business talent, education, and general brain power went to the making of a man who hobnobbed with dukes and kings, who ruled musical England with an iron rule, who threatened to throw distinguished soprano ladies from windows, and was threatened with never an action for battery in return, who went through the world with a regal gait, and was, in a word, the most astonishing lord of ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... the Gospel which she brought, together with a large supply of chocolate and the Fioretti di S. Francesco), the ugliness of the women, &c. &c. And meanwhile the fat pink profile perdu, the toupe of grey hair like powder of a colossal soprano sways to and fro fatuously over the ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee
... get themselves written. So many things that are dead to most people had always been alive to him—leaves, flowers, fairies. He had always been a busy maker of verses, which was because melody, rhythm, and harmony had always been delicious to his ear. And he had had, as a little boy, a soprano voice that was as true as truth and almost as agile ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... stairs. In the distance, the soprano dog had reached A in alt., and was holding it, while his fellow artiste executed runs ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... talking to emptiness instead of fulness—to people instead of plush. How can the dear Rev. SPLURGE SPLUTTER have the heart or tongue to drop his pearls of eloquence to the swine of empty pews? And how dreadful for the gifted soprano, Miss SCREECH, to tune her melodious voice to earless aisles! And then it is so easy to "set" examples by sitting in soft pews, doing to church should be a matter of conscience. Every body not a dolt admits conscience to be a good thing, though a thing ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various
... that evening a basso did bleat, it may be that he was not bubonic. Moreover he was followed by a soprano who, whether trullish or not, at any rate was not Berlinese and whose voice had the lusciousness of a Hawaiian pineapple. But the selections, which were derived from old Italian cupboards, displeased Paliser, who called ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... as the singing went on. But he developed, besides an obstreperous voice, an obstreperous interest in one of our Adeles—a piercing soprano who was our mainstay; and he showed some tendency to defeat the occasion by segregating her in a bay window. Segregation was the last of our aims, and Johnny did not quite please. Furthermore, Johnny seemed to feel himself among a ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... Lady Castlerich, who he hoped would invite him to Morelands. Agnes did not quite like him. She liked Mr. St. Clare better. St. Clare had asked her if she sang, and when she told him that she was leading soprano in the convent choir he had talked agreeably ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... society, trained by an official of the Venetian arsenal, seemed like a real lagoon idyll. They generally sang only three-part naturally harmonized folk-songs. It was new to me not to hear the higher voice rise above the compass of the alto, that is to say, without touching the soprano, thereby imparting to the sound of the chorus a manly youthfulness hitherto unknown to me. On fine evenings they glided down the Grand Canal in a large illuminated gondola, stopping before a few palaces as if to serenade (when ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... there was the stir which always marks, in a gathering of people, a high pitch of feeling. Then someone sang, clear, soprano notes that drifted through the room and mingled with the spring gladness. The air was fragrant with the sweetness of the blossoms which decked the big room; through the long windows came the freshness of the June world outside. It was a day, an ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... secret of Lil's attraction for Dicky Graham, anyway?" the soprano voice queried. "She's a good seven years older than he is, and both her past and her youth are rather frayed at the ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... on him as he leaned on the pasture bars, and suddenly his memories sped; and the voice that was singing Schubert's serenade across the way touched him with the urgent, personal appeal that a present beauty always had for him. It was a soprano; and without tremolo, yet came to his ear with a certain tremulous sweetness; it was soft and slender, but the listener knew it could be lifted with fullness and power if the singer would. It spoke only of the song, yet the listener thought ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... three whole days the town was excited and amused by the scandal; then there came other news—a victory in Germany; doubtful accounts from America; a general officer coming home to take his trial; an exquisite new soprano singer from Italy; and the public forgot Lady Maria in her garret, eating the hard-earned meal of the ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... capital foil to Lady Georgina's acidulous soprano. It seemed to disarm her. She turned to me with a benignant wave of her hand. 'Miss Cayley,' she said, introducing me; 'my nephew, Mr. Harold Tillington. You've heard me talk of poor Tom Cayley, Harold? This is ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... English in graceful but unobtrusive compliment to the hostess. Then the Queen sang in German, he playing the accompaniment. And in his letter to his sister Fanny, telling her of all this, in his easy, gossipy, brotherly way, Felix adds that the Queen has a charming soprano voice, that only needs a little cultivation and practise to make her fit to take ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... conservative gentlemen alone in the churches? How sombre they would look with the flowers, feathers, bright ribbons and shawls all gone—black coats only kneeling and standing—and with the deep-toned organ swelling up, the solemn bass voice heard only in awful solitude; not one soprano note to rise above the low, dull wail to fill the arched roof with triumphant melody! One such experiment from Maine to California would bring these bigoted presbyteries to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... did not stop, although it was Christmas Eve, and the only carol I heard in the trenches was the loud, deep chant of the guns on both sides, and the shrill soprano of whistling shells, and the rattle on the keyboards of machine-guns. The enemy was putting more shells into a bit of trench in revenge for a raid. To the left some shrapnel shells were bursting, and behind the lines our "heavies" were busily at ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... soprano, a contralto, a bass, and a baritone, each with the full effect of its quality and the personal equation besides, I was quite ready to admit that selecting phonographed books for one's library was as much more ...
— With The Eyes Shut - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... thus far, has called for one. An obbligato? Never so much honored. No, indeed. Why, to me it would seem almost like singing with an orchestra. Imagine a 'cello. Imagine a flute—still I'm not a soprano going mad. Or imagine a saxophone; ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... each an independent, interesting episode from the life of Margaret Donne, the fascinating English girl who later became the most famous lyric soprano of ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... Niagara-like, and your resting place a veritable Lake Erie. Your fragrance of a thousand flowers may be the pungent aroma of the skunk, borne by the evening breeze; and your evening serenade perhaps will be made by an immense number of "no see ems" whose shrill and infinitely fine soprano is paid for in so many installments of blood, to say nothing of the furious itching and nights of "watchful waiting." Even to enjoy Nature in her finer moods you must always pay a price, and people gain "beauty, as well as bread, by the ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... of what was supposed to be a very beautiful contralto voice. Her voice was certainly contralto, for she could not reach higher than D in the treble; its only defect was that it did not go correspondingly low in the bass: in those days, however, a contralto voice was understood to include even a soprano if the soprano could not reach soprano notes, and it was not necessary that it should have the quality which we now assign to contralto. What her voice wanted in range and power was made up in the feeling with which she sang. She had transposed ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... hat jauntily set upon one side of his head, and primrose gloves. He cast a momentary glance of a very undervaluing import upon the crowd around him, and then, turning to the Consul, said in a very soprano tone— ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... honour of seeing at Pianura; and, in reply to the boy's surprised glance, added, with a swelling of the chest and an absurd gesture of self-introduction, "But perhaps the cavaliere is not too young to have heard of the illustrious Cantapresto, late primo soprano of the ducal theatre ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... he is awake. There are here half a dozen disturbers of the peace who should be put in solitary confinement. At midnight, when a philosopher crawls out to sit on a log by the fire, and smoke a pipe, a duet in tenor and mezzo-soprano is going on in the shanty, with a chorus always coming in at the wrong time. Those who are not asleep want to know why the smoker doesn't go to bed. He is requested to get some water, to throw on another log, to see what time it is, to note ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Teutonic as his helmet), demanding vengeance and threatening annihilation. He brandished his pole in the face of Ortrud, stamping and roaring, then, bending his knees, waddled across the room and prodded Elsa, who winced perceptibly but continued to mingle her light soprano with the rolling bass of Mr. Church and the vociferations of the poet. Finally, at the staccato command of Mr. Todd's hoarsening voice, she toppled over into his arms and they both fell on Ortrud. The nonsense ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... sublime. Nowhere do the Alps exhibit their full stature, their commanding puissance, with such majesty as in the gates of Italy; and of all those gates I think there is none to compare with Maloja, none certainly to rival it in abruptness of initiation into the Italian secret. Below Vico Soprano we pass already into the violets and blues of Titian's landscape. Then come the purple boulders among chestnut trees; then the double dolomite-like peak of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... and moved slowly towards the house. The drawing-room was lighted, and the guests were now gathering there to listen to a lady at the piano singing. They could hear her plainly enough, for her voice, said to be soprano, was exceedingly shrill, and she was singing, Tell me, my heart—a difficult thing, all flourishes, and she rendered it like an automaton lark with its internal ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... sectarian prejudices, they recognized beauty and genius wherever found, and did not care what church or creed they had served, so that they found the gift of beauty from the infinite Father to man in them. With one glorious soprano voice and boundless talent, how much of joy was added to the circle! How we revelled in the choice creations of the masters of harmony, and how, slowly but surely, the missing link that was wanting in my mind to realize that music could cover the void that separated ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... of those not learned in Sixteenth-Century Music, it may be interesting to hint that the melody is written here for the Second Soprano, and to add, for their encouragement, that the experiment of performing this Madrigal, unaccompanied, with two ladies, and two male voices in the Alto parts, proved perfectly successful, thanks to the science of Mr Fuller-Maitland ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... Then, as if by a preconcerted signal, the throats are all atune. I lie on my back with eyes half closed, and analyze the chorus of Warblers, Thrushes, Finches, and Flycatchers; while, soaring above all, a little withdrawn and alone, rises the divine soprano of the Hermit. That richly modulated warble proceeding from the top of yonder birch, and which unpractised ears would mistake for the voice of the Scarlet Tanager, comes from that rare visitant, the Rose-breasted Grosbeak. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... perfunctorily ground out the overture to "Der Freischuetz," the baritone had stentorianly emitted "Dio Possente," the soprano was working her way through the closing measures of the mad scene from "Lucia," and Diotti was number four on the program. The conductor stood beside his platform, ready to ascend ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... him.—No. She hadn't done that. He had not asked her to do that. Had not, on the contrary, her marriage really furthered it? Was she not more of a person to-day than the discouraged young woman he had found singing for pittances the leading dramatic soprano roles in the minor municipal operas of Germany and Austria? Wasn't that what she had said this morning—that falling in love with him was the best thing that could possibly have happened to her? He had taken it wrong when ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... Bible is God's Word, written under inspiration by evangelists and prophets. It has stood the bombardment of ages, but with the result of more and more proof of its being a book divinely written and protected." "Science and Revelation are the bass and soprano of the same tune," he said. He defied the attempts of the loud-mouthed orators to destroy belief in the Bible. "I compare such men as Ingersoll, in their attacks on the Bible, to a grasshopper upon a railway-line with ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... Maid Sings Light form one of the gramophone records made for "His Master's Voice" series by Alma Gluck. This lyric soprano has sung the two MacDowell songs with sympathy and perfect phrasing. The accompaniments were played by a Mr. Bourdon, who unfortunately disregarded the composer's tone and ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... restfulness of the haven. However that may have been, such intrusion was never resented; my Swedish prima donna, or my qualifications as a basso profondo, or a brass-bandsman, were always treated with the greatest indulgence by the ladies, and my high soprano flourished and positively reached unknown altitudes under the beneficent sunshine of their applause. (For all that ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... broke. We lighted a fire, but the blaze could not be seen far in such inky darkness. We hallooed, but received no answer, and finally ceased our efforts. Then one of the young ladies who possessed a very high and clear soprano voice, began singing at the very top of her power. It reached the wanderer in the darkness, and he rowed straight toward it. From that time on he became infatuated with the singer, declaring that her voice had come to him in his despair like an ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... begin it, Raise their high-pitched voices in it, And the shrill soprano piping sets the pace; Then the others join the singing Till the echoes soon are ringing With the big green-coated leader's double-bass. All the lilies are a-quiver, And the grasses by the river Feel the mighty chorus shaking every blade, While the dewy rushes glisten As they bend ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... high-tenor invitation of the barkers outside questionable shows; the bawl of street-gamblers, who had all manner of devices, from ring-pitching to shell-games on folding tables, which they could pick up in a twinkling and run away with when their dupes began to threaten and rough them up; the clear soprano of the singer, who wore long skirts and sang chaste songs, in the vaudeville ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... broad democracy of sawmill towns, she had not, in the days gone by, been excluded from the social life of the town, such as it was, and she had had her beaus, such as they were. Sometimes she wondered how the choir in the Presbyterian church had progressed since she, once the mezzo-soprano soloist, had resigned to sing lullabys to a nameless child, if Andrew Daney still walked on the tips of his shoes when he passed the collection-plate, and if the mortgage on the church had ever ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... well to be reasonably watchful when a Mexican lion sings soprano along the arroyos at sundown. The burden of his song may be that young calves and fat lambs are scarce, and that he has a carnivorous desire ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... were missed. Johnny Byrd had an infectious way of making a party go and Maria Angelina's sweet soprano had become so much a part of every gathering that its absence now made ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... unison; and, as the natural soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass moved along in octaves, the different qualities of tone in the voices brought out the overtones and produced harmonic effects. When listening to chorals sung by two or three hundred voices, as I have many ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... accent abound in Handel's works, both his English oratorios and his Italian operas. Many examples could be quoted. Here is a phrase from the beautiful air for mezzo-soprano sung by Ruggiero ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... slowly hymned To the great heart of Silence, till it beat Response with all its echoes: for from out That far, immortal orient, wherein His soul abides 'mid morning skies and dews, A wood-thrush, angel of the tree-top heaven, Poured clear his pure soprano through the place, Deepening the stillness with diviner calm, That gave to Silence all her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... clear soprano voice had attained new power since Sir Oswald had heard it in the moonlit market-place; the execution of the singer improved day by day. The Italian singing-master spoke in raptures of his pupil—never was there a finer organ or more ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... for tea, an hour later, she was aware, from a considerable distance, of people and tumult in the drawing-room. Daphne's soprano voice—agreeable, but making its mark always, like its owner—could be heard running on. The young mistress of the house seemed to be admonishing, instructing, someone. ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... distinguish some miserable rebec, from the infancy of the art, still imprisoned in the re-la-mi. But it was around the Pope of the Fools that all the musical riches of the epoch were displayed in a magnificent discord. It was nothing but soprano rebecs, counter-tenor rebecs, and tenor rebecs, not to reckon the flutes and brass instruments. Alas! our readers will remember that this ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... beloved gramophone for the general benefit, and a fearful hash of music drifted out into the waving palms. Presently some one announces that the cargo is all aboard, whereupon the supercargo puts down his paper and remarks that they are in a hurry. A famous soprano's wonderful high C is ruthlessly broken off short, and we all run to the beach and jump on the backs of boys, who carry us dry-shod to the boat. We are rowed to the steamer, and presently descend to the storeroom, which ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... frequently. So they taped him, and Al here—" the name plainly referred to the machine—"used to play it back switched up so he sounded like a squeaky girl. That poor guy, he liked to busted a blood-vessel when he heard himself speakin' soprano. He raised hell and they sent Al here to be rehabilitated. But I switched another machine for him and sent it back, instead. Of course, Al don't know ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... it appeared, only to fill an unexpected place, or make a decorous entry afterward, to play accompaniments. Fortunately Kitty Meryon sang, in a pinched little soprano, not nearly so pretty as ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... cool drawing-room of London a few people were scattered about, listening to a soprano voice that was singing to the accompaniment of a piano. The sound of the voice came from an inner room, towards which most of these people were looking earnestly. Only one or two seemed indifferent to the fascination ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... away and let him write in peace, so you and I will have to follow the trails together, yes?" She smiled down into Doris' piquant, freckled little face, and just at this moment there came from the living-room, where Helen was dusting, Dinorah's Shadow Song, sung in a clear, girlish soprano. ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... head and smiled provocatively. Martin fled to the cloak-rack near the door. Hurriedly he donned top-coat and hat. Until he finally closed the front door behind him, a tinny wail poured out of the little parlor and assailed his ears, a reedy soprano declaiming passionately that she had raised no son of hers ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... sang the soprano looked very interesting with her wet eyelashes, the tears stopped halfway in their course down her rounded cheek. The closing hymn promised endless peace and rest, but was voiced in the same tragic and hopeless music with ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... most primitive harmony was a perfect fifth resulting from the attempt of men with different ranges to sing together. The difference between a bass and a tenor voice is just about a fifth. Between an alto and a soprano it is about a fourth. The difference in these voices made it impossible to sing melodies of wide range in unison, and so the basses and tenors sang in consecutive fifths. When women took up the chanting, they sang either in fifths or ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... she was young and adorable. It was a low-pitched voice for so little a woman, low and thrilling; a mezzo-soprano. His spirit went to ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... choir. Sam Merritt has come up from Palmer to spend Thanksgivin' with the ol' folks, an' he is singin' tenor to-day in his ol' place in the choir. Some folks say he sings wonderful well, but I don't like Sam's voice. Laura sings soprano in the choir, and Sam stands next to her ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... their lives lean upon somebody, and at present she had twined herself, an ornamental piece of honeysuckle, round the stout oak prop of Raymonde's stronger personality. She was a dear, amiable, sweet-tempered little soul, highly romantic and sentimental, with a pretty soprano voice, and just a sufficient talent for acting to make her absolutely invaluable in scenes from Dickens or Jane Austen, where a heroine of the innocent, pleading, pathetic, babyish, Early ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... playing bull, shuffle-board, or deck quoits with her brother, promenading the poop with her mother, and occasionally condescending to exchange a few remarks with the parson or the doctor. But she was a musician of rare ability, and possessed a soprano singing voice of exquisite richness and purity, as I had frequent opportunity of judging by hearing her playing and singing in the drawing-room below while I was on duty ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... all came right in due time. For after supper, which was early, Barty played the fool with Mr. Gibson, and taught him how to do a mechanical wax figure, of which he himself was the showman; and the laughter, both baritone and soprano, might have been heard in Russell Square. Then they sang an extempore Italian duet together which was ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... and ceiling were honey-combed with sensitive musical cells, answering to the deeper vibrations. These floating aerial sounds also answered to the higher notes of some of the female singers, resembling soprano voices, brightened and spiritualized in a wonderful degree; and then the wide room would be filled with a mist, as it were, of this floating, formless melody, which seemed to come from invisible harpers hovering in the ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... contributed by the studious school-boy, whistling over his Latin Grammar; that wild, long note is poor Mrs. Fondle's farewell of her dead boy; the ugly barytone, rising from the tap-room, is what Wandering Willie calls a sculduddery song—shut your ears, and pass on; and that clear soprano, in nursery, rings out a shower of innocent idiotisms over the half-stripped baby, and suspends the ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... by the thought "I mustn't be seen!" Miss Van Tuyn stepped into Arabian's flat. She expected to hear the front door of it close immediately behind her. But instead she heard Mrs. Birchington's high soprano voice saying: ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... brunette soprano who wore her eyes disguised behind heavy tortoiseshell. The ill-cut garb she could afford added greatly to her staid appearance, obscuring a certain full-bodied litheness. She earned a throttled existence soloing at funerals and in the worship halls of obscure, ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... scanty recollections of Mozart or Beethoven—all "tuney" bits, remembered out of the sonatas or symphonies Miss McCroke had taught her; or, if asked to sing, the girl sang a ballad or two, to order, in her full round mezzo-soprano, which had a thrilling expression at times, when feeling got the better of her proud reserve, and all the pent-up sorrow of her heart broke loose into her song. But Captain Winstanley took no notice of these efforts, and even her mother's ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... I presume, about the age of 131/2 years. I place it at this period from the following circumstances, which are fixed very strongly in my memory: I had, as a child, a soprano voice that was praised considerably by older friends, and about which I was inordinately conceited, I enjoyed greatly taking part in operettas, cantatas, etc. The dramatic instinct, if so it may be called, has always been marked with me, and amateur dramatics are ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... young gentleman named Valentine Veery, who was a distant cousin of Jolly Robin's, was the singing leader. He had been chosen on account of his being able to sing both alto and soprano at the same time. And as soon as everybody had found a comfortable seat for ...
— The Tale of Jasper Jay - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... personality from the faith. "On this point, Mrs. Eddy feels very strongly," said a gentleman to me on Christmas eve, as I sat in the beautiful drawing-room, where Judge and Mrs. Hanna, Miss Elsie Lincoln, the soprano for the choir of the new church, and one or two other ...
— Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy
... and low notes, soft notes and shrill notes, all travel at the same rate. If bass notes traveled faster or slower than soprano notes, or if the delicate tones of the violin traveled faster or slower than the tones of a drum, music would be practically impossible, because at a distance from the source of sound the various tones which should ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... the time for the anthem by the choir, and then the people settled themselves comfortably in their pews with expectant faces and ears slightly turned to catch every strain from the well-trained voices in the gallery behind. This time the selection was from Mendelssohn and a soprano voice ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... the first response, thus encroaching on the province of the choir-boys, who have now united, and form a fine and powerful chorus, less picturesque perhaps than the Druidical chorus in the first act of Norma, but quite as religious in its effect. After which comes a hymn, executed by a soprano, who is really a deserving little girl, and whom I little expected to find doing the leading business in a first-class church, when I first saw her in the chorus at the Stadt Theatre, seven years ago. MARGARET, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... hour of your release from these explanations is at hand. The rest of what you are going to see is opera, and nothing but opera. Before many bars have been played, Siegfried and the wakened Brynhild, newly become tenor and soprano, will sing a concerted cadenza; plunge on from that to a magnificent love duet; and end with a precipitous allegro a capella, driven headlong to its end by the impetuous semiquaver triplets of the famous finales to the ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... soprano, alto and tenor, or alto, tenor and bass; and do not separate upper parts more than an octave. For a chord or two they may (for the sake of better voice-leading) separate ...
— A Treatise on Simple Counterpoint in Forty Lessons • Friedrich J. Lehmann
... had been correct. Iris Wayne could sing well. Her voice, a clear mezzo-soprano, had been excellently trained, and in its purity and flexibility gave promise of something exceptional when it should have attained its full maturity. She accompanied herself perfectly, in nowise hampered by the ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... Water Templars, and later becoming a member of the Sons of Temperance and Good Templars. She is active in all Christian work, being a member of the First Congregational Church of Lockport, in whose church work she takes prominent part, and whose solo soprano she has been for thirteen years; she is also an active member of the Christian Endeavor society and ...
— Two Decades - A History of the First Twenty Years' Work of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of the State of New York • Frances W. Graham and Georgeanna M. Gardenier
... Delmont is not always dropping her handkerchief like Lady Gusto, as if she expected a miserable cavalier servente to be constantly upon his knees; or giving those odious expressive looks, which quite destroy my nerves whenever I am under the same roof as that horrible Lady Soprano. There is a little too much talk, to be sure, about Roman churches, and newly-discovered mosaics, and Abbate Maii, but still we cannot expect perfection. There are reports going about that Ernest Clay is either ruined or going to be married. Perhaps ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... it had the rich depth and pathos of contralto, and the vibrant clearness of soprano. Now it threaded a tremulous pathway among the pathetic minor notes, while the fingers seemed to drop a faint ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... instruments. It was impossible to sing the chants, as the string instruments could not hold the tones, so anthems were used instead—mostly Millard's—and they were very beautiful. Not one mistake has ever been made by anyone, but Sergeant Moore has vexed me much. He is our soprano, and has a clear, high-tenor voice and often sings solos in public, but for some unexplainable reason he would not sing a note in church unless I sang with him, so I had to hum along for the man's ear alone. Why he has been so frightened' I do not know, unless ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... take B natural. Later on, when the tone of my voice; had lowered to the barytone, impelled always by my desire to accomplish something, I took lessons in music from the Maestro Terziani, and appeared at a benefit with the famous tenor Boucarde, and Signora Monti, the soprano, and sang in a duet from "Belisaria," the aria from "Maria di Rohan,"and "La Settimana d'Amore," by Niccolai; and I venture to say that I was not third best in that triad. But I recognised that singing and declamation were incompatible ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... cries to those of the other girls, who stood scattered about admiring it, and laughing and chattering with the men whose applause, of course, took the jocose form, there was no doubt but she admired it. "What I can't understand is how Mrs. Westangle got the notion of this. There's the soprano note in it, and some woman must have ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... little out of practice, but all you have to do is to rub off the rust. Your voice is finer than ever—just like velvet." And Madame Strahlberg pretended that she envied the fine mezzo-soprano, speaking disparagingly of her own little thread of a voice, which, however, she managed so skilfully. "What a shame to take up your time teaching, with such a voice as that!" she cried; "you are out of your senses, my dear, you are raving mad. It would be sinful ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... realised and shared an unchanged, longed-for love, that now she lay dying on her bed in her cell? While innumerable thoughts of this kind perplexed his mind, the voice of the woman he worshipped rang out close beside him; he knew its clear resonant soprano. It was her voice, with that faint tremor in it which gave it all the charm that shyness and diffidence gives to a young girl; her voice, distinct from the mass of singing as a prima donna's in the chorus of a finale. ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... should be. [Query, would it be rude to say to a really good Van Dyck, "You go and be hung!" Perhaps the learned Editor of Musical Notes and Queries will reply. Of course much depends on the frame.] As for the new soprano SIBYL—more power to her organ! Her acting was good, but not great, and what ought to be her song par excellence went for nothing, or, at least, it could have been bought very cheap. There is far more dialogue in ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various
... take me for a soprano?" cried the boy, laughing, as he washed off the paint and the gum where the beard had stuck. Presently he got into his frock, which, as I told you, was a real one, provided by Ercole's brother, the Franciscan—quite quietly, of course, for it would seem a dreadful thing to use ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... flung his most Yankee-Doodle-Dandy manner, collapsing inward at his extremely thin waistline, arms akimbo, his step designed to be a mincing one, and his voice as soprano ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... lady with the necklaces? If you read the accounts in the newspapers, as no doubt you did, you will already have guessed her name. Yes, in truth, she was your great soprano, whom they called Madame Chiara, or La Chiara: so modest are you English, at least in all that concerns the arts, that when an incomparable singer is born to you she must go to Italy to borrow a name. She was returning from South Africa, ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... audiences, with their abominable claqueurs, this first German audience seemed serious, thoughtful, appreciative, but unenthusiastic. They use more judgment about applause than the French. They never interrupt a scene or even a musical phrase with misplaced applause because the soprano has executed a flamboyant cadenza or the tenor has reached a higher note than usual. Their appreciation is slow but hearty and always worthily disposed. The French are given to exaggerating an emotion and to applauding an eccentricity. Even their ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... one of these latter, and she glides through a mazurka. That too ends, and as it grows rather warm, her partner leads her away to a cool music-room, whence proceed melodious sounds. It is Trixy at the piano, informing a select audience in shrill soprano, and in the character of the "Queen of the May," that "She had been wild and wayward, but she was not wayward now." Edith's partner finds her a seat and volunteers to go for an ice. As she sits fanning herself, she sees Charley approaching ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... he gave a remarkable proof of his detachment. Just as the Princess was preparing to serve one of her juiciest undercut strokes, the tones of a soprano practising her scales rang out from a neighbouring flat. "Rather sharp, I think," said Mr. BALFOUR, and the Princess, overcome by the ready wit of the ex-PREMIER, served four faults in quick succession. At the conclusion of the game Mr. BALFOUR wiped his face twice with his handkerchief ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... to 9. The oratorios of "Il Penseroso;" and "Alexander's Feast" were performed at the Theatre in King Street; Handel's "Te Deum" and "Jubilate" with the "Messiah," at St. Philip's Church. The principal singers were Mrs. Pinto, first soprano, and Mr. Charles Norris, tenor; the orchestra numbered about 70, the conductor being Mr. Capel Bond of Coventry, with Mr. Pinto as leader of the band. The tickets of admission were 5s. each, the receipts (with donations) amounting to about L800, ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... said that she took as much trouble and pride in giving choice musical entertainments as other people did in giving choice dinners. In Sowinski's Musiciens polonais we read that she had a beautiful soprano voice and occupied the first place among the amateur ladies of Paris. "A great friend of the illustrious Chopin, she gave formerly splendid concerts at her house with the old company of the Italians, which ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... Sebastian left his brother's roof and entered the Latin school connected with the Church of St. Michael at Lueneburg. It was found he had a beautiful soprano voice, which placed him with the scholars who were chosen to sing in the church service in return for a free education. There were two church schools in Lueneburg, and the rivalry between them was so keen, that when the scholars sang in the streets during the winter months ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... go until Anna Cresswell can be here. She has been going away on Saturday. They need a soprano. And she and I appear to be the only availables." Mary shook back her hair, as she adjusted the last pin in her cuff. "There's the last bell, Elizabeth, and you're not half ready. Well, I'll hurry on, and if you are locked out, I'll get Maggie to bring your dinner up here. She'll do anything ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... rapturously applauded, and the singers forced to give encore after encore. One youth who played the part of a little maid from school, and sang in a sweet soprano voice, caused the greatest enthusiasm of the evening; but then everything seemed ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... of the great teacher Marchesi, who soon put her in the front rank of singers. Her success upon the stage was unquestioned, and her voice was one of the most remarkable in all the history of music, being a pure soprano, with a compass of nearly three octaves,—from G to F,—and so clear and powerful that it rose fresh, penetrating, and triumphant above the music of any band or orchestra which might be playing her accompaniment. Bell-like in quality and ever true, this ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... are greater or fewer. Familiar low pitches are the left-hand strings of a piano; the larger ones of stringed instruments generally; bass voices; and large bells. Familiar high pitches are right-hand piano strings; smaller ones of other stringed instruments; soprano voices; small bells; and the voices of most ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... REUNION OF THE HOLY NAME SOCIETY.—On the evening of Nov. 23, in Union Park Hall, Boston, a vocal and instrumental concert took place under the direction of Mr. Calixta Lavallee, assisted by Miss Helen O'Reilly, soprano, and Mr. Charles E. McLaughlin, violinist. Dancing and refreshments followed. The society was present in full strength, and the ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... retrospective *Se apart, aside seclude, secession *Semi half semiannual, semicivilized *Sub under, less than, subscribe, suffer, subnormal, inferior subcommittee *Super above, extremely superfluous, supercritical, soprano *Trans across, through transfer, transparent *Ultra ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... act as napkin, tablecloth, and subsequently a face towel, the old lady restored the remainder of her effects to the 'valise' and fell to. Noticing Richard was awake she addressed him in a singularly soprano voice. ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... wives—" "Why two?" asked I. "You carry your affected simplicity too far", he cried. "How can there be a completely harmonious union without the combination of the Four in One, viz. the Bass and Tenor of the Man and the Soprano and Contralto of the two Women?" "But supposing," said I, "that a man should prefer one wife or three?" "It is impossible," he said; "it is as inconceivable as that two and one should make five, or that the ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... French or an Italian air, merry or sad, in a voice which may be either tenor, contralto, soprano ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... is No. 211 of the Secular Cantatas, and was published in Leipzig in 1732. In German it is known as Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht (Be silent, do not talk). It is written for soprano, tenor, and bass solos and orchestra. Bach used as his text a poem by Piccander. The cantata is really a sort of one-act operetta—a jocose production representing the efforts of a stern parent to check his daughter's propensities in coffee drinking, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... our dreary Sunday evenings with Handel's holy music. "I know that my Redeemer liveth," and "He shall feed his Flock," which I heard for the first time from that gentle schoolmate of mine, recall her meek, tranquil face and, liquid thread of delicate soprano voice, even through the glorious associations of Jenny Lind's inspired utterance of those divine songs. These ladies were daughters of a high dignitary of the English Church, which made my sermon-writing for their succor rather comical. Besides these Sunday exercises, we were frequently taken to ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... far as one may judge of that kind of perfection—a perfect mistress of her voice; she can do what she likes with it, she can sustain a note in any part of the soprano compass—swell, diminish, and keep it exactly to the same pitch for an incredible space of time. She can burst forth a torrent of sound expressive of our strongest passions, without losing an atom of tone, and she can diminish it to a whisper, in sotto voce, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... affair of the heart. Ah, yes, that amatory lyre of his is an uncommonly adaptable instrument. I've known it thrummed to the praises of a middle-aged Duchess—quite a beauty still, even by daylight, with her three veils on, and an Operatic soprano, with a mascot cockatoo, not to mention a round dozen of frisky matrons of the kind that exploit nice boys. Just before we came out, it could play nothing but that famous song-and-dance tune that London ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... she said in her dear soprano. "And if you want to get on, it doesn't do to be behindhand. Of course, it means hard work, but that is nothing to me—I am used to work and love it. Since I was seventeen—I am twenty-six now—I can fairly say I have never got up in the morning, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... whom the young preacher harangued by the hour together. The harangues were punctuated by occasional bursts of song, not always of a churchly nature, and emphasized by gestures which were more forceful than devout. In this game Mrs. Brenton often joined him, lending her thin soprano voice to help out his quavering childish notes, and doing her conscientious best, the while, to keep the songs attuned to the key of proper piety. To be sure, she did insist upon bringing her sewing into church and, on one ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... vanishing, and, a little way up the valley, the rails of a rustic bridge that led to them. It was a paradise! For the roar of London along Oxford street, there was the sound of the river; for the cries of rough human voices, the soprano of birds, and the soft mellow bass of the cattle in the meadows. The only harsh sound in this new world was the cry of the peacock, but that had somehow got the color of his tail in it, and was not unpleasant. The sky ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... was of excellent quality. Perhaps summer air and moonbeams helped the effect. At any rate, the first performance, a duet between a flute and a violin, was undoubtedly listened to; and that is saying much. The performers were out of sight. Then a fine soprano voice followed, ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... pretty, indeed," said Adrien, taking up the conversation, "and is really a very nice girl, indeed. She sings beautifully. She is the leading soprano in ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... her whole career. As I have said, music was represented in our family by these two sisters. It was chiefly owing to Clara's career that the musical conductor C. M. von Weber often came to our house. His visits were varied by those of the great male-soprano Sassaroli; and in addition to these two representatives of German and Italian music, we also had the company of Mieksch, her singing master. It was on these occasions that I as a child first heard German and Italian music ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... Not a regular Soprano, but a Country-Town Soprano, of the kind often used for augmenting the Grief at a Funeral. Her voice came from a point about two inches above the ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... young bull was facing the deer, his head down, blowing the dust in twin clouds before him, hooking the dirt over his back in regular righting bull fashion, and anon saying, "Bh-ur-ur-ooor!" in an adolescent basso-profundo, most ridiculously broken by streaks of soprano. When these shrill notes occurred the little bull rolled his eyes around, as much as to say "Who did that?" and we, swinging our legs on the shed roof, laughed gleefully and encouraged ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... taste of Bayswater—baritone songs about the Army and the Navy and their rollicking ways, and about old English country life; tenor songs about Grey Eyes and Roses and Waiting and Parting and Coming Back; soprano songs about Calling and Wondering and Last Night's Dance and Remembering and Forgetting—foolish words, foolish melodies, and clumsy orchestration. But they seem to please the well-dressed crowd that comes to ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... Summer Night," sung exquisitely in three parts. Sahwah could hardly believe it was the Winnebagos, so perfect was the harmony. This was followed by "I Would That My Love," sung by Gladys and Nyoda. Sahwah drew a long, rapturous breath at the beautiful blending of alto and soprano. She was passionately fond of music. Then Gladys sang "Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming," her clear high voice ringing over the water like a flute. The notes died lingeringly away, and the silence was broken by the soft chugging of the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... sadly; "I am sensitive about some of them even now. But I was not so sophisticated as you imagined. I saw my brother's pupils come and go, but that was about all. Sometimes I was called on to play accompaniments, or to fill out a vacancy at a rehearsal, or to order a carriage for an infuriated soprano who had thrown up her part. But they never spent any time on me, unless it was to notice the resemblance ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... the new Spanish soprano, Mme. Bartolas, who was all black velvet and long black feathers, with a lace veil over her rich pallour and even a little black patch on her chin. I beckoned them. "Tell me, ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... at her own freedom from nervousness. She sang neither better nor worse than usual—sang in the clear and pleasant soprano which she flattered herself was not unmusical. ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... no such thing. She jes likes to hear me sing. You're crazy!" The tramp-boy's young voice had its fashion of breaking and shrilling into a high soprano, like a girl's, for emphasis; he was as red as a beet, and he put his foot back in the stirrup, thrust out his under jaw and looked at the stirrup as though he had to determine how much wood had gone into its making. Again Bruce was conscious ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... went back, swinging their gold-headed canes, and they had another meeting in the City Hall. Then they decided to send the highest Soprano Singer in the church choir to the Wise Woman; she could sing up to G-sharp just as easy as not. So the high Soprano Singer set out for the Wise Woman's in the Mayor's coach, and the Aldermen marched behind, swinging ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... the offertory in these churches, and this, too, pleases my sense of the fitness of things. It cannot soften the woe of the people who are disinclined to the giving away of money, and the cheerful givers need no encouragement. For my part, I like to sit, quite undistracted by soprano solos, and listen to the refined tinkle of the sixpences and shillings, and the vulgar chink of the pennies and ha'pennies, in the contribution-boxes. Country ministers, I am told, develop such an acute sense of hearing that they can estimate the amount of ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Grand Canal and the lesser canals, rose the manifold noises of Venetian life. All other sounds were dominated by the monotonous shouts of the gondoliers. Somewhere close at hand, perhaps in the opposite palace (was it not the Fogazzari palace?), a woman with a fine soprano voice was practising; the singer was young—someone who could not have been born at the time when ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... notes are in the human voice depends partly on the person who is speaking. You know that the fundamental of a bass voice is lower than that of a soprano. Besides the fundamental, however, there are a lot of higher notes always present. This is particularly true when the spoken sound is a consonant, like "s" or "f" or "v." The particular notes, ...
— Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son • John Mills
... compelled to applaud, in the very middle of the Cup-ties, purely by means of facial expression. In this time of affliction he found Isabel an ever-increasing comfort to him. Side by side they would sit, and the old man's face would lose its drawn look, and light up, as her clear young soprano pealed out over the din, urging this player to shoot, that to kick some opponent in the face; or describing the referee in no uncertain terms as a reincarnation of the late Mr ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... her voice comes to him from a music-room. He pushes his way through the crowds, for poor Chancer has been doomed to disappointment in his wish to have this fair woman sing to him alone, for when the now full rich notes, now sweet to intoxication, of her mezzo-soprano voice fell on the air, the languid, sentimental or gay stayed their steps ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... I said, and involuntarily was silent to listen for an instant to the melodious flood which swept from aisle to aisle in golden billows. Out from the wave of organ music and men's voices, boyish soprano notes sprayed high, flinging their bright crystals up, up, until they fell, shattered, from ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... in a manner which was the cause after each service of much divided opinion. Opinion was divided because the choir was divided—separated, in fact, into several small, select cliques, each engaged in deadly and bitter feud with the rest. When the moon-eyed soprano arose, with a gentle flutter, and opened her charming mouth in solo, her friends settled themselves in their pews with a general rustle of satisfaction, while the friends of the contralto exchanged civilly significant glances; ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... gli rispose molto umano, Perche avea preso gia di lui pietate; Quanto sei, disse, piu franco e soprano, Piu di te mi rincresce in veritate, Che sarai morto, e non sei Cristiano, Ed anderai tra l'anime dannate; Ma se vuoi il corpo e l'anima salvare, Piglia battesmo, e ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... as sleek as the Deacon's horse. For the Deacon has some queer notions about the duties of employers to their servants, and, though the very kindest of men, is generally thought by the neighbors to be "a queer stick." The Deacon's wife, who has a very sweet soprano voice, which, however, she never could be persuaded to use in our choir, was presiding at the piano. The children all had their hymn and tune-books, and they were "singing round"—each member of the family selecting a ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... Somewhere ie. Son filo. Son-in-law bofilo. Sonata sonato. Song kanto. Songster kantisto. Sonnet soneto. Sonorous sonora. Soon baldaux. Soon (early) frue. Soot fulgo. Soothe kvietigi. Sop trempajxo. Sophism sofismo. Soprano soprano. Sorb sorpo. Sorcerer sorcxisto. Sorcery sorcxarto. Sordid malpurega. Sore ulcereto. Sorrel okzalo. Sorrow malgxojo. Sorry malgxoja—eta. Sort speco. Sort dece kunmeti, disspecigi. Sot drinkulo. Soul animo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... singing-teachers whom we usually find, even in large cities and in musical institutions, I exempt from any special criticism, for they would not be able to understand my views. They permit soprano voices to sing scales in all the five vowels at once; begin with c instead of f; allow a long holding of the notes, "in order to bring out the voice," until the poor victim rolls her eyes and grows dizzy. They talk only of the fine chest-tones which must be elicited, ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... read the wisdom hid In the storm-inspired melody of thy thrush's bosom solemn: I should not then have understood what thy free spirit did To make the lark-soprano mount ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... us, who were musicians, were anxious to meet the famous dramatic soprano, Lilli Lehmann, who was living quietly in one of the suburbs of the city. Notes were exchanged, and on a certain day we were bidden to come, out of the regular hours for visitors, by ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... luring her on, a young choir soprano leaves the little village where she was born and the limited audience of St. Jude's to train for the opera in New York. She leaves love behind her and meets love more ardent but not more sincere in her new ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... Kamtchatkans in Scriptural opera-ballet! Only second to Noe is La Femme de Lot, with dear Sarkavina, in clouds of white, doing a sensational whirling dance as she turns into the Pillar, while that amazing soprano, Scriemalona, sings the mysterious Salt Music. Bishops quite swarm at these performances. They say they consider it their duty to go, and that they never really understood the true character of NOAH till they saw Ternitenky's beautiful flying leap into the Ark, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various
... voice of the male, ringing forth at the close with great strength and purity. The song produces the effect of harmony, but, comparing it with human singing, it is less like a duo than a terzetto composed of bass, contralto, and soprano. ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... of that marble miracle, the Cathedral. Here Lady Cheverel, as at other Italian cities where she made any protracted stay, engaged a maestro to give her lessons in singing, for she had then not only fine musical taste, but a fine soprano voice. Those were days when very rich people used manuscript music, and many a man who resembled Jean Jacques in nothing else, resembled him in getting a livelihood 'a copier la musique a tant la page'. Lady ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... with which she gave the words "Sul mio sasso," in the Capuletti—is ringing in my memory yet. Her lower tones were absolutely miraculous. Her voice embraced three complete octaves, extending from the contralto D to the D upper soprano, and, though sufficiently powerful to have filled the San Carlos, executed, with the minutest precision, every difficulty of vocal composition-ascending and descending scales, cadences, or fiorituri. In the final of the Somnambula, she brought about a most ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... first but with an increasing abandon, half laughter and half tears, the clear young soprano voice ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... thoughts that were not stimulated by the puppet-show before her. The tenor shrieked out his tender passion, and the tubby soprano sank into his inadequate arms with languishing sighs. Carmen heeded not their stage amours. She saw in the glare before her the care-lined face of the priest of Simiti; she saw the grim features and set jaw ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Mrs. A. I. Epstein, the soprano soloist from St. Louis, will sing a symphony known as the "Surprise Symphony" at the concert by the University Orchestra in the auditorium to-morrow night. The piece was written by Haydn. The symphony was so named by the composer on ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... already named, about thirty symphonies six string trios, a few divertimenti in five parts, a piece for four violins and two 'celli, entitled "Echo," twelve minuets for orchestra, concertos, trios, sonatas and variations for clavier, and, in vocal music, a "Salve Regina" for soprano and alto, two violins and organ. It would serve no useful purpose to deal with these works in detail. The symphonies are, of course, the most important feature in the list, but of these we shall speak generally when treating of Haydn as the ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... might be sojourning in London. She would take Little Kensington into the gardens, and, placing her carefully in the corner of a bench, would retire to a short distance and pretend to be absorbed in a book, while her sharp eyes kept up the watch for a long-haired tenor, or a beautifully dressed soprano, who should suddenly rush out from the bushes and ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... at the end of the service one of them pushed hers back, and I recognized the golden hair of Alathea, as she joined a group rather formally collected on one side of the grave. She looked round as if to see that all were ready, and then in such a soprano voice as one seldom hears, she "started" the funeral hymn. It was ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... 'Residenz-Theater' sparked and hummed With lights and people. Gebnitz was to sing, That rare soprano. All the fiddles strummed With tuning up; the wood-winds made a ring Of reedy bubbling noises, and the sting Of sharp, red brass pierced every ear-drum; patting From muffled tympani made a ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... manner was a little disconcerting. He found her at the piano, singing in her pathetic mezzo-soprano a song that used to he a favorite of Tyson's. The selection was another freak; it was the first time Louis had heard her sing that ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... the guests, and looking as if in anything but a pleasant mood. Her face brightened, however, when told that it would be a pleasure to hear her sing, and after a little urging, she consented. She possessed a light soprano voice which had been carefully trained, and when she chose, she could sing ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... of the larynx occasions diminished compass of the singing-voice, the notes of the upper register being the first to disappear. In some few cases of arrested development, the voice of the man retains the soprano compass ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... to Carlo Broschi, an Italian soprano, whom Grove's "Dictionary" describes as "the most remarkable singer perhaps who has ever lived." He was born in 1705 and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... composers are their slaves no longer, the spectators and managers still are so. In Paris and elsewhere it is often found impossible to do justice to the secondary stage appointments because the salaries of the soprano and the tenor swallow the whole income. The Germans, on the other hand, are too artistic and rational to endure such an imposition. To them the one-star-and-ten-satellites system seems an abomination, and doubtless ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... this time lightly, joyously, and we re ponded to her mood like harp-strings all in accord. The room, awakened to melody after the long years of silence, seemed transformed by Una's splendid gift, a fine, clear soprano, not big nor yet thin or reedy, but rounded, full-bodied and deep with feeling. Jerry was smiling now, the shadow seemed to ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... circle. It is evident that she kept up her singing, for October 28, 1730, he wrote of his family, "They are one and all born musicians, and I can assure you that I can already form a concert, both vocal and instrumental, of my own family, particularly as my present wife sings a very clear soprano and my eldest daughter ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... reaching her age, yet she was only two and twenty, and a year or two could make no great difference. Nevertheless, she was more anxious than she would have admitted, and she had persuaded her teacher to let her sing to Madame Bonanni, the celebrated lyric soprano, whose opinion would be worth having, and perhaps final. The great singer had the reputation of being very good-natured in such cases and was on friendly terms with Margaret's teacher, the latter being a retired prima donna. Margaret felt sure of a fair hearing, therefore, and it ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... door was opened a flood of music floated out. A divinely sweet mezzo-soprano voice was singing to the accompaniment of a harp. As the master of the house flung wide the sitting-room door and announced the visitor, the sounds ceased, but the musician sat with her hands resting upon the gilded strings for ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... patriotism that made Miss Mink refuse to do her part. Every ripple in the small flag that fluttered over her humble dwelling sent a corresponding ripple along her spinal column. When she essayed to sing "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," in her high, quavering soprano, she invariably broke down from sheer excess of emotion. But the American army fighting for right and freedom in France, and the Army individually tracking mud into her spotless cottage, were two very different things. Miss Mink had always regarded a man ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... has a superb voice and manner, and has had few superiors in his time on the German stage. There is Frau Dietz, at forty-five, the best of actresses, and with a still fresh and lovely voice. There is Herr Nachbar, a tenor, who has a future; Fraulein Stehle, a soprano, young and with an uncommon voice, who enjoys a large salary, and was the favorite until another soprano, the Malinger, came and turned the heads of king and opera habitues. The resources of the Academy are, however, tolerably large; and the practice of pensioning for life the singers enables them ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... first and his place and property were inherited by his maiden daughter, Miss Lobelia Seymour. Sears Kendrick remembered Lobelia as a dressy, romantic spinster, very much in evidence at the church socials and at meetings of the Shakespeare Reading Society, and who sang a somewhat shrill soprano in the choir. ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln |
