"Virtuoso" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hands, based on Hans Christian Andersen's lore. Two concertos for piano and orchestra are dazzling feats of virtuosity; one of them is reviewed at length in A.J. Goodrich' book, "Musical Analysis." He has written also a book of artistic moment called "Twelve Virtuoso-Studies," and two books of actual gymnastics ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... because what I have to write may turn sometimes upon the company we see: for which reason, I shall also just mention Sir George Stuart, a Scottish gentleman, with whom Mr. B. became acquainted in his travels, who seems to be a polite (and Mr. B. says, is a learned) man, and a virtuoso: he, and a nephew of his, of the same name, a bashful gentleman, and who, for that reason, I imagine, has a merit that lies deeper than a first observation can reach, are just gone from us, and were received with so much civility by Mr. B. as entitles ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... a musical atmosphere. A picturesque, old German virtuoso is the reverent possessor of a genuine "Cremona." He consents to take for his pupil a handsome youth who proves to have an aptitude for technique, but not the soul of an artist. The youth has led the happy, careless life of a modern, well-to-do ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... the son of a butcher, born November 9th, 1721, in Newcastle-on-Tyne, whence Eldon and Stowell also sprang. He attracted great attention by an early poem, 'The Virtuoso.' The citizens of that commercial town have always appreciated their great men and valued intellectual distinction, and its Dissenters sent him at their own expense to Edinburgh to study for the Presbyterian ministry. A year later he gave up theology for ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... virtuoso astonished the court by his brilliant talents. The future Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, was particularly delighted with him, and the little Mozart naively said he would like to marry her, for she was so good to him. His father devoted several years to an artistic ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... animated exhortation from the press, in an age when the nobility and gentry began to read and to reflect, he knew would do more. A proper person for the purpose therefore was sought and found; a man of family, fortune, and learning; an experienced planter; a virtuoso, and not a little of an enthusiast in his own walk. Such was Mr. Evelyn: and to this occasion we are indebted for the Sylva, which has therefore a title to be regarded as a national work... It sounded ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... now like an obstinate virtuoso, persisted in his musical exercises, which were truly somewhat monotonous, until the sky was brightened by the placid smile of dawn. At the very first rays of the sun the performer relented, doubtless content with the perfection of his artistic ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... even sympathize with their fancy. But a true original style is never achieved for its own sake: a man may pay from a shilling to a guinea, according to his means, to see, hear, or read another man's act of genius; but he will not pay with his whole life and soul to become a mere virtuoso in literature, exhibiting an accomplishment which will not even make money for him, like fiddle playing. Effectiveness of assertion is the Alpha and Omega of style. He who has nothing to assert has no style and can have none: he who ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... lower end of the table sat the two Vendas, the two Grauns, and Quantz, the powerful and much-feared virtuoso of the flute and instructor of the prince royal, whose rudeness was almost imposing, and before whom the prince himself was somewhat shy. But to-day even Quantz was quiet and tractable. His countenance wore the half-pleased, half-grumbling expression of a bull-dog when stroked by a soft and tender ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... to study theology with a view to becoming a minister, his expenses being paid from a special fund set aside by the dissenting community for the education of their pastors. He had already contributed "The Virtuoso, in imitation of Spenser's style and stanza'' (1737) to the Gentleman's Magazine, and in 1738 "A British Phillipic, occasioned by the Insults of the Spaniards, and the present Preparations for War'' (also published separately). ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... "My taste for natural history," he says, "and more especially for collecting, was well developed. I tried to make out the names of plants, and collected all sorts of things—shells, seals, franks, coins, and minerals. The passion for collecting which leads a man to be a systematic naturalist, a virtuoso, or a miser, was very strong in me, and was clearly innate, as none of my sisters and brothers ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... assumed all the airs of a virtuoso. When I had finished my tune I removed my whistle deliberately and ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... life at Brook Farm had proved as barren as the years on Long Wharf. He had contributed one story, "A Virtuoso's Collection," to "The Boston Miscellany" for May, 1842, and had added one more to his little books, "Biographical Stories [Footnote: Biographical Stories for Children. Benjamin West, Sir Isaac Newton, Samuel Johnson, Oliver Cromwell, Benjamin Franklin, ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... excellent[18]. But the irreconcilable difference in their taste soon after broke out in less seemly terms; for Shadwell permitted himself to use some very irreverent expressions towards Dryden's play of "Aureng-Zebe," in the Prologue and Epilogue to his comedy of the "Virtuoso;" and in the Preface to the same piece he plainly intimated, that he wanted nothing but a pension to enable him to write as well as the poet-laureate.[19] This attack was the more intolerable, as Dryden, in the Preface to that very play of "Aureng-Zebe," probably ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... lot fell upon Schaunard, who was an excellent virtuoso, but a very bad ambassador. He arrived, too, at the bar just as the landlord had lost his third game. Momus was in a fearful bad humor, and, at Schaunard's first words, broke out into a violent rage. Schaunard was a good musician, but ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... After dinner at home to my office, and there till late doing business, being very well pleased with Mr. Cutler's coming to me about some business, and among other things tells me that they value me as a man of business, which he accounts the best virtuoso, and I know his thinking me so, and speaking where he comes, may be of good use to me. Home to supper, and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... are based upon popular themes and, in general, may be considered as virtuoso pieces to show off the agility of the performer. We find occasional examples, as in the Clarinet Quintette and in the Sonata in D major, which ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... become the special occupations of separate individuals are carried on itinerantly. The great founders of religion, the earliest poets and philosophers, the musicians and actors of past epochs, are all great wanderers. Even today, do not the inventor, the preacher of a new doctrine, and the virtuoso travel from place to place in search of adherents and admirers—notwithstanding the immense recent development in the means of ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... strike down flying game unerringly; tame the wildest steed, and ride 120 miles in a day. Twenty-two nations obeyed him, and he could speak the dialect of each. A veneer of Greek refinement was spread thinly over the savage animalism of the man. [Sidenote: Pseudo-civilisation of his court.] He was a virtuoso, and had a wonderful collection of rings. He maintained Greek poets and historians, and offered prizes for singing. He had shrewdness enough to employ Greek generals, but not enough to keep ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... agitation. 'I will not be murdered!' he shrieked aloud; 'what for will I lose my precious throat?' 'What for?' said I; 'if for no other reason, for this—that you put alum into your bread. But no matter, alum or no alum, (for I was resolved to forestall any argument on that point,) know that I am a virtuoso in the art of murder—am desirous of improving myself in its details—and am enamored of your vast surface of throat, to which I am determined to be a customer.' 'Is it so?' said he, 'but I'll find you custom in another line;' and so saying, he threw himself into ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... cloak and was holding it unconsciously against his immaculate shirt. It was the sentimental act of a virtuoso in the art of pleasing women—who are so easily pleased. At the moment he had achieved forgetfulness of boudoir trickery and so retained almost all his usual assumption of dignity. Even Joan, with her quick eye for the ridiculous, failed to detect the bathos of his attitude, and merely thought ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... Dwight, born, in Boston, May 13, 1813, was a virtuoso in music, and an enthusiastic student of the art and science of tonal harmony. He joined a Harvard musical club known as "The Pierian Sodality" while a student at the University, and after his graduation became a prolific writer on musical subjects. ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... satisfied with some of his foreign investments; and Sir Joseph's "dear Richard" was the very man to give him a little sound advice. The three laid their heads together in a corner. Launce (watching them) slyly pressed Natalie's hand. A renowned "virtuoso" had arrived, and was thundering on the piano. The attention of the guests generally was absorbed in the performance. A fairer chance of sending Launce for the fan could not possibly have offered itself. While ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... for a small advance over the sum for which it had been pawned. It lay exposed for purchase on Fox's shelf for some months, until, in December, 1895, a tailor named James Dooly visited the shop to redeem a silver watch. Being, at the same time, in funds, and able to satisfy his taste as a virtuoso, he felt the need of and bought a violin for ten dollars, but, Fox urging upon him the desirability of getting a good one while he was about it, was finally persuaded to purchase the Bott violin ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... of Luther and Erasmus." He took out his pipe and began to fill it as he talked. "There was Erasmus, a man of reason if ever there was one. People listened to him at first—a new virtuoso performing on that elegant and resourceful instrument, the intellect; they even admired and venerated him. But did he move them to behave as he wanted them to behave—reasonably, decently, or at least a little less ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... violoncxelo. Violoncellist violoncxelisto. Viper vipero. Virago (fig.) drakino. Virgin virgulino. Virginal virga. Virginity virgeco. Virgin, The Blessed La Sankta Virgulino, Dipatrino. Virile vira. Virility vireco. Virtue virto. Virtuous virta. Virtuoso virtuozo. Virulent venena, malboniga. Virus veneno. Visage vizagxo. Vis-a-vis kontrauxulo. Viscera internajxo. Viscuous gluanta. Visible videbla. Visibly videble. Vision (sense) vido. Vision (apparition) aperajxo. Visit viziti. Visiting-card ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... known. It was a partial imitation of the Dunciad written by Richard Owen Cambridge, a scholar and man of fortune, who, in his residence at Twickenham, surrounded by friends of congenial tastes, enjoyed a life of literary ease. The Scribleriad is an attack on pseudo-science, the hero being a virtuoso of the most Quixotic kind, who travels far to discover rarities, loves a lady with the plica Polonica, waits three years at Naples to see the eruption of Vesuvius; and plays all kinds of fantastic tricks, as if in continual ridicule of The Philosophical Transactions, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... and various; it makes justice deaf as well as blind, and takes out spots of the deepest treason more cleverly than castle-soap does common stains; it alters a man's constitution in two or three days, more than the virtuoso's transfusion of blood can do in seven years. 'Tis a great alexiopharmick, and helps poisonous principles of rebellion, and those that use them. It miraculously exalts and purifies the eyesight, and makes traitors behold nothing ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... in his Cincinnati experience, the virtuoso knew when he had enough. Strakosch's later associates were his brothers, Ferdinand and Max. The former was the European agent for the firm, and the latter what might be termed the acting house man in the United States, especially during the later ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... of his publisher, undertaken to superintend a new edition of the Plays of Shakespeare, is particularly desirous of inspecting the first folio edition. This is probably very scarce, and may be found only in the cabinet of some distant virtuoso. But the owner of this rare book will be very gratefully thanked if the editor can have permission to consult it for a short season." Later on (April 14, p. 119) Dennie confesses some further "wants:" "During some weeks in which the editor has been engaged in researches ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... one of Horace Walpole's letters in which that virtuoso expresses his regret, after a visit to the ancestral "hotels" of Paris, whose contents had afforded him such intense gratification, that the nobility of England, like that of France, had not concentrated ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... which I was afforded of this gentleman did not lessen my interest in him; increased it rather; it also served to make the extraordinary didoes of which he had been the virtuoso and I the audience more than ever profoundly inexplicable. My glimpse of him in the lighted doorway had given me the vaguest impression of his appearance, but one afternoon—a few days after my interview with Miss Apperthwaite—I ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington
... who imagined himself a violin virtuoso, and fiddled all day long, varying his performance by pausing to pass around the hat for pennies, of which he had accumulated, it was said, ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... societies at Bergen. In 1829 he went to Cassel, on a visit to Spohr, who gave him no encouragement. He now began to study law, but on going to Paris he came under the influence of Paganini, and definitely adopted the career of a violin virtuoso. He made his first appearance in company with Ernst and Chopin at a concert of his own in Paris in 1832. Successful tours in Italy and England followed soon afterwards, and he was not long in obtaining European celebrity by his brilliant playing of his ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... deficient in its shadings and minor attractions, it is adapted only for concerts and chamber music." This dissertation closes as follows: "In order to judge a virtuoso, one must listen to him while at the clavichord, not while at the ...
— How the Piano Came to Be • Ellye Howell Glover
... with fantastic pruning-hook, Dresses the borders of his book, Merely to ornament its look— Amongst philosophers a fop is: What if, perchance, he thence discover Facilities in turning over, The virtuoso is a lover Of coyer ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... St. Dennis, (says the virtuoso Gregoire,) where the National Club justly struck at the tyrants even in their tombs, that of Turenne ought to have been spared; yet strokes of the sword are still visible on it."—He likewise complains, that at ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... Savelli, the self-willed, temperamental daughter of an Italian violin virtuoso, furnished much of the interest of the book. The efforts of Grace and her chums to create in this girl a healthy, wholesome enjoyment for High School life, and her repudiation of their friendship, and subsequent attempts to revenge herself ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... oil-painting and to seem to prefer his drawings and pastels to his pictures. We have seen that he was a supremely able technician in his pot-boiling days and that the color and handling of his early pictures were greatly admired by so brilliant a virtuoso as Diaz. But this "flowery manner" would not lend itself to the expression of his new aims and he had to invent another. He did so stumblingly at first, and the earliest pictures of his grand style have a certain harshness and ruggedness of surface and heaviness of color which his critics could ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... to know, I'm an architect on a holiday, and I'm sketching any old thing I come across. I don't pretend to be a painter, my youthful virtuoso, and that's why I go wrong sometimes on colour. Do you know what ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... be immense; at least, so they said. The Little 'Un himself fairly chuckled with glee at the prospects of being an amateur virtuoso of the fiddle, even for one night only. The remainder of the programme was quickly made up. One or two brief sketches and a rather rough and tumble arrangement for the close, which the enterprising ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... past and gone; and Signor Fortini lived only for his law and his artistic and antiquarian collections. He was like many of his peers in the provincial cities of the Papal dominions—a great antiquary and virtuoso. Antiquarianism is a "safe" pursuit under a government the nature of which makes and finds very many intellectual occupations unsafe. And this may account for the fact, that very many competent historical antiquaries and collectors ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... derives from contact with nature and emotion. If we ask what equipment he had for his task, we answer: enthusiasm, so deep, so tempered in all its qualities, that, though in a few years he became the ablest performer of his time upon the harpsichord and organ, yet never once is the term "virtuoso" associated in our thought with the purity of aspiration which characterized him. His enthusiasm was religious, deep-seated, his vision far and wide, and no temporary triumph, no sunlit cloud of fame, could satisfy the imperative ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... connoisseur of Painting this enlightened virtuoso is given over to Hogarth's hated ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... studies that vague touch of romance which made them a delight, and him an adept in many things he might otherwise have cared little about. At eighteen he was a graduate from the Sorbonne, and a musical virtuoso as well. He could fence, ride, and carry off the prize in games requiring physical prowess as well as mental fitness. He was, in fact, a prodigy in many ways, and was so considered by his fellow-students. He, however, was not perfect; he lacked social charm, and in so far ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... afford all aid and help to the young artist Bocklet from Prague. He is the bearer of this note, and a virtuoso on the violin. We hope that our command will be obeyed, especially as we subscribe ourselves, with the ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... tastes leaned toward the marvellous and the monstrous, and I have heard that his experiments in the direction of the unknown have passed all the bounds of civilization and of decorum. To his English friends he never alluded to such matters, and took the tone of the student and virtuoso; but a Frenchman whose tastes were of the same nature has assured me that the worst excesses of the black mass have been perpetrated in that large and lofty hall, which is lined with the shelves of his books, and ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had been built by the last proprietor, Northmour's uncle, a silly and prodigal virtuoso—presented little signs of age. It was two stories in height, Italian in design, surrounded by a patch of garden in which nothing had prospered but a few coarse flowers, and looked, with its shuttered windows, not like a house that had been deserted, but ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... prominently as in the old days, but they were now blended and arranged with a sense of tint and grouping, too often neglected by the dim grocers of those forgotten days. The wares were shown plainly, but shown not so much as an old grocer would have shown his stock, but rather as an educated virtuoso would have shown his treasures. The tea was stored in great blue and green vases, inscribed with the nine indispensable sayings of the wise men of China. Other vases of a confused orange and purple, less rigid ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... keep the peace by Fielding, and knew Cagliostro. The friend of popes and kings and noblemen, and of all the male and female ruffians and vagabonds of Europe, abbe, soldier, charlatan, gamester, financier, diplomatist, viveur, philosopher, virtuoso, "chemist, fiddler, and buffoon," each of these, and all of these was Giacomo Casanova, Chevalier de Seingalt, Knight of ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... visibly angry the other morning when I took to her the early mail and she discovered that Mrs. Van Varick Shadd had got ahead of her in the matter of Jockobinski, the monkey virtuoso. Society had been very much interested in the reported arrival in America of this wonderfully talented simian who could play the violin as well as Ysaye, and who as a performer on the piano was vastly the superior of Paderewski, because, taken in his infancy and specially trained ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... direction of the drawing room. It was sweet and tender, graceful and expressive, according to the character of the variations; and, when the last variation began with a crispness and delicacy that made me wonder what great virtuoso was at my pianoforte without my knowing it, I hurried to the drawing room and, entering it—found my fourteen year old daughter seated at a pianola. The instrument had arrived only a short time before from the house of a friend who had gone South for ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... a very Sensible Mouth; he thought nothing too-good for himself, all his Care was for his Belly; and his Palate was so exquisite, that it was the perfect Standard of Tasting. So that to him we owe all that is elegant in Eating: For Pudding was not his only Talent, he was a great Virtuoso in all manner of Eatables; and tho' he might come short of Lambert for Confectionary-Niceties, yet was he not inferiour to Brawnd, Lebec, Pede, or any other great Masters of Cookery; he could toss up a Fricassee as well as a Pancake: And most of the Kickshaws now in ...
— A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (1726) • Anonymous
... antiquarian hoax played off on a learned brother, of the same class as "Bill Stumps, his mark." He had an old inscription engraved on an unused bit of pewter—it was well begrimed and well battered, then exposed for sale in a broker's shop, where it was greedily purchased by the credulous virtuoso. The notion, by the way, of the Club button was taken from the Prince Regent, who had his Club and uniform, which he allowed favourites ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... singers, my mother being gifted musically quite out of the common, and active for many years not only as a dramatic singer, but also as a harp virtuoso, I, with my sister Marie, received a very careful musical education; and later a notable course of instruction in singing from her. From my fifth year on I listened daily to singing lessons; from my ninth year I played accompaniments on the pianoforte, ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... pretty, she strummed her guitar and sang, rolling her eyes fiercely, like a virtuoso executing feats of difficulty. She lowered her head, stuck her chin into her neck, in order to draw deeper notes from the furthermost recesses of her body; and succeeded in bringing forth a great hoarse voice,—a voice that might have belonged to an aged frog, a ventriloquist's voice, ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... call him brother, but Mr. Peter; and then he must be styled Father Peter, and sometimes My Lord Peter. To support this grandeur, which he soon began to consider could not be maintained without a better fonde than what he was born to, after much thought he cast about at last to turn projector and virtuoso, wherein he so well succeeded, that many famous discoveries, projects, and machines which bear great vogue and practice at present in the world, are owing entirely to Lord Peter's invention. I will deduce the best account I have been able to collect of the ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... going to sing; Fiovaranti, who, by his talents as a virtuoso, his perfect method, his melodious voice, provoked a real enthusiasm among the lovers of music in ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... hands and clasped them to her bosom, "Oh, dear Baroness! darling Seraphina! now you must sing too." To this she replied, "Whatever are you thinking about, Adelheid? How could I dream of letting our virtuoso friend hear such poor singing as mine?" And she looked so lovely, as, like a shy good child, she cast down her eyes and blushed, timidly contending with the desire to sing. That I too added my entreaties can easily be imagined; nor, upon her making mention of some little ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... virtuoso's sense At that part of my prospect take offence, By which the meaner cabanes are descried Of my imperial river's humbler side; If they call that a blemish, let them know, God and my godlike mistress think not so; For the ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... to my daughter and my nieces. Of the other marvels of this city, paintings, antiquities, &c., excepting the tombs of the Scaliger princes, I have no pretensions to judge. The gothic monuments of the Scaligers pleased me, but 'a poor virtuoso ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... of a virtuoso. That was really clever of you. The Duchess d'Izes sent him to mother two years ago. You must speak to him. I 'm afraid he feels he is not ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... virtuoso, author of "Anastasius, or the Memoirs of a Modern Greek," which Byron was proud to have fathered on him, and of a posthumous essay on the "Origin and Prospects of Man," was famous as having suggested to Carlyle one of the most significant things he ever wrote, while he ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... are now selling no less than three of the principal collections, the Barberini, the Sacchetti, and Ottoboni: the latter belonged to the cardinal who died in the conclave. I must give you an instance of his generosity, or rather ostentation. When Lord Carlisle was here last year, who is a great virtuoso, he asked leave to see the cardinal's collection of cameos and intaglios. Ottoboni gave leave, and ordered the person who showed them to observe which my lord admired most. My lord admired many: they were all sent him the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... really no difficulty in perceiving all this at every step. This ability to recognize possible savings of impulse may be brought to a certain virtuosity. Gilbreth, one of the leaders of the new movement, seems to be such a virtuoso. When he was in London, there was pointed out to him in the Japanese British Exhibition a young girl who worked so quickly that there at least he would find a rhythm of finger movement which could not any further be ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... thence to a private academy kept by Mr. Wilson, a Dissenting minister of the place. He began rather early to display a taste for poetry and verse-writing; and, in April 1737, we find in the Gentleman's Magazine a set of stanzas, entitled, "The Virtuoso, in imitation of Spenser's style and stanza," prefaced by a letter signed Marcus, in which the author, while requesting the insertion of his piece, pleads the apology of his extreme youth. One may see something of the future political zeal of the man in the boy's selection of one of the names ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... virtuoso; really a comical and strange character, and has oddities enough to compensate one for the debasement of talking with ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... walked to that city from Hamburg once a week—a distance for the round trip of 316 miles. In 1887 he went to Berlin and became fourth cornetist of the Philharmonic Orchestra and valet to Dr. Schweinsrippen, the conductor. In Berlin he studied violin and second violin under the Polish virtuoso, Pbyschbrweski, and also had lessons in composition from Wilhelm Geigenheimer, formerly third triangle and assistant ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... modern. Before all else he is a master of his instrument, an inventor of new effects and movements of the lyre; in his hands the entire rhythmical system was renewed or was purified. His dexterity in various metres was that of a great virtuoso, and it was not the mere dexterity which conquers difficulties, it was a skill inspired and sustained by the sentiment ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... work for dramatic effects," murmured Burns. "Here we go—and I'll wager it'll be something particularly telling, judging by the way they both look keyed up to it. Ellen plays like a virtuoso herself to-night, ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... with Guy. A Parisian Castilian, more Parisian than Spanish, he spoke with exquisite finish the classic tongue, and with the free-and-easy manner of a frequenter of the boulevards, chatted in the slang of the pavement or of the greenroom; he was an eminent virtuoso and collector, an author when the desire seized him, but only in his own interest, liberal in his opinions, lavish in his disposition, attractive in his manners; an eager traveller, he had, at thirty years of age, seen all that was to be seen, he had visited India and Japan, ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... kinder to us than we dreamed. The mouth-organ then remained the sole music machine in all that immense area. I did not feel equal to the position of organist but Steward boldly took up the study, and practised so faithfully that he became a real virtuoso. ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... parts are finished. The text is a large lower-case gothic letter, very nearly a quarter of an inch in height. The ornamental or border illuminations have more grace and beauty than the subjects represented; although, to the eye of an antiquarian virtuoso, the representations of the unfortunate monarch will be ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... sum and totality, and the world-decree is that he is an artist, and an admirable one. He plays upon his instrument with all power and grace. But he is no mere virtuoso. There is something in him beyond the executant. Of Malibran, Alfred de Musset says, most beautifully, that she had that "voice of the heart which alone has power to reach the heart." Here, also, behind the skilful player on language, the deft manipulator of rhyme and rhythm, the graceful ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... pieces, the author limits himself only by the range of the virtuoso, which by definition far transcends the modesty of nature. If my Russians seem more Muscovite than any Russian, and my English people more insular than any Briton, I will not plead, as I honestly might, that the fiction ...
— Great Catherine • George Bernard Shaw
... considered the first pianist of the day, and played for him. Kalkbrenner remarked he had the style of Cramer and the touch of Field. He proposed that Chopin should study three years with him, and he would then become a great virtuoso. Of course the young artist might have learned something-on the mechanical side, but at the risk of injuring the originality and style of his playing. His old friend and teacher Elsner, ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... concerto is going out of fashion. The only sort of concerto destined to keep our favor is, I imagine, that of the Schumann or Brahms type, which depends for its effect not at all on display, but on sound musicianship alone. The virtuoso is destined soon to leave the circus business and bid a long farewell to his late colleagues, the sword-swallower, the trapeze artist, the strong man, the fat lady, the contortionist, and the gentleman ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... concerto—the slow movement is Constance Gladowska musically idealized—the Krakowiak and an improvisation. The affair was a success. From these concerts he cleared six hundred dollars, not a small sum in those days for an unknown virtuoso. A sonnet was printed in his honor, champagne was offered him by an enthusiastic Paris bred, but not born, pianist named Dunst, who for this act will live in all chronicles of piano playing. Worse still, Orlowski served up the themes ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... year the celebrated violin virtuoso, Camilla Urso, came to San Francisco on a tour. The Mechanics Pavilion then stood on the square of Stockton and Powell, Geary and Post streets, and numerous entertainments were given there. The ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... story in a musical atmosphere. A picturesque, old German virtuoso consents to take for his pupil a handsome youth who proves to have an aptitude for technique, but not the soul of an artist. The youth cannot express the love, the passion and the tragedies of life as can the master. But a girl comes into his life, and through ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... threw open the door of a small cabinet, where were disposed in artistic patterns various weapons of offence and defence,—for he was a virtuoso in his way, and by the side of the implements of the art of healing had pleased himself with displaying a collection of those other instruments, the use of which renders the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... please: Beat not the dirty paths where vulgar feet have trod, But give the vigorous fancy room. For when, like stupid alchymists, you try To fix this nimble god, This volatile mercury, The subtile spirit all flies up in fume; Nor shall the bubbled virtuoso find More than fade insipid mixture left behind.[6] While thus I write, vast shoals of critics come, And on my verse pronounce their saucy doom; The Muse like some bright country virgin shows Fallen by mishap among a knot of beaux; They, in their lewd and fashionable prate, Rally her dress, ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... the speaker is a soulless VIRTUOSO— a natural product of a proud, arrogant, and exclusive aristocracy, on the one hand, and on the other, of an old and effete city, like Ferrara, where art, rather than ministering to soul-life and true manliness of character, has become an end to itself— is ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... merely a man of the inferior class, held up the trophy which hung at his girdle to the examination of his chief. Metacom looked at the disgusting object with the calmness and nearly with the interest, that a virtuoso would lavish on an antique memorial of some triumph of former ages. His finger was thrust through a hole in the skin, and then, while he resumed his former ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... Palatine Anthology. It was a favourite device, for example, to cast a criticism or eulogy of an author or artist into the form of an imaginary epitaph; and this was often actually inscribed on a monument, or beneath a bust, in the galleries or gardens of a wealthy /virtuoso/. Thus the sepulchral epigrams include inscriptions of this sort of many of the most distinguished names of Greek literature. They are mainly on poets and philosophers; Homer and Hesiod, the great tragedians and comedians, the long roll of the lyric poets, most frequently among ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... having survived his only son ten years; and, having no heir to his treasures, he had previously conveyed them, by deed of gift, to Elias Ashmole, who seems to have contrived to make himself agreeable to him by his pursuits as a virtuoso, and by his alchemical and astrological fancies. When Dr. Hamel was in England, I had the pleasure of indicating to him the site of "Tradescant's Ark" in South Lambeth. It was situate on the east side of the road leading from Vauxhall to Stockwell, nearly opposite ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 81, May 17, 1851 • Various
... of Caracalla, and the other famous sights of successive ages. On Roman habits and pastimes and the gullibility of the English cognoscente he speaks with more spice of authority. Upon the whole he is decidedly modest about his virtuoso vein, and when we reflect upon the way in which standards change and idols are shifted from one pedestal to another, it seems a pity that such modesty has not more votaries. In Smollett's time we must remember that ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... favourable to the more brilliant display of his own skill, and the Romans, who were pleased with it, showed here also that they had a higher relish for the disproportionate and prominent talents of a virtuoso, than for the harmonious impression of a work of art considered as ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... The Rambler, No. 83, a character of a virtuoso is given which in many ways suits Walpole:—'It is never without grief that I find a man capable of ratiocination or invention enlisting himself in this secondary class of learning; for when he has once discovered a method of gratifying his desire of eminence by expense rather than by ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... a civilised Cherokee with a mission; now a female elocutionist, whose forte was Byron's Songs of Greece; now a high caste Chinaman; now a miniature painter; now a tenor, a pianiste, a mandolin player, a missionary, a drawing master, a virtuoso, a collector, an Armenian, a botanist with a new flower, a critic with a new theory, a doctor with ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... drama ceased, as in the case of the intermezzo, or when the old principles of operatic construction waked into life again as in the confession of the hero-lover. Here, moreover, there comes into the score an element of novelty, for the confession is extorted from Lorris while a virtuoso is entertaining a drawing-roomful of people with a set pianoforte solo. As for the rest of the opera, it seems sadly deficient in melody beautiful either in itself or as an expression of passion. "Andrea ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... taking her music lesson. The fifteen-year-old Dorothea Doederlein, who gave promise of developing into a remarkable virtuoso on the violin, was playing ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... little reason to suppose that Tradescant's stuffed specimen was a fabrication. He used to preserve his own specimens; and there could be no motive at that period for a fabrication. I had hoped to have found some notice of it in the Diary of that worthy virtuoso Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach, who visited the Ashmolean Museum in 1710; but though he notices other natural curiosities, there is no mention of it. This worthy remarks on the slovenly condition and inadequate superintendence of our museums, and especially of that of Gresham College; but those ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 22., Saturday, March 30, 1850 • Various
... answer, that the spider was a sort of pet of an old virtuoso to whom he owed many obligations in his boyhood; and the conversation turned from this subject to others suggested by topics of the day and place. His Lordship was affable, and Redclyffe could not, it must be confessed, see anything to justify the prejudices of the neighbors ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... many times to trace it, but without success. Many strangers visit Lorette during the summer season, and it is possible that some virtuoso, struck by the associative value of the relic, may have prevailed on its owner to part with it for a consideration. There are people who would have possessed themselves of it without the exchange of a consideration. Should this meet the eye of its present possessor, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... of that readers would not find better described in their 'Murray.' We put up in an excellent hotel kept by M. Arago, the brother of the great French astronomer. The only other travellers in it besides ourselves were the famous dancer Cerito, and her husband the violin virtuoso, St. Leon. Luckily for me our English Minister was Mr. Percy Doyle, whom I had known as ATTACHE at Paris when I was at Larue, and who was a great friend of the De Cubriers. We were thus provided with many advantages for 'sight-seeing' in ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... picture, full of subtle veracities which no steel line could approach, and conveying, to thousands, true knowledge and unaffected enjoyment of painting; while the finished plate lies uncared for in the portfolio of the virtuoso, serving only, so far as it is seen in the printseller's window by the people, to make them think that sacred painting must ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... in time! The playing of many a virtuoso resembles the walk of an intoxicated person. Do not take such ...
— Advice to Young Musicians. Musikalische Haus- und Lebens-Regeln • Robert Schumann
... had heard of me. I understood somewhat of music, and could play pretty well on the organ; he received me with great kindness, and took an early opportunity to introduce me to the Princess Sophia and the Elector's son, giving them to understand that I was what he was pleased to call a virtuoso in music; he obliged me with instructions for my conduct and behaviour during my residence at Hanover; and being called from the city to attend to matters of a public concern, he left me in possession of that favour ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... they took it for granted that they adored their dear daughter Lulu, they knew that they would not enjoy a single game of cribbage, nor a single recital by Signor Sethico Applebi the mouth-organ virtuoso, as long as she was with them. But she was coming, and Mother frantically cleaned everything and ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... was spoiled for briefs by the stronger pull of music and the cacoethes scribendi. (Grandpa John Huneker had been a composer of church music, and organist at St. Mary's.) In the year mentioned he set out for Paris to see Liszt; his aim was to make himself a piano virtuoso. His name does not appear on his own exhaustive list of Liszt pupils, but he managed to quaff of the Pierian spring at second-hand, for he had lessons from Theodore Ritter (ne Bennet), a genuine pupil of the old walrus, and he was also taught by ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... passionate young enthusiast, who made it whisper his hidden love, and cry his inarticulate longings, and scream his untold agonies, and wail his monotonous despair. Passed from his dying hand to the cold virtuoso, who let it slumber in its case for a generation, till, when his hoard was broken up, it came forth once more, and rode the stormy symphonies of royal orchestras, beneath the rushing bow of their lord and leader. Into lonely prisons with improvident ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... Lanczhid, the Budapest virtuoso, will be the soloist at the concert this evening of the Philharmonic Society. He will play the Tschaikovsky Violin Concerto, Opus 35, and the remainder of the program will consist of Dvorak's Symphony, Aus der Neuen Welt, and the ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... violin. I did, indeed, attain to a certain degree of skill, but I was so little satisfied with my own performances that I one day renounced the hope of becoming a practical musician, and presented my handsome violin—a gift from my grandmother—to a talented young virtuoso, the son ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... had not exhausted the stock of the dealer: he possessed the skin of a giraffe killed in the Roman amphitheatre; the head of King Arthur's spear; and the breech of the first cannon fired at the siege of Constantinople. The jury, however, thought that the virtuoso having ordered those curiosities, ought to pay for them, and brought in a verdict for ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... he could lay his hands on while he was still a child, and boasted himself a virtuoso, that is, according to his explanation, at six years old, "one who wishes and will know everything;" but his boyish tastes and triumphs became more and more athletic as he gained a firmer use of his bodily powers. No diseased consciousness of disability in respect ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... coach; Here, there, by various fortune toss'd, At last in Gresham Hall[3] was lost. Charmed with the wonders of the show, On every side, above, below, 20 She now of this or that enquires, What least was understood admires. 'Tis plain, each thing so struck her mind. Her head's of virtuoso kind. 'And pray what's this, and this, dear sir?' 'A needle,' says the interpreter. She knew the name. And thus the fool Addressed her as a tailor's tool: 'A needle with that filthy stone, Quite idle, all with rust o'ergrown! 30 You better might ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... more limited sense of the term, which embraces personal as well as incorporeal goods; as, for instance, the labors of the doctor, teacher; virtuoso, of the statesman, judge, and of preachers, whose office it is, by way of eminence, to produce and preserve the immaterial wealth, known as the State ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... this quality in the girl; the smile died from his face as he regarded her. Of her skill as a musician, he could form no judgment; but it seemed to him that she played very well, and he had heard her praised by people who understood the matter; for instance, Herr Wilenski, the virtuoso, from whom—in itself a great compliment—Alma was ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... say that they are all sketches from the life and are as true to their own lineaments as my hand could make them. The old musical enthusiast who, having heard Paganini, laid down his bow for ever because he could be content with nothing less than the great virtuoso's perfections, was a maternal great-uncle of mine, and the pathetic little story of the manner in which the life-long severance between himself and his sweetheart was brought about is literally true. "Aunt Rachel" herself ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... satire[645]. For instances of fertility of fancy, and accurate description of real life, I appeal to No. 19, a man who wanders from one profession to another, with most plausible reasons for every change. No. 34, female fastidiousness and timorous refinement. No. 82, a Virtuoso who has collected curiosities. No. 88[646], petty modes of entertaining a company, and conciliating kindness. No. 182, fortune-hunting. No. 194-195, a tutor's account of the follies of his pupil. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... have it so that a king will permit a competent man to have his way as well as an incompetent one. The public can only be educated through facts. So long as an immense majority is carried away by the mezza-voce of a virtuoso, its needs are ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... extemporized at the side. With this he sought the woods to emulate the trills and cadences of the song birds." Santa Claus's gift one year took the form of a small, yellow, one-keyed flute, on which simple instrument he would "practice with the passion of a virtuoso." Like Schumann, he organized an orchestra among his friends and young playmates. Simultaneously he was receiving his first initiation into the joy of literature. He would frequently retire from playing with his ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... Jan. 9. The Havana Opera Company arrived in America with Luigi Arditi as conductor. The company included Fortunata Tedesco, prima donna, Perelli, tenor, Cesar Badiale, bass, also Bottesini, the noted double-bass virtuoso. ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... us to move to Sanford, and father has been writing articles off and on for the magazine ever since then. It's better for all of us to be here. Uncle John isn't quite like other people. When he was a young man he studied to be a virtuoso on the violin. He overworked and had brain fever just before he was to give his first recital. After he got well he never played the same again. He had spent all the money his father left him on his musical education, so he had to find work ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... virtuoso, and his beautiful playing held the audience spellbound. Patty watched him, enthralled with his music, and admiring, too, ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... He also ascribes to his mother his Frohnatur, his joyous nature. And certain it is that his temperament was on the whole sunny. As he grew to manhood men and women alike were charmed by him. He became a virtuoso in love and had a genius for friendship. But he was not always cheerful. In his youth, particularly, he was often moody and given to brooding over indefinable woes. He suffered acutely at times from what is now called the melancholia of adolescence. This was a phase of that emotional sensitiveness ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... parish under my good friend's care is very pleasant. It is placed among meadows, washed by a clear trout-stream, and flanked on both sides with downs. His house, indeed, would not much attract the admiration of the virtuoso. He built it himself, and it is remarkable only for its plainness; with which the furniture so well agrees, that there is no one thing in it that may not be absolutely necessary, except books, and the prints of Mr. Hogarth, whom he calls ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... revealed religion in England than all the works of infidelity,' a judgment which may seem extravagant, for Shaftesbury is too vague and rhetorical greatly to influence thoughtful readers, and too much of a 'virtuoso,' to use his own words, for readers of another class; yet the fact that the work passed, as we have said, through several editions, shows that the author had a considerable public to whom he could appeal. Moreover, it is clear that what Mr. Balfour calls 'the shallow ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... various members of his family connecting Horace Walpole with the cabinet, the court, and the legislature, his own intercourse with those characters who became remarkable for brilliant social and intellectual qualities, and his reputation as a wit, a scholar, and a virtuoso, cannot fail, it is hoped, to render his memoirs ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 72, March 15, 1851 • Various
... is an absolute necessity; but it is craftsmanship which is not only acquired by practice, but which is actually there from the first, just as Mozart, as a child of eight, could play passages which would tax the skill of the most accomplished virtuoso. It was not learnt by practice, that swift correspondence of eye and hand, any more than the little swallow learns to fly; it knows it all already, and is merely finding out ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was symptomatic of the change in literary taste that the natural or English school of landscape gardening now began to displace the French and Dutch fashion of clipped hedges, regular parterres, etc., and that Gothic architecture came into repute. Horace Walpole was a virtuoso in Gothic art, and in his castle, at Strawberry Hill, he made a collection of ancient armor, illuminated MSS., and bric-a-brac of all kinds. Gray had been Walpole's traveling companion in France and Italy, and the two had quarreled ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... housekeeping; and such debonair wooers the male birds are! Dressed in their gay attire, they display it to the best advantage before the fair sex. Is there anything so interesting or so amusing as bird courtship? The rollicking song of the male, an exhibition of his vocal powers worthy of a virtuoso, is accompanied by the most comical gymnastics—bowing, scraping, and side-stepping like a dancing-master; all of which, I am sure, is highly appreciated by the demure little lady. I have seen birds courting in the stately figures of the minuet, crossing over and back, bowing and ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... it had been built by the last proprietor, Northmour's uncle, a silly and prodigal virtuoso - presented little signs of age. It was two storeys in height, Italian in design, surrounded by a patch of garden in which nothing had prospered but a few coarse flowers; and looked, with its shuttered windows, not ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... prize was brought into the bay, freighted with a cargo from Asia, Africa, or the European shores of the Mediterranean, she never failed to attend the unloading, during which, by the help of cajolery, judicious depreciation, and other ingenious devices still dear to the virtuoso, she succeeded in obtaining possession of articles which would have enraptured a modern collector. Judith was apparently indifferent to a habit which she looked upon as a caprice of her faithful servant, and the only evidence of her noticing it was her concentration in ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... Margaret," he exclaimed. "She takes no interest in such matters. She is not, if I may use the word, a virtuoso. She did it solely ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... at the piano, with bulging watch-crystal eye-glasses and hair tucked behind his ears, was the well-known, all-round musician, Wenby Simmons—otherwise known as "Pussy Me-ow" —a name associated in some way with the strings of his violin. This virtuoso played in the orchestra at the Winter Garden, and occupied the bedroom next ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Grayson's hotel, making an appointment. But the American Grayson had then gone, and the English Grayson having opened his letter by mistake, and being not unwilling to see Berlin for himself during war-time, carried the missive to the capital, met the illustrious virtuoso and received the confidences intended for the instruction of New York and Washington, correcting their preposterous view of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 28, 1914 • Various
... remains, a Catalogue of which is a Work of many Years, and without any other Subject, would swell to a large Volume, and requires the Abilities of a skilful Botanist: Had not the ingenious Mr. Banister (the greatest Virtuoso we ever had on the Continent) been unfortunately taken out of this World, he would have given the best Account of the Plants of America, of any that ever yet made such an Attempt in these Parts. Not but we ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... probably come nearer to perfection than the human hand. Mr. Arthur Whiting, considering the horseless pianoforte some time ago, was also enthusiastic. The h. p. is entirely self-possessed, and has even more platform imperturbability than the applauded virtuoso. "After a few introductory sounds, which have nothing to do with the music, and without relaxing the lines of its inscrutable face, the insensate artist proceeds to show its power. Its security puts all hand playing to shame; ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... ran. "Sir, did you tell"—relating the affair. "Yes, sir, I did; and, if it's worth your care, Ask Mr. Such-a-one, he told it me. But, by the bye, 'twas two black crows—not three." Resolved to trace so wondrous an event, Whip, to the third, the virtuoso went; "Sir"—and so forth. "Why, yes; the thing is fact, Though, in regard to number, not exact; It was not two black crows—'twas only one; The truth of that you may depend upon; The gentleman himself told me the case." "Where may I find him?" "Why, in such a place." ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... horror and affright by the trenchant confidence of his spirit, the daring thoroughness and consistency of his dialectic, the lurid sarcasm, the vile penetration. He discusses a horrible action, or execrable crime, as a virtuoso examines a statue or a painting. He has that rarest fortitude of the vicious, not to shrink from calling his character and conduct by their names. He is one of Swift's Yahoos, with the courage of its opinions. He seems to give ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... exhibited a most refined and judicious taste. He has accumulated one of the finest collections of pictures, old china, and articles of vertu generally to be found in all Scotland, and an inspection of his valuable and varied collection is a treat of which the most accomplished virtuoso would gladly take advantage, and from which he would be sure to learn something new. The active management of the business of Robert Napier & Sons now devolves on Mr. John Napier, his youngest son. His other son, ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... to direct the attention of students to the unique value of the hints and advice given by so experienced and accomplished a virtuoso as the late Mr. Carrodus, so that it only remains to state that the 'Recollections' make delightful reading, and that the book, as a whole, is as entertaining as it is instructive. The value of the brochure is enhanced by an excellent portrait ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... probably inherited his virtuoso's whim from his ancestors. His great-grandfather was certified by Johnson in his life of Addison to be a gentleman 'eminent for curiosity and literature,' and though his grandfather, the Commodore, who lives for ever in our history as the man who taught Nelson the lesson ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... was a special concert, at which the honored guest and soloist was the great Brahms himself. Von Buelow conducted the orchestra, and Brahms played his second Concerto. The Hamburg master was not a virtuoso, in the present acceptance of the term: his touch on the piano was somewhat hard and dry; but he played the work with commendable dexterity, and made an imposing figure as he sat at the piano, with his grand head and his ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... artistic level of his friend. Liszt's nature was of a noble, one may say, ideal kind, but he had lived in dangerous surroundings, and the influence of the great world and of the glaring publicity in which a virtuoso moves, had left its trace on his individuality. Here, then, the uncompromising idealism, the world-defying artistic conviction of Wagner, served as a tonic to his character. If the reader will refer to Letter 21, or at least ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... peculiarly affected by his master's song, which he accompanied by a long-drawn howl of woe; and, before the imperial virtuoso had concluded, a discordant cry sounded for a short time from the street, in imitation of the squeaking of young pigs. It arose from the crowd who were waiting round the Serapeum to see Caesar drive to the Circus; and Caracalla must have noticed it, for, when it waxed louder, he gave a sidelong ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... with apparently equal success in each have always attained the ability to make each medium in turn express the same personal feeling. But nearly always there is in such cases that sacrifice of the inherent qualities of one or other of the mediums employed which a great virtuoso never makes. ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... ago I discovered all the aids necessary to the pyrotechnist. I am not a chemist for nothing. If I can paint a fair imitation of a Claude Monet on canvas, I can also produce for you a colourless gas which, when handled by a virtuoso, produces astonishing illusions. In the open air, against the dark background of the horizon, I can show you the luminous dots planewise of the Impressionists; or I can give you the broad, sabrelike brushwork of Velasquez, ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... flat clarinets are the most used; in the military band, B flat and E flat. The C clarinet is not much used now. All differ in tone and quality; the A one is softer than the B flat; the C is shrill. The B flat is the virtuoso instrument. In military bands the clarinet takes the place which would be that of the violin in the orchestra, but the tone of it is always characteristically different. Although introduced in the time of Handel and Bach those composers made ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various |
