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Orchestra   Listen
noun
Orchestra  n.  
1.
The space in a theater between the stage and the audience; originally appropriated by the Greeks to the chorus and its evolutions, afterward by the Romans to persons of distinction, and by the moderns to a band of instrumental musicians. Now commonly called orchestra pit, to distinguish it from the section of the main floor occupied by spectators.
2.
The space in the main floor of a theater in which the audience sits; also, the forward spectator section of the main floor, in distinction from the parterre, which is the rear section of the main floor.
3.
The place in any public hall appropriated to a band of instrumental musicians.
4.
(Mus.)
(a)
Loosely: A band of instrumental musicians performing in a theater, concert hall, or other place of public amusement.
(b)
Strictly: A band suitable for the performance of symphonies, overtures, etc., as well as for the accompaniment of operas, oratorios, cantatas, masses, and the like, or of vocal and instrumental solos.
(c)
A band composed, for the largest part, of players of the various viol instruments, many of each kind, together with a proper complement of wind instruments of wood and brass; as distinguished from a military or street band of players on wind instruments, and from an assemblage of solo players for the rendering of concerted pieces, such as septets, octets, and the like.
5.
(Mus.) The instruments employed by a full band, collectively; as, an orchestra of forty stringed instruments, with proper complement of wind instruments.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Orchestra" Quotes from Famous Books



... heaviness! There seems to be a spell on me. [Gazes about.] How beautiful these woods are at sunset! If I were a Nibelung, I'd come here for certain! [Settles himself, reclining; shadows begin to fall; music from orchestra.] I'm good for nothing but dreaming... I wish Estelle were here to sing to me! How magical the ...
— Prince Hagen • Upton Sinclair

... observation. Peering through a narrow slit in one of its armored observatoires, I was able to view the whole field of the world's greatest battle—a battle which lasted a year and cost a million men—as from the gallery of a theatre one might look down upon the stage, the boxes, and the orchestra-stalls. Below me, rising from the meadows beside the Meuse, were the shattered roofs and fire-blackened walls of Verdun, dominated by the stately tower of the cathedral and by the great bulk of the citadel. The environs of the town and the hill slopes beyond the river were constantly ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell

... known that the barrel-organ, like the violin, gets a fuller and more sympathetic tone the older it is. The old artist had an excellent instrument, not of the modern noisy type which imitates a whole orchestra with flutes and bells and beats of drums, but a melancholy old-fashioned barrel-organ [Footnote: A melancholy barrel organ. What does the author mean by this?] which knew how to lend a dreamy mystery ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... Phrynicus's poorest, when they pelted his chorus from the orchestra with date-stones. And ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... her blankly, too bewildered even to wonder how she knew he was in Genoa; and she continued, with the kind of shy imperiousness that always made him feel, in her presence, like a member of an orchestra under a masterful baton; "Now please get right into this carriage, and don't keep me roasting here another minute." To the cabdriver she called out: ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... she, "to being lonesome on Broadway. And I've been so lonesome in a theatre box, with two thousand people in plain sight, that I've dropped tears down on the trombone player in the orchestra. And I was lonesome just now, when I picked you up back there. I had been into that big jewelry store, buying things I didn't want, just for the sake of having ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... away, to be happy by himself, and hid in the shadow of palms on the porch, lapped in the flutter of pepper-trees. The orchestra began a waltz that set his heart singing. He heard a girl cry: "Oh, goody! the 'Blue Danube'! We must go in and ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... morning vocal concerts of a feathered orchestra. They wake the slumbering bride long before Don Miguel calls his swarthy retainers to ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... he began. "Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don't look for a magazine story about overthrown tyrants, or anything like that. It's just a quiet little lie I'm speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers

... turned on them, she thought no more about them. Often she interrupted a lively laugh to weep passionately, and checked her tears to laugh again. A real child of Paris, Miss Dimpleton preferred tumult to quiet, bustle to repose, the sharp, ringing harmony of the orchestra at the balls of the Chartreuse and the Colysee, to the soft murmur of wind, water, and trees; the deafening tumult of the streets of Paris, to the silence of the country; the dazzling of the fireworks, the glittering of the flowers, ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... a grand scale, and with all possible effect. The proposer of the idea had for it six thousand livres pension; and a machine admirably invented and of easy and instantaneous application, was made to cover the orchestra, and put the stage and the pit on the same level. The misfortune was, that the opera was at the Palais Royal, and that M. le Duc d'Orleans had only one step to take to reach it after his suppers and show himself there, often in a state but little becoming. The Duc de Noailles, who strove ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... go away. Remember that these few minutes are only an interlude. Over here I am Mademoiselle Idiale who sings to-night at Covent Garden. See my roses. There are two rooms full of reporters and photographers in the place now. The leader of the orchestra is in my bedroom, and two of the directors are drinking whiskies and sodas with this new manager of mine in the dining-room. Between five and six o'clock this afternoon you will get the message. It is somewhere, I think, ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... old times in the South American forests, Nat," he said coolly. "I could put a name to nearly every musician at work in Nature's orchestra yonder." ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn

... way back to her chair. I never knew why she dropped it—she used to do it so naturally, with a start, when Mephistopheles knocked at the door—until one night when it was in my way and I picked it up, to the confusion of poor Mrs. Stirling, who nearly walked into the orchestra. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various

... seconds later, and there was a head-splitting racket in the room, a storm of tomfoolery, a sort of cats' concert, with Vautrin as conductor of the orchestra, the latter keeping an eye the while on Eugene and Father Goriot. The wine seemed to have gone to their heads already. They leaned back in their chairs, looking at the general confusion with an air of gravity, and drank but little; both of them were absorbed in the ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... said. And, for my part, I attribute the anomalous conduct of which I was guilty on that occasion to the unusual frame of mind in which I found myself on my return home. I had dined with some friends at the Cascade restaurant, and, the entire evening, whilst we smoked and the orchestra played melancholy waltzes, we talked only of crimes and thefts, and dark and frightful intrigues. That is always a poor ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc

... Emperor of Russia with a copy of this note, and the emperor, it seems, has understood my mission, for—But, just look, my prophecy commences being fulfilled. The king and the queen rise and leave their box; and notice, too, the migration beginning in the pit, and among the occupants of the orchestra-stalls. The beautiful ballet- girls will soon dance ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... Viceroy descended from the hills—had been advertising "Side-splitting begins at 9.30. Prices as usual" with reference to this particular evening for a fortnight. In the Athenian Theatre—it had a tin roof and nobody could hear the orchestra when it rained—the Midgets were presenting the earlier collaborations of Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan, every Midget guaranteed under nine years of age. Colonel Pike's Great Occidental Circus had been in full blast on the Maidan for a week. It became a great Occidental circus when ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... instrument, if unhappily endowed with common sense, to believe and assert that the real substance of the universe consisted solely of sounds. Yet how evident would it be to us from our standpoint of more absolute knowledge that the whole orchestra of sounds, although actual and quite distinct from consciousness, was still merely phenomenal, and yet withal, in its every expression, revealed the laws and structure of reality—of the system of things in themselves—a system the reality of which was dissimilar to those appearances, ...
— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip

... mocking him, but it was impossible to misjudge the nature of the applause. Besides, the stage-manager was allowing him call after call, as if he were a star. When at length the curtain remained down, and the orchestra struck up the opening bars of the next song, he staggered off into the wings as if he were drunk. There he met Mr. James ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton

... the plains without fear any more of the rifle of Roy, the Red Wolf. Mrs. Conyers comes up and thanks me an' John Tom without the usual extremities you always look for in a woman. She says just enough, in a way to convince, and there is no incidental music by the orchestra. I made a few illiterate requisitions upon the art of conversation, at which the lady smiles friendly, as if she had known me a week. And then Mr. Little Bear adorns the atmosphere with the various idioms into which education can fracture the ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... The little German orchestra began playing a lullaby, and a fat German waiter came in at the open door and put more wood on the fire. He stopped by the table and talked about the mud in the road outside. From another room came the silvery clink of glasses and the sound of laughing voices. The girl and Sam drifted back into ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson

... like him nearly so well as the art student who plays a banjo in the orchestra because he needs the money. ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... set tea and muffins. Peace unfolded white wings over the little table. A divine orchestra played a dreamy waltz that had reference to a beautiful lady. Carlisle poured, and remembered from Willie's apartment that Canning liked one lump and neither cream nor lemon. He seemed absurdly pleased by the small fact. The topic of the Past having been finally disposed of, ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... was distinctly less pleasing to those who sat below him in the orchestra and dress circle. Applause was still hearty, but it lacked the fervor of the first act. He could see men turn and whisper to one another now and then. They laughed, of course, and remarked each to the other, "Brown, you're getting ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... crowned his twenty-fifth year. The score is still a picture to the musician. It exhibits consummate knowledge of the theatre, displayed in an opera of the first magnitude and complexity; which unites to a great orchestra the effects of a double chorus on the stage and behind the scenes; and introduces marches, processions, and dances, to various accompaniments in the orchestra, behind the scenes, or under the stage. This model opera, in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... the "Rhinegold" is going on apace. At present I am with the orchestra down in "Nibelheim." In May the whole will be ready, but not the clean copy, only single sheets with illegible pencil sketches on them. It will be some time before you can see anything of it. In June I have to begin the "Valkyrie." When are you coming? You say nothing about it, and yet you talk of ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... lackeys, servant-girls, cooks, coachmen, stable-boys, gardeners, and a large number of nondescript old men and women who had no very clearly defined functions. If the proprietor had a private theatre or orchestra, it was from this class that the actors and musicians were drawn. Those of them who were married and had children occupied a position intermediate between the ordinary domestic servant and the peasant. On the one hand, they received from ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... became an instrument not unworthy to compete with Shakespeare's English and the German of Goethe and Heine; and in the structure and capacity of all manner of French metrical forms he effected such a change that he may fairly be said to have received the orchestra of Rameau from his predecessors and to have bequeathed his heirs the orchestra of Berlioz. On the other hand; in much of his later work his mannerisms in prose and in verse are discomfortably glaring; the outcome of his unsurpassable literary ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... muse on the life of the employee of this place, who gets from it all that in less favoured civilisations family, guild, club, township, and nationality have given him or her. As a child he gets education, then evening-classes, continuation-schools, gymnasia, military training, swimming-baths, orchestra, facilities for the study of anything under the sun, from palaeography to Cherokee, libraries, holiday-camps, hospitals, ever-present medical attendance, and at the end a pension, and, I suppose, a store cemetery. ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke

... collection of particular representations. It is a mass of hieroglyphics, each the graphic symbol for some definite human sensation or reaction; only these symbols have been extraordinarily enriched and are fused in representation, so that, like instruments in an orchestra, they are merged in the voluminous sensation they constitute together, a sensation in which, for attentive perception, they never ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... amusing and annoying. This odd-geared Teuton hails from Hamburg. Like most stuttering unfortunates, he is a chronic talker. He stutters garrulously in several tongues. There are serious impediments in his pumping gestures. His tongue, hands, and feet, like stringed orchestra, seem trying to arrive at an amicable understanding, but ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee

... we could get the High School mandolin club for an orchestra. If we hurried we could have it week ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower

... later still before the usual gentle snores arose from Mrs. Pennypoker's corner. Soon afterwards, the silence of the night was broken by the sound of stealthy footsteps, coming up the river bank from the engineers' tents. A moment later, the music from a full orchestra of combs roused the sleepers ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray

... everything I like—including tons of jelly, at sight of which I grinned at Mother and she grinned back—if you can call her gorgeous smile a grin. After dinner the lights were put on and we had some music, as we always do when I'm home—little family orchestra with two fiddles, a flute, my mandolin, and the piano, and I noticed we didn't play any but the jolliest sort of things. Then Dad and I sat down again on the big couch in front of the fireplace to smoke and talk, with the kids hanging round till long past their bed-time. ...
— The Whistling Mother • Grace S. Richmond

... by an orchestra consisting of four men, three with copper gongs (gangsas), and one with a drum. The gongs are tambourine shape, with sides about an inch and a half high. They are placed against the thighs of the players who kneel on the ground, and ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole

... dancing. A fine orchestra is provided, and is placed so that it may consume as little space as possible. A row of chairs placed around the room, and tied in couples with pocket-handkerchiefs, denotes that "The German" is to be danced during the course of the evening. ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... natures oratory, the successful swaying of the crowd, has the same effect, irrespective of the tone and content of the speech, that is produced by the harmony of a great orchestra, an effect of exaltation and lawlessness. In the young mathematician this responsiveness was a marked trait, at variance with another more coldly intellectual quality. He began to feel that he ranged at will, freed from artificial and unreal restraints. He, too, would do some great thing. ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... term than archic; but liable to be confused with some which we shall want relating to Theoria. The administrators of the three great divisions of law are severally Archons, Merists, and Dicasts. The Archons are the true princes, or beginners of things; or leaders (as of an orchestra). The Merists are properly the Domini, or Lords of houses and nations. The Dicasts, properly, the judges, and that with Olympian justice, which reaches to heaven and hell. The violation of archic law is [Greek: hamartia] (error), [Greek: poneria] (failure), or [Greek: plemmeleia] ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... Concert, Stage, and Battlefield. The hero is a youth with a passion for music, who becomes a cornetist in an orchestra, and works his way up to the leadership of a brass band. He is carried off to sea and falls in with a secret service cutter bound for Cuba, and while there joins a military band which accompanies our soldiers in the never-to-be-forgotten ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield

... Quin and Sir Joseph Grimaldi (from Covent Garden)! They have all the yellow ribbon. They are all honorable, and clever, and distinguished artists. Let us elbow through the rooms, make a bow to the lady of the house, give a nod to Sir George Thrum, who is leading the orchestra, and go and get some champagne and seltzer-water from Sir Richard Gunter, who is presiding at the buffet. A national decoration might be well and good: a token awarded by the country to all its benemerentibus: but most gentlemen with Minerva stars would, I think, be inclined ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... at a Palm-Garden that had Padding under the Table-Cloth and a Hungarian Orchestra in the Corner. Mr. Byrd ordered Eleven Courses, and then asked Jim what Kind he usually had with his Dinner. This is an Awful Question to pop at a Man who has been on Rain Water and Buttermilk all his ...
— More Fables • George Ade

... the orchestra, three players who came from the city, entered the room, and Marjorie hurried over to give them the final directions. When she turned around again, Lily had vanished; but near her stood Ruth Henry, her old friend ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell

... concert parties in his house; to this man I had the effrontry to propose a symphony of my own. I worked a fortnight at this production, wrote out the instrumental parts, and on the appointed evening stood up before the orchestra and audience, tapped my desk, raised by baton, and—never since music began has there been such an orgy of discords. The musicians could hardly sit in their chairs for laughing, yet played even louder and louder ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... not men who are neither stout nor thin are capable of any such sentiment. Nevertheless, something strange, something which he could not altogether explain, had come upon him. It seemed as though the ball, with its talk and its clatter, had suddenly become a thing remote—that the orchestra had withdrawn behind a hill, and the scene grown misty, like the carelessly painted-in background of a picture. And from that misty void there could be seen glimmering only the delicate outlines of the bewitching maiden. Somehow her ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... annual fair, the quiet little town of Weyn gave itself up to merrymaking. Shows and caravans choked the narrow streets; huge roundabouts as "patronised by all the crowned heads of Europe," swung giddily round in the market-place, and the shouts of the stall-keepers, and the din of the orchestra, and the ceaseless crack of the rifle ranges, where boys were shooting for cocoa-nuts, made a ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis

... to find suits had launched a decrepit rowboat and, with one broken oar, were splashing about near the float. Far out in the Sound a big white steamer passed eastward, her lights showing white in the gathering darkness and the strains from her orchestra coming faintly across the quiet water. The boys in the rowboat stopped skylarking to discuss what steamer it was, and Marvin, who had swam up behind and laid hands on the gunwale, told them that it was the ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour

... was, and quite as melodious ones. Such performers I never heard, in marsh or pool. They are not the great, stagnant, bull-paddocks, fat and coarse-noted like Parson, but clear-water frogs, green, lively, and sweet-voiced. I passed their orchestra going home the other evening, with a small lad, and they were at it, all parts, ten thousand peeps, shrill, ear-piercing, and incessant, coming up from every quarter, accompanied by a second, from some larger swimmer with his trombone, and ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... deadened roll of wheels in the street outside, the banging of carriage doors, and an incessant rustle of stiff skirts ascending the stairs. From the ladies' dressing-room came an increasing soprano chatter, while downstairs the orchestra around the piano in the back parlour began to snarl and whine louder and louder. About the halls and stairs one caught brief glimpses of white and blue opera cloaks edged with swan's-down alternating with the gleam of a starched shirt ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris

... and as Nicholas looked about him, ceiling, pit, boxes, gallery, orchestra, fittings, and decorations of every kind,—all looked ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... lanterns, and here and there were orange-trees and palms and artificial streams and fountains. Every table was crowded, it seemed; one was half-deafened by the clatter of plates, the voices and laughter, and the uproar of a negro orchestra of banjos, mandolins, and guitars. Negro waiters flew here and there, and a huge, stout head-waiter, who was pirouetting and strutting, suddenly espied Oliver, and made for him with smiles ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair

... Their visit was the brightness of the boy's day, and thanks to them, many efforts were made to soften his calamity. The best musical talent that Oxford could furnish was eager to serve him; and a well-known orchestra was only waiting for the completion of his symphony and the result of his examination to produce the symphony in the hall ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... fancy, to that which others obtain through the ear. But the real music for us comes through the eye. The rippling of waves, the tremulous vibration of leaf and blossom and twig, all these sights make for us a harmony perhaps as perfect as the most finished orchestra." ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe

... and dream and enjoy when men were falling every minute, writhing in agony, gasping out their life, would have seemed to her grossly unaesthetic if nothing worse. It was not in the picture. The primal impulses she had experienced at the front to that harsh music of Death's orchestra were natural enough; but safe (comparatively!) in Paris, certainly quiet, the romance of love would have been as incongruous and heartless as to go out to the great hospital at Neuilly and tango through ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... done everything well, as he always did. The bridal suite was banked with flowers. Even the orchestra belonging to the ship had been engaged specially to play. A second, though brief, reception ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson

... transparent, subtle, vaporous tint of golden pink or purple, which is the gift of this warm and wonderful light. A cricket that has climbed up one of the tender shoots strikes a low note, which is like the drowsy chirrup of a roosting bird. It is the first touch of a fiddler in the night's orchestra, and will soon be taken up by thousands of other crickets, bell-tinkling toads, croaking frogs in the valley, and the solitary owl that hoots from the hills. Below, how the river seems to sleep under the dusky wings of gathering dreams where the white bridge spans it! ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... expressed by Mr. Vachell Lindsay, in a poem bearing the characteristic title of 'Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan.' And, by the way, nobody can begin to sympathise with America whose soul does not to some extent begin to swing and dance to the drums and gongs of Mr. Vachell Lindsay's great orchestra; which has the note of his whole nation in this: that a refined person can revile it a hundred times over as violent and brazen and barbarous and absurd, but not as insincere; there is something in it, and that something is the soul of many million ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton

... 38. The Concerto for Pianoforte and Orchestra, Op. 15, "Probably composed in 1800, since it was offered to Hofmeister Jan. 5, 1801." He relates from Wegeler, that Beethoven wrote the finale when suffering violently from colic. How is it possible for a man to overlook the next line, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... of internal secretion wield a determining influence upon the development of the individual from his very inception. If his various powers may be conceived of as an orchestra, they may be said to conduct it from the very beginning of its movements, and to cease only with its termination. From the moment when the spermatozoon penetrates and fecundates the ovum, the fate of the future being ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... Shakespearean roles, but Reynolds seemed to anticipate her power. He followed her career with unfailing interest and always made a point of attending her first appearances and benefits, sitting among the musicians in the orchestra. When she prepared for the character of Lady Macbeth he helped her plan the costumes and sat rapt and breathless during her first performance. This was generally considered her grandest effort, and she used herself to say that after playing it thirty years she never ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... literature and science come those in music and painting. There is no reason whatever why the Palace should not include an academy of music, an academy of arts, and an academy of acting, in a few months after its establishment it should have its own choir, its own orchestra, its own concerts, its own opera, and its own theatre, with a company formed of its own alumni. And in a year or two it should have its own exhibition of paintings, drawings, and sculpture. As regards the simpler amusements, there must be rooms where the men can smoke, and others ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant

... man, to the right on him, wuz a colonnade runnin' round a circular room covered with a ruff in the shape of a tent. The ceilin' and walls are covered with landscape views of Southern Spain, and a mandolin orchestra carried out the idee of a ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... their heads in the direction of their adversaries, would knock them together violently. The thin man, especially, worked with great gusto. With much effort he succeeded in producing a ferocious, hoarse chest-note that maddened the whole irritated pack. As serious as an orchestra leader, he would absorb the discordant harmony, and direct and strengthen its emission; but when the brutes were let loose and the howling band tore one another to pieces, he would be in a frenzy of enthusiasm and delight. He would applaud and ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert

... character,—an actress's talent and heart being as widely separated, in general, as yours are. She could bring upon the stage in her body the presentment of a naive, innocent, pathetic nature, and use the influence such nature might have on the people outside the orchestra-chairs there. It was not her own nature, we know. She dressed and looked it. A timid little thing, in her fluttering white slip, her light hair cut close to her head, in short curls. So much for the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... two they remained silent, enraptured. It seemed to them that soft, flute-like music went before them, that their own words came from some dulcet orchestra which they could not see. Shorter and shorter became their steps as they leaned one towards the other, ever threading their way amidst the mighty trees. Afar off through the long vista of the colonnades were glimpses of waning sunlight, showing like a procession of white-robed maidens entering ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... manner of railway-carriages, into first, second, and third class. Our informant hastened to enlighten us. It seems that only wedding-parties of the first and second classes are entitled to enter by the front-door, to music of the full church orchestra, and to carpets laid down from porch to altar, every detail of pomp and ceremony depending on the ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... not admit me. There the ladies were received, and the nuns and novices were laughing and talking and doing the honours. Their dress was not ugly—black, white, and a yellow veil. The chapel was adorned with gold brocade, and blue and silver hangings, flowers, tapers; a good orchestra, and two or three tolerable voices. It was as full as it could hold, and soldiers were distributed about to keep order; even by the altar four stood with fixed bayonets, who when the Host was raised presented arms—a military salute to ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... for me. When you've done that, you go to Henry Heller's house. I guess you can find it. You found this house where I was fast enough. He lives on Campus Street just beyond the new Baptist Church. If he's gone to bed you get him up. Tell him to get his orchestra together and have him bring all the lively music he's got. Tell him to bring his men to the Bidwell House as fast as ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson

... chord I hope to utter a certain sound, a certain name, of which you shall know more hereafter. But a name, as you surely know, need not be composed of one or two syllables only; a whole symphony may be a name, and a whole orchestra playing for days, or an entire nation chanting for years, may be required to pronounce the beginning merely of—of certain names. Yours, Robert Spinrobin, for instance, I can pronounce in a quarter of a second; but there may be names so vast, so mighty, that minutes, days, years even, ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood

... and I believed him, for I had a profound admiration of his musical ability. Indeed, I hold it to this day, and often as I sit in the dark corner of an opera-box and listen to the swelling harmonies of a great orchestra, I close my eyes and fancy myself squatting on the grassy barn-bridge at James's side when the shadows are creeping over the valley and he weeps for Nellie Grey and Annie Laurie in a voice so mighty that the very hills ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... Jethro Fawe loved the fiddle. He had played it in many lands. Twice, in order to get inside the palace of a monarch for a purpose—once in Berlin and once in London—he had played the second violin in a Tzigany orchestra. He turned the fiddle slowly round, looking at it with mechanical intentness. Through the passion of emotion the sure sense of the musician was burning. His fingers smoothed the oval brown breast ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... northward to Baltimore, taking his flute with him. He was evidently a wonderful artist, playing not by the score but making his instrument his voice, so that his audience seemed to hear a soul speaking in melody. His was a magic flute. Soon he was supporting himself by playing in the Peabody Orchestra, living joyously meanwhile in an atmosphere of music and poetry and books; for he was always a student, determined to understand as well as to practice his art. He wrote poems, stories, anything to earn an honest ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... earn his daily bread. Willing to descend, that he might rise, he became a violin player of minor parts at the Hamburg Opera House. The homage he had received prompted his vanity to create a surprise. He played badly, and acted as a verdant youth. The members of the orchestra sneeringly informed him that he would never earn his salt. Handel, however, waited his opportunity. One day the harpsichordist, the principal person in the orchestra, was absent. The band, thinking it would be a good joke, ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth

... all together, and become interested in that and forgotten to talk of their claims, and some good whisky after it, or cleared out one of the cabins and had a dance there with some of the hands who lived near, and a man to whistle tunes for them if there was no other orchestra; but no! Stephen thought that cards were wrong and wouldn't have them in his house, and whisky too, and dancing worst of all, and only the sin of avarice and the lust of gold was to be connived at there. As she stood there, the thought slipped into her mind quite suddenly, so suddenly that it surprised ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross

... times that it takes a whole orchestra and a gallery of paintings to tell any thing about: for Mrs. Lee as well as her husband was on the beach; and within a minute after "Captain Kinzer" and his crew had landed, poor Dick was being hugged and scolded within an ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard

... The orchestra of twenty pieces of Grand Opera House, stationed in the reception hall, played the "Largo" of Handel. In the third parlor from the ceiling were suspended ropes or garlands of smilax and bride's roses, which formed a dainty canopy. White satin ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton

... harpsichord-player failed him; Handel took his place at short notice, and his musicianship was at once recognised. Unfortunately Mattheson, whose chronology is always rather uncertain, does not tell us when this occurred. In addition to his duties in the orchestra, Handel earned a living by teaching private pupils, and through Mattheson he was engaged by Mr. John Wyche, the English Envoy, as music-master to his small ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent

... method of the Roman chorus differed from that of the Greeks. In the latter the orchestra or place for the dancing and chorus was about 12 ft. below the stage, with steps to ascend when these were required; in the former the chorus was not used in comedy, and having no orchestra was in tragedies placed upon the stage. The getting ...
— The Dance (by An Antiquary) - Historic Illustrations of Dancing from 3300 B.C. to 1911 A.D. • Anonymous

... But beyond that, he is a scholar, and a man of the broadest interests. Of course the Boltwoods are too modest to speak of it, but he was chiefly instrumental in the establishment of the famous Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra. And his ancestors clear through—his father was a federal judge, and his mother's brother was a general in the Civil War, and afterwards an ambassador. So you can guess something of the position Claire holds in that fine, quiet, solid old Brooklyn set. Henry Ward Beecher himself was complimented ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... South America and other countries, and kept his eyes wide open, as his sea-pieces proved. After his mother became a widow he married, in 1863, Susanne Leenhoff, of Delft, Holland. She was one of the early admirers of Schumann in Paris and played the A minor piano concerto with orchestra there, and, it is said, with success. She was an admirer of her husband's genius, and during all the turmoil of his existence she was a friend ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... outline gradually forces upon us a sense of how the harmony has been built up, and we become familiar with something of nature's mannerism. This is the true pleasure of your "rural voluptuary,"—not to remain awe-stricken before a Mount Chimborazo; not to sit deafened over the big drum in the orchestra, but day by day to teach himself some new beauty—to experience some new vague and tranquil sensation that has before evaded him. It is not the people who "have pined and hungered after nature many a year, in the great city pent," as Coleridge said in the poem that made Charles Lamb so much ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... curtain; and the orchestra is on the stage itself, behind the actors. There is no prompter and no call-boy. Stage footmen wait at the sides to carry in screens, small tables, and an odd chair or two, to represent houses, city walls, and so on, or hand ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles

... smile, she succeeded in controlling her emotion, and felt inspired to do her very best. As to Captain Fracasse, excited by the quarrel, he acted superbly. Zerbine surpassed herself. Shouts of laughter and storms of clapping followed her animated words and gestures. From one corner, near the orchestra, came such vigorous bursts of applause, leading all the rest and lasting longer than any, that at last Zerbine's attention was attracted ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... composer. They declared that he produced only a succession of discordant noises. I account for this by the fact that the music of Wagner was not German. His countrymen could not understand it. They had to be educated. There was no orchestra in Germany that could really play "Tristan and Isolde." Its eloquence, its pathos, its shoreless passion was beyond them. There is no reason to suppose that Germany is to produce another Wagner. Is England expected ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... Messenger replied. "There is a regular orchestra that plays exquisite music for the dance; but the musicians are the female Birds of Paradise, who, because their plumage is a modest brown, are not allowed to take part in the ...
— Policeman Bluejay • L. Frank Baum

... many Buddhist emblems. High above, on a rude gallery, fifty monks were gathered with their musical instruments. As soon as the Kan-po or abbot, Punt-sog-sogman (the most perfect Merit), received us at the gate, the monkish orchestra broke forth in a tornado of sound of a most tremendous and thrilling quality, which was all but overwhelming, as the mountain echoes took up and prolonged the sound of fearful blasts on six-foot silver horns, the bellowing thunder of six-foot drums, the clash of cymbals, and the dissonance of ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)

... conscious of their strength. It is then that performing chimpanzees become unruly, fly into sudden fits of temper, their back hair bristles up, they stamp violently, and sometimes leap into a terrorized orchestra. Next in order, they are retired willy-nilly from the stage, and are offered for sale to zoological parks and gardens having ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep, and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... plays its repertoire of quadrilles and waltzes under your window. It is a very sweet-toned organ, this little orgue de Barbarie, with a plaintive, apologetic tone, and a flute obbligato that would do credit to many a small orchestra. I know this small organ well—an old friend on dreary mornings, putting the laziest riser in a good humor for the day. The tunes are never changed, but they are all inoffensive and many of them pretty, and to the ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith

... moment to return to duty. It suggested to Channing that he sounded a trifle histrionic, a trifle as though low music were about to be played by the orchestra. He caught himself murmuring inwardly, "What a ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... the Flamebird Room of the Royal Gandyll Hotel, listening to the alien, but soothing strains of the native orchestra and sipping a drink. He knew perfectly well that he had no business displaying himself in public on the planet Thizar; there were influential Thizarians who held no love for a certain Earthman ...
— Heist Job on Thizar • Gordon Randall Garrett

... so noisily announced by the Honourable Mr. Batulcar, was to commence at three o'clock, and soon the deafening instruments of a Japanese orchestra resounded at the door. Passepartout, though he had not been able to study or rehearse a part, was designated to lend the aid of his sturdy shoulders in the great exhibition of the "human pyramid," executed by the Long Noses of the god Tingou. ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne

... middle of the theatre even though they wore the latest creations of Paris fancy in silks and lingerie. I knew that Mrs. Ascher would feel it her duty to make some sort of protest against the music of the orchestra. ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham

... successful. Much of the charm and many of the fascinations which delight you are the result of association of time and of place. The lovely voice, whose tones have spoken to your heart, may, like some instrument, be delightful in the harmony of the orchestra, but, after all, prove a very middling performer ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... violin; but Cobbington declared that he had played that instrument for years before he left home: only he had no fiddle. Fortunately, Landy Perkins, who played the violoncello, and was learning to play the violin, had one, and our orchestra ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic

... excited usher rushed to the doctor's seat and whispered a brief message. The occupant rose at once and both men left the orchestra hastily ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher

... the good of going round congesting your cerebrums about problems you can't settle? I say let a fellow go it while he's young—moderately you know—and when he is old he will not regret the same. You fellows swot, and I sit in the orchestra chairs. You read your digestions to rack and ruin—or else you've got to be so mighty careful,—while I put in a fine gourmand's dinner every day, attended with the comforts of civilization. I dance ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... peculiar gift of manipulating this little musical instrument solely with his lips, moving it back and forth and round about as he played, without touching it with his hands; and this left his hands free to pat the time. The negro orchestra perched itself on the top of the cabin, and in a moment Lady Agatha, the five nurses, Cleggett, the three detectives, Dr. Farnsworth, and Captain Abernethy were tangoing on the deck. And this to the still further perplexity of Logan Black. As the dance started ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis

... competition. At first, no one suspected the youth's talents, for he amused himself by pretending to be an ignoramus, until one day the accompanyist on the harpsichord (then the most important instrument in an orchestra) was absent, and young Handel took his place, astonishing everybody by his masterly touch. Probably this discovery aroused the jealousy of some of his brother-artists, for soon afterward a duel took place between him and Matheson, a clever composer and singer, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... worked day and night at gun-drill. A thousand students from the university enrolled themselves, and drilled from morning till night. These student-soldiers had probably the best military band ever known; it consisted of the entire orchestra of the Theatre Royal, all volunteers. A Danish officer, sent on some message under a flag of truce to the British fleet, was required to put his message in writing, and was offered a somewhat damaged pen for that purpose. He threw it down with a laugh, ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett

... know where I could go whenever I wished the ablution and inundation of musical waves,—that were a bath and a medicine." It has been a long road from that sentence, written probably in the forties, to the Symphony Orchestra in this Hall, and to the new singing classes on the East Side of ...
— Four American Leaders • Charles William Eliot

... in every instance, and with less favoured subjects. The average compass in male voices is about two octaves minus one or two tones. I mean, of course, tones that are really available when the singer is on the stage and accompanied by an orchestra. Now, a baritone who strives to transform his voice into a tenor, simply loses the two lowest tones of his compass, possibly of good quality and resonance, and gains a minor or major third above the high G (sol) of a very poor, strained character. The compass of the voice remains exactly the ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam

... foyer of the opera house, a gentleman leaves his coat in the box—or in his orchestra chair—but he always wears his high hat. The "collapsible" hat is for use in the seats rather than in the boxes, but it can be worn perfectly well by a guest in the latter if he hasn't a "silk" one. A gentleman must always be in full dress, ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... sand that bar the ocean's waves, or the stars that begem the vault of night. But it can easily hold these, and myriads more. Yet there is room! As age after age has poured in its crowds, still the cry has gone forth, There is still room! The many mansions are not all tenanted. The orchestra is not full. The complement ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... appears that their wives often respected them, and they had a sincere liking for their own hideous children. And, besides the card-players, there are band-players: every now and then a fiddle from the neighboring orchestra, or a disorganized bassoon, will step down and drink a glass of the water, and jump ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray

... disbelieve in her And am a knave—approve in neither case, Withhold their voices though I look their way: 380 Like Verdi when, at his worst opera's end (The thing they gave at Florence—what's its name?) While the mad houseful's plaudits near outbang His orchestra of salt-box, tongs and bones, He looks through all the roaring and the wreaths Where sits Rossini patient in ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning

... of a calm nature, and somewhat accustomed to such scenes. I know not what I would have given to have had you by my side, that you might have seen me in my foreign garb of honour. And now, my dear love, I can assure you that you may be quite at ease, both as to the singers and the orchestra. Miss Paton is a singer of the first rank, and will play Reiza divinely; Braham not less so, though in a totally different style. There are also several good tenors; and I really cannot see why the English singing should be so much abused. The singers have a perfectly ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 477, Saturday, February 19, 1831 • Various

... Narcisse somehow or other, and on reaching the desired recess found themselves but two, Pierre and the Count. The orchestra, installed on a little platform at the far end of the gallery, had just finished the waltz, and the dancers, with an air of giddy rapture, were slowly walking through the crowd when a fresh arrival caused every head to turn. Donna Serafina, arrayed in a robe of purple silk as ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... dared refuse Lady Ardmore, or could have explained; but I had no time to think. And then, naturally, he thought by my being there as the king's daughter that—that—the lions were slain, you know; instead of which they were roaring so that I could hardly hear the orchestra." ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... skipping about, chatting and joking; the only very grave person being Liston himself. Ballet-girls walking through their quadrilles to the sound of a solitary fiddle, striking up as if of its own accord, from amid the tall stools and music-desks of the orchestra, and piercing, one hardly knew how, through the din that was going on incessantly. Oh, that din! Voices from every part; above, below, around, and in every key. Heavy weights rolling here and falling there. Bells ringing, one could not tell why, ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford

... them in full evening-dress and two in dinner-coats, were already dancing on the waxy floor of Melpomene Hall when they arrived. A full orchestra was pounding and scraping itself into an hysteria of merriment on the platform under the red stucco-fronted balcony, and at the bar behind the balcony there was a spirit of ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis

... assistant masters. The ceremony took place in the school-room, the body of which was almost filled by those who had assembled to support their deputation, while the masters, their families, and the Sixth Form were seated on the tiers of the orchestra. The deputation coming forward, Mr. Bell said that Mr. Hawthorn and himself had been requested by their fellow townsmen to undertake the presentation of an address, in explanation of which he would make a few remarks. In ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine

... smoke of incense ascends perpetually before the image; the temples are illuminated by numerous candles, chandeliers, tapers; troops of women, dressed in white, surround the image; and the most celebrated singers from the public theatres chant hymns to the accompaniment of the organ and a numerous orchestra. Enough has been said to enable the reader to perceive the strict analogy that exists between the worship of saints and true idolatry; but still, Spaniards have carried the personification of these fragile ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous

... had lost its charm, and the strains of music from the orchestra on the boat, fell on his ears in saddened tones. He walked the hurricane deck, and bent his gaze upon the distant river bends, as counting the dragging miles. At midnight the boat reached Skarrow. Dave Budlong, the old lawyer, was there to meet Shawn. Shawn grasped his hand and eagerly asked, ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis

... dinner, participated in by all the relatives and a great number of friends, was a huge success. An orchestra had been engaged for the occasion, and after the meal there was dancing by the young folks for several hours, both indoors and on the ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield

... with one exception, induced the occupants of the little gray house to share it with her. Soon afterward Mr. Stevens, Constance's foster-father, whose name she still bore and refused to change, had accepted a position as first violin in a symphony orchestra and had gone to fulfill his destiny in the world of music which he loved. Uncle John Roland and little Charlie, once puny and crippled, but now strong and rosy, had, with Constance, come into the lonely old woman's household at a time when ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... suited their several tastes. Some were seated in steamer chairs, well wrapped—for, though it was April, the salt air was chilly—some paced the deck, acquiring their sea legs; others listened to the orchestra in the music-room, or read or wrote in the library, and a few took to their berths—seasick from the slight heave of ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson

... placed. Scarcely any one was in sight of any other person, although they were so close together that all the time there was a hum of voices. In the distance, down by the river, a large gondola was passing slowly backwards and forwards, on which an orchestra played soft music. Julien and Madame Christophor crossed the narrow strip of lawn together and followed Monsieur Leon into the graveled ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... friends, in the evening, went to the theatre, drawn by the shouting populace; and the house was so crouded, that many hundred persons were unable to obtain admission. On their entrance, "Rule, Britannia!" was played in full orchestra; and the whole audience, respectfully standing up, instantly testified, by their unanimously loud and long continued plaudits, the happiness which they experienced at thus seeing among them the renowned Hero of the Nile. On returning, at midnight, his lordship ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison

... yet here seems a good place to say that he never learned either to play the piano or to sing. He had to trust the "details" to others. Yet at twenty he led an orchestra. Soon after he became conductor ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... The orchestra was playing a soft intermezzo, and of a sudden the lights went down in the house, hushed to silence as the curtain went slowly up upon ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace

... themselves along the two sides of the hall, the ladies to the right and the gentlemen to the left. Suddenly the folding-doors at the further end of the hall are flung open, and to the sound of the most inspiriting march that the conductor of the court orchestra, Edouard Strauss, can devise, the imperial cortege makes its appearance, preceded by Count Hunyadi, in his uniform of a cavalry general, and Prince Rudolph Leichtenstein, each armed with a wand of office. Since the disappearance of the empress from court life—a disappearance which ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

... since 1794. (It was the one torn down during the Restoration, on account of the murder of the Duke of Berry, who was killed on the threshold.) By means of a floor placed level with the stage over the orchestra and the pit, there was made a magnificent ball- room. Twenty-four chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and candelabra were set on each side of every box. The decorations consisted of silver gauze, and wreaths of flowers. ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... which they had been learning the last few weeks at morning prayers were sung now with a right good will to the accompaniment of the School orchestra. And then Miss Meredith, having read the beautiful Christmas story, explained the meaning of its message so clearly, so simply, and yet so earnestly, and with such a passionate longing that from York Hill there should indeed radiate "Peace and good will towards all ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett

... of bird song greeted my ear! How many choralists took part in the matutinal concert I cannot say, but there were scores of them. The volume of song would sometimes swell to a full-toned orchestra, and then for a few moments it would sink almost to a lull, all of it like the flow and ebb of the tides of a sea of melody. It was interesting to note how several voices would sometimes run into a chime when they struck ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

... mind to this, he was coming very near to the end of his walk, within the sound of the hammers at work on the refitting of the old house. The sound of tools to a clever workman who loves his work is like the tentative sounds of the orchestra to the violinist who has to bear his part in the overture: the strong fibres begin their accustomed thrill, and what was a moment before joy, vexation, or ambition, begins its change into energy. All passion becomes strength when it has an outlet from the narrow limits ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... such a degree, that slight sounds and feeble sparks of light convey to our souls an amount of pleasure which we seldom experience in the daytime from sights and sounds of the most pleasing description. Thus the player in an orchestra can enjoy such music only as would deafen common ears by its crash of sounds, in which they perceive no connection or harmony; while the simple rustic listens to the rude notes of a flageolet in the hands of a clown with feelings of ineffable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... women, red cheeks of boys, wrinkled faces of old women, whose ugliness seemed to have hidden in it, stirringly, all the beauty of youth and the tragedy of lives that had been lived; the faces of the people he passed moved him like rhythms of an orchestra. After much walking, turning always down the street which looked pleasantest, he came to an oval with a statue of a pompous personage on a ramping horse. "Place des Victoires," he read the name, which gave him a faint tinge of amusement. He looked ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos

... the operas, you don't know what you have lost; nay, nor I neither; for I was here, concluding that a serenata for a birthday would be -is dull and as vulgar as those festivities generally are: but I hear of nothing but the enchantment of it.(158) There was a second orchestra in the footman's gallery, disguised by clouds, and filled with the music of the King'S chapel. The choristers behaved like angels, and the harmony between the two bands was in the most exact time. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... draw a correct comparison between the different birds and the various instruments in an orchestra. It would be more easy to signify them by notes on the gamut. But if the Robin were supposed to represent the German flute, the Blue-Bird might be considered as the flageolet, frequently, but not incessantly, interposing a few mellow ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... of her surroundings: she lived blindly into this unreal world, without the least attempt at criticism. Afterwards, she returned to herself tired and dispirited, and with a marked distaste for the dullness of real life. Here, since the first lively clash of the orchestra, since the curtain rose on gay Sevilla, she had been as far away from him as if she were on another planet. Not, he was obliged to confess to himself, that it made very much difference. Though he ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... Richardson and Co., When looking at their public private boxes, To see in the back row Three live sheep's heads, a porker's, and an Ox's! Think of their Orchestra, when two horns come Through, to accompany the ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... the shadows. Venetian gothic sins by meaningless ornamentation. St. Mark's Church may be precious archaeologically, but is not aesthetically precious. Of Wagner's music he admires nothing but the skilful specialization of the instruments in the orchestra. ...
— Memories and Studies • William James

... instruments are provided with a tuning slide and their pitch can be lowered somewhat, but rarely as much as a half-step, while the clarinet should not be varied from its fixed pitch if it can be avoided. It is desirable, then, that all pianos used with orchestra should be tuned to ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer

... grumpy old gentleman in the crowded restaurant was compelled to sit, much against his will, next to the orchestra. His stare at the leader as the jazz selection came to an end. The annoyed patron snorted, ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous

... handsome appearance, and his immaculate linen opened to him the best houses of the city, and he became a great favorite in society. At lectures he was seldom seen, but more frequently in the theatres, where he used to come in during the middle of the first act, take his station in front of the orchestra box, and eye, through his lorgnette, by turns, the actresses and ...
— A Good-For-Nothing - 1876 • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... name, to use Carlyle's phrase, is "significant of much." In the history of the art his position is of the first importance. He was the father of instrumental music. He laid the foundations of the modern symphony and sonata, and established the basis of the modern orchestra. Without him, artistically speaking, Beethoven would have been impossible. He seems to us now a figure of a very remote past, so great have been the changes in the world of music since he lived. But his name ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden

... intruding kept her silent. The lure of the fray, however, was too strong for her wholly to resist it. Almost unconsciously, she had risen from her place and drifted down the aisle so as to be nearer the white-hot centre of things. She was now standing in the lighted space by the orchestra-pit, and her presence attracted the roving attention of Miss Hobson, who, having concluded her remarks on authors and their legitimate sphere of activity, was looking about for ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... remembered." (He was so used to reading interviews with himself in popular weeklies that he had caught the formalistic phraseology, and he was ready apparently to mistake even his cousin for an interviewer. But I liked him.) "And I could get rather classy effects out of an orchestra. And so I kept on. I didn't try to be Wagner. I just stuck to Sullivan Smith. And, my boy, let me tell you it's only five years since 'The Japanese Cat' was produced, and I'm only twenty-seven, my boy! And now, who is there that doesn't know me?" He put ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett

... Him, but felt the perfect unison of my spirit with His. The ordinary sense of things around me faded. For the moment nothing but an ineffable joy and exultation remained. It is impossible fully to describe the experience. It was like the effect of some great orchestra when all the separate notes have melted into one swelling harmony that leaves the listener conscious of nothing save that his soul is being wafted upwards, and almost bursting with its own emotion. The perfect stillness of the night was thrilled by a more solemn silence. The darkness ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... devoted to the queen, was allowed to throb for her; where glances could be exchanged and understood, and where it was permitted to whisper, 'It is her birthday to-day! Heaven bless her!' Every seat was occupied in the galleries as well as in the dress-circle, in the orchestra stalls as well as in the pit, everywhere reigned the same joyous commotion. Only in the boxes of the French, faces were seen that cast an angry and hostile expression on that audience.—The curtain rose, and the ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... and to be loved by them, I should put great golden feathers on my helmet, I should use rhetorical expressions, spout monologues in public, organize wide cavalry charges at reviews, and move through life generally to the crashing of an orchestra. For by doing this even a vulgar, short, and diseased man, who dabbled in stocks and shares and was led by financiers, could become a hero, and do his ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... (unnecessarily) of you at the theatre yesterday evening when, immediately after the hateful stage-warning at my dressing-room door of "Overture on, ma'am!" (the summons to the actors who are to begin a piece), I heard the orchestra break forth into your favorite strain of "Sad and fearful was ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... where the voracity of some of the visitors almost occasioned a chopping off the fingers of their neighbours; but the cloth once removed, and 'Non nobis Domine' sung by professional Gentlemen, had the effect of calling the attention of the company to harmony. The Band in the orchestra played, 'O give me Death or Liberty'—'Erin go brach'—'Britons strike home'—and 'Whilst happy in my native Land.' The Singers introduced 'Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled'—'Peruvians wake to Glory'—and the 'Tyrolese Hymn.' But the spirit ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... only say thank God for it.' But he was wrong. He had scarcely said it when that indomitable heavy gun of theirs, re-supplied with gunners, began again; again the Naval guns, on a tested range, crack their shrapnel right in its face; the batteries all open and soon the whole orchestra is thundering again. That dreadful muttering, the 'rub-a-dub, a-dub-a-dub, a-dub-a-dub' (say it as fast as you can) of the rifles keeps on; through all the noise of fire, the sharp, quick bark of the Boer Maxim-Nordenfelt sounds ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps

... there was not even available standing space. The majority of the women were in black—the prevailing color in these days. The only touches of brightness and light were in the uniforms of the officers liberally sprinkled through the orchestra and boxes. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... atmosphere. I am engineering this scheme with one hand, the Town Improvement League with another, and 'The Opp Eagle' with another. Then, in a minor kind of way, I am a active Odd Fellow, first cornetist in the Unique Orchestra, and a director in the bank. And beside," Mr. Opp concluded with some coyness, "there is the natural personal social diversions that most ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice

... splendid banquet was to take place there in honor of the celebration. All the functionaries of Innspruck had been invited; a brilliant ball was to be given at night in the large throne-hall, and the beautiful girls of Innspruck were to dance to the inspiring notes of the orchestra in honor of the festive day. For the first time Andreas Hofer had permitted music and dancing, and all the beautiful girls of Innspruck were preparing to take part in the brilliant festival and enjoy the ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach

... little airy musician doffs his night gear, and prepares to tune up his unseasonable matins, we are not naturalists enough to determine. But for a mere human gentleman—that has no orchestra business to call him from his warm bed to such preposterous exercise—we take ten, or half after ten (eleven, of course, during this Christmas solstice), to be the very earliest hour at which he can begin to think of abandoning ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various

... a festal appearance for the occasion. Rows of Japanese lanterns were strung from side to side against the white background of awning and deckhouse, and the flags of many nations lent their gay colours to the pretty scene. The ship's orchestra was in its element, playing with a "go" and rhythm which seemed caught from the pulsing movement ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller

... anything appreciable about the work. Thousands of women have done it, and are still doing it. I never went as personal maid—I dislike familiarity—but with that exception I played, so to speak, every instrument in the orchestra. ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain

... Above all was a profane representation of that Being, whom I dare scarcely allude to, in conjunction with such preposterous vanities, encircled with saints, angels, and clouds; the whole got up very like a scene in a pantomime, and accompanied by music from a concealed orchestra, which was intended, I believe, to be sacred music, but sounded to me like some of Rossini's airs. In front of the stage there was a narrow passage divided off, admitting one person at a time, through which a continued file of persons moved along, who threw down their contributions ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson

... had told her of the note left by Basil Ransom in the afternoon. She drew Verena into her room with her. The girl, on the way back to Tenth Street, had spoken only of Wagner's music, of the singers, the orchestra, the immensity of the house, her tremendous pleasure. Olive could see how fond she might become of New York, where that kind of pleasure was so much more ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James

... whether it was the paper, or the strong, motionless hand, or the introspective face, he was afterwards unaware. But he heard all the quiet roar of the London evening, and was able to distinguish even the note of each instrument that helped to make up that untiring, inconclusive orchestra. Far away to the northwards sounded a great thoroughfare, the rolling of wheels, a myriad hoofs, the pulse of motor vehicles, and the cries of street boys; upon all these his attention dwelt as they came up through the outward windows into that dead silent, lamp-lit room of which ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson

... the orchestra tuning for the overture, and shivered. She felt much more like a victim waiting her turn to be thrown to the lions than a young woman about to make her debut as a "headliner." To herself she kept repeating under her breath, "Tomorrow they will be comfortable again." She did not know ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... the same opinion, for she refused to smile upon me from the very first step I took in the career, and in less than a week I did not possess a groat. What was to become of me? One must live, and I turned fiddler. Doctor Gozzi had taught me well enough to enable me to scrape on the violin in the orchestra of a theatre, and having mentioned my wishes to M. Grimani he procured me an engagement at his own theatre of Saint Samuel, where I earned a crown a day, and supported myself ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... and friends arrived at the foot of the mound, and at a certain moment, as if the leader of an orchestra were leading a funeral chant, there arose a great wail of tears, sighs, and sobs. They lamented the deceased with a plaintive rhythm and doleful cadence. The kinsmen beat their heads; the kinswomen tore their ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... so thoroughly water-soaked, that it was impossible any part of the exhibition should be made. "This is a mere excuse, (says the Doctor,) to save their crackers for a more profitable company. Let us but hold up our sticks, and threaten to break those coloured lamps that surround the Orchestra, and we shall soon have our wishes gratified. The core of the fireworks cannot be injured; let the different pieces be touched in their respective centers, and they will do their offices as well ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... its completeness. The southern aisle contains the main collection of pictures by ancient, foreign masters; while the opposite aisle is filled with the works of the British school. The transept, being chiefly given up to arrangements for an orchestra, contains below little but a collection of busts, but its galleries are occupied with the collection of miniatures, a most admirable and extensive historical series of engravings, a large number of photographs, and a very precious collection of original drawings ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various



Words linked to "Orchestra" :   musical group, symphony orchestra, musical organization, seats, orchestral, house, dance orchestra, seating, philharmonic, orchestrate, symphony, seating area, theatre, section



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