"Cantata" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... (while the actors were dressing for the farce that concluded the entertainment) to see one of the principal among them, and as errant a petit maitre as if he had passed all his life at Paris, mount the stage, and present us with a cantata of his own performing. He had the pleasure of being almost deafened with applause. The ball began afterwards, but I was not witness of it, having accustomed myself to such early hours, that I was half asleep before the opera finished: it begins at ten o'clock, so that it ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... constructed the "Dramatic Legend," it belonged to no musical category. It was neither a symphony with vocal parts like his "Romeo et Juliette" (which has symphonic elements in some of its sections), nor a cantata, nor an oratorio. It is possible that this fact was long an obstacle to its production. Even in New York where, on its introduction, it created the profoundest sensation ever witnessed in a local concert-room, it was performed fourteen times with the choral parts sung ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... shown me the spiritual cantata which you presented to her—'tis a very fine thing! Please do not think that I am incapable of appreciating serious music,—quite the contrary: it is sometimes tiresome, but, on the other hand, it ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... that curious interest, and it had ceased to embarrass or annoy him. Presently the stranger, seeming satisfied with his observation, leaned back in his seat, half-closed his eyes, and began softly to whistle the "Spring Song" from Proserpine, the cantata that a dozen years before had made its young composer famous in a night. Everett had heard that air on guitars in Old Mexico, on mandolins at college glees, on cottage organs in New England hamlets, and only two ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... progression of pleasures is from the distich to the quatrain, from the quatrain to the sonnet, from the sonnet to the ballad, from the ballad to the ode, from the ode to the cantata, from the cantata to the dithyramb. The husband who commences with dithyramb ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... published in 'Lippincott's Magazine' (Philadelphia) for February, 1875, is the first of his poems that attracted general notice, and the one that gained him the friendship of Bayard Taylor. To Taylor he owed his selection to write the 'Centennial Cantata', which gave him still greater notoriety, though, to be sure, some of it was not very grateful to him. In 1876 the Lippincotts published his 'Florida', and in 1877 his first volume of 'Poems', which contained ninety-four pages and consisted chiefly of pieces*2* previously published ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... preserve his organs of hearing from such a dangerous invasion. The prelude being thus executed, Pipes fixed his eyes upon the egg of an ostrich that depended from the ceiling, and without once moving them from that object, performed the whole cantata in a tone of voice that seemed to be the joint issue of an Irish bagpipe and a sow-gelder's horn: the commodore, the lieutenant, and landlord, joined in the chorus, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... oratorio has already been received will encourage the author to pursue the enviable career upon which he has entered. Even restricting ourselves to vocal music, there is still a broad field left open for original work. The secular cantata—attempted in recent times by Schumann, as well as by English composers of smaller calibre—is a very high form of vocal music; and if founded on an adequate libretto, dealing with some supremely grand or tragical situation, is capable of being carried to ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... young lady gave Count Reuss her heart and hand. The rejected suitor bore the blow like a stoic. He would conquer, he said, such disturbing earthly emotions; why should they be a thicket in the way of his work for Christ? The betrothal was sealed in a religious ceremony. Young Zinzendorf composed a cantata for the occasion {March 9th, 1721.}; the cantata was sung, with orchestral accompaniment, in the presence of the whole house of Castell; and at the conclusion of the festive scene the young composer offered up on behalf of the happy couple a prayer so tender that all were moved to ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... the two former works, the subject is treated, so far as possible, in an untechnical manner, so that it may satisfy the needs of musically uneducated music lovers, and add to their enjoyment by a plain statement of the story of the cantata and a popular analysis of its music, with brief pertinent selections ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... attached during the greater part of his life to the church of San Apollinaris at Rome. He died in 1674. He did much for musical art, perfecting recitative and advancing the development of the sacred cantata. His accompaniments are generally distinguished for ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... what Rarey was for unruly horseflesh. Once no fiery colt of Ukraine blood more stubbornly refused the bridle than I did; but Erle Palma smiled and took the reins, and behold the metamorphosis! Did he command your attendance at this 'Cantata'?" ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... so crowded as the house last night for the Prussian cantata; the King was hoarse, and could not go to Sing his own praises. The dancers seemed transplanted from Sadler's Wells; there were milkmaids riding on dolphins; Britain and Prussia kicked the King of France off the stage, and there was a petit-maitre with his handkerchief full of holes; ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... they couldn't keep from me the sad fact that they had started out to make the royal call without gloves—hoping probably to catch the king with their bare hands—and had been turned back by the Italian colonel who had them in charge. Henry once sang in the cantata of "Queen Esther," and Medill insists that all the way up to the royal cottage Henry kept carolling under his breath the song: "Then go thou merrily, then go thou merrily, unto the king!" and also: "Haman, Haman, long live Haman, he is the favoured one in all the king's dominions!" ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... that, regarded as a work for the stage, it is a mere Night-light of Asia, which, like Macbeth's "brief candle," will go "out," and "then be heard no more." If, however, it be relegated to the concert-hall, as a Cantata, The Light of Asia may appear lighter than it does on the boards of Covent Garden, where, intended to be a dramatic Opera, it only recalls to me the title of one of RUDYARD KIPLING's stories, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 18, 1892 • Various
... of Napoleon. Before dinner he was presented with a table-service of silver-gilt by the city of Paris. Then he took his seat, with the Empress, on a platform beneath a canopy, and the meal began. During dinner, a band, hidden behind green foliage, played a symphony of Haydn's, and then was sung a cantata full of flattery for ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand |
