"Pianoforte" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the pianoforte while she sang, bending and commanding her eyes. He seemed to wish to put himself where he was before he ever left her, to awaken everything lovely in her, to bring her before him as utterly developed as she might be,—not only to afford her, but to force upon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... of songs, the case is very simple. His pianoforte pieces are original tone-poems of exquisite beauty; his songs, though always acceptable, and sometimes charming, are not. We should know nothing of them and the composer, if of his works they alone had been published. In not publishing them himself, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... Colour. This desideratum of varied tone-colour is sought even by instrumentalists. Nay, the instrument itself is sometimes constructed with this object in view. Witness the invention of the "soft" pedal, which is intended not solely to reduce the intensity of tone in the pianoforte—that may be accomplished by a modification of force in striking the note—but to give the tones a darker, more sombre quality, or colour. To vary the tone-colour, a violinist or 'cellist draws the bow across the strings close to, or distant from, the bridge, in accordance ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... 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, sang all the missing parts, in French, Italian, German, and Bohemian; got thoroughly familiar with all the operas, and very soon knew how to tell good singing from bad. Our mother took care, too, that we should hear all the visiting notabilities of that time in opera as well ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... now? I can go into these wretched details later. Susanna Ivanovna, be so good as to put away that account-book, and come back to us and enchant our kind guest's ears with your musical accomplishments, to wit, playing on the pianoforte... Eh?' ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... merry as the proverbial marriage bell, and then there was an adjournment of the male portion of the company to supper. The ladies remained in the Bazaar and discussed oranges, with an occasional dance to the pianoforte, as the band retired for refreshment too, in one of the attendants' rooms. I followed the company to their supper room, as I had come to see, not to eat. About four hundred sat down in a large ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... DIOSPYROS EBENUM.—An East Indian tree which in part yields the black ebony wood of commerce, much used in fancy cabinetwork and turnery, door knobs, pianoforte keys, etc. ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders
... a holiday, hearing that an auction was to take place at the neighbouring town, at which a pianoforte was for sale, set off to attend it. There was some competition, but he had 20 pounds in his pocket, saved from his earnings, and it was finally knocked down to him at that price. With proud satisfaction he ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... reaches Seville he must be used to disillusion, and he must be ingenuous indeed if he expects the Spaniards to have preserved their national costume for the most national of their pastimes. Yet the dances are still Spanish; and even if the pianoforte has ousted the guitar, the castanets give, notwithstanding, a characteristic note which the aggressive muslin and the pink, ill-fitting tights ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... As the pianoforte is a stringed instrument, some attention should be given to the subject of the vibration of strings. A string in a state of tension emits a note when plucked and allowed to vibrate freely. The pitch of the note depends ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... Words of Mendelssohn; the Jugend Album, Op. 68, of Schumann; the pianoforte sonatas of Mozart (Peters edition); the ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... does not play any instrument himself; he only conducts. His rival (Johnny, as I think of him) does not conduct as yet; at least, not audibly. His line is the actual manipulation of the pianoforte—the Paderewski touch. Johnny lives in the flat below, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 13, 1914 • Various
... walls with a trellis of roses; I had the ceiling colored with clouds and sky; the barred windows were screened with venetian blinds; and when my book cases were set up with their busts and flowers, and a pianoforte made its appearance, perhaps there was not a handsomer room on that side of the water.... There was a little yard outside, railed off from another belonging to a neighboring ward. This yard I shut in with green palings, adorned it with a trellis, bordered it with ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Tangle's learned friends, each armed with a little summary of eighteen hundred sheets, bob up like eighteen hammers in a pianoforte, make eighteen bows, and drop into their eighteen places ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... the organ and pianoforte deserted him. Gout, such as I never knew, fastened on his fingers, distorting them into every dreadful shape. ... A little girl, shewn to him as a musical wonder of five years old, said,' Pray, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... Captain, and I am not to blame.... Mine is an honourable house, Mr. Captain, and honourable behaviour, Mr. Captain, and I always, always dislike any scandal myself. But he came quite tipsy, and asked for three bottles again, and then he lifted up one leg, and began playing the pianoforte with one foot, and that is not at all right in an honourable house, and he ganz broke the piano, and it was very bad manners indeed and I said so. And he took up a bottle and began hitting everyone with it. And then I called the porter, and Karl came, and he took Karl and hit him ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... carpet. The sides and ends of the cabin were formed of bulkheads, the fore bulkhead being occupied by a sort of sideboard on each side of the entrance door, while against the after bulkhead stood a very handsome pianoforte, open, with a quantity of music in a stand beside it. There was a door to the right of the piano, which, I conjectured, led to the captain's state-room, right abaft; and the side bulkheads, which like the rest of the woodwork of the ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... acquaintance with Hebrew was the result of her own unaided efforts. From Mr. Simms, the veteran organist of St. Michaels, Coventry, she received lessons in music, although it was her own fine musical sense which made her in after years an admirable pianoforte player. Nothing once learned escaped her marvellous memory; and her keen sympathy with all human feelings, in which lay the secret of her power of discriminating character, caused a constant fund of knowledge to flow into her treasure-house from the ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... dialogue, incredible to landsmen, between these two sailors, the captain of the ship and the captain of the foretop, one perched on a stationary fragment of that vessel, the other drifting on a pianoforte, and both bawling at one another across ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... gloves and began to play. She had hardly struck the opening chords of a simple pianoforte piece when there came a knock at the door. Before Von Barwig could speak a man entered. She stopped playing and Von Barwig's heart sank as he recognised the collector for the ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... declines, at the same time vigorously pulling off one of her gloves in evident preparation for the attack. After much pressing, she reluctantly yields to what she had from the first made up her mind to do; takes her seat at a grand pianoforte, behind a couple of candles and an enormous music-book, and—crash go the keys in a thundering prelude, (the pedal, and every other means of increasing the noise being unscrupulously resorted to,) which, after superhuman exertions, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... gone out in matrimonial honours, with credit to herself and her chaperon. She was handsome enough to satisfy a husband's pride, but not so handsome as to keep perpetually on the qui vive a husband's jealousy. She was considered highly accomplished; that is, she played upon the pianoforte so that any musician would say she "was very well taught;" but no musician would go out of his way to hear her a second time. She painted in water-colours—well enough to amuse herself. She knew French and Italian with an elegance so lady-like ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... plural. A Greek prince, so far as I could make out, was the last of her adorers. But I sometimes got into scrapes by mixing up the Greek prince with a Polish count, and then confounding either one or both with a Hungarian pianoforte player. ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... present. Sad to relate, the drummer was not quite sober, an unfortunate state of things, certainly, but not always confined to the drumming fraternity, since in the account of the Party at Minerva House (S.B.T.) we read that amongst the numerous arrivals were 'the pianoforte player and the violins: the harp in ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... of the old Oratory had been converted into a room, ninety-nine feet long, with couches and tables running down both sides, a billiard-table in the centre, writing materials in abundance, and pictures on the walls. At one end of the room stood a pianoforte, couches, and easy-chairs, and a door opened into a garden facing the sea. Over the door were arranged several flags, and above these, in large letters, the appropriate words, "In the name of the Lord will we set up our ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... ever written on pianoforte studies is incorporated in Mr. Huneker's recent volume, "Mezzotints in Modern Music."—New ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... iron rods which convey it to them from the baquet — by the cords wound round their bodies — by the connection of the thumb, which conveys to them the magnetism of their neighbours — and by the sounds of a pianoforte, or of an agreeable voice, diffusing the magnetism in the air. The patients were also directly magnetised by means of the finger and wand of the magnetiser moved slowly before their faces, above or behind their heads, and on the diseased parts, always ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... of his grandmother, developed a remarkable talent for painting in the manner of MARCUS STONE; while a neo-Georgian composer under similar treatment has produced a series of etudes indistinguishable from the pianoforte music of STERNDALE BENNETT, though he had previously far outstripped the most unbridled and exacerbated aberrations of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 • Various
... the thin aunt who gave her lessons upon the pianoforte—one of the elect, that aunt, who had never done wrong, and whom any halo would fit; who gave her to understand that the Almighty would raise Cain with any little girl who did not practise an hour every day, and pray Him, night and morning, ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... the inference, therefore, as regards pianoforte or violin playing, that the more the familiarity or knowledge of the art, the less is there consciousness of such knowledge; even so far as that there should seem to be almost as much difficulty in awakening consciousness which has become, so ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... which has come down to us from mediaeval times, a heritage nobler than that of any other nation; But can it be said that our national life is in the smallest degree inspired by these songs? They have indeed latterly become a fashion; we collect them, arrange them with pianoforte accompaniments, listen to them at concerts. It is a mere fashionable craze, like that for "the simple life," and differs in no whit from that ridiculed by Wagner in the Italian opera, and in Meyerbeer, as an attempt to extract ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... not forget the pianoforte among your occupations, or, indeed, music generally. You have such fine talent for it. Why not devote yourself entirely to it—you who have such feeling for all that is beautiful and good? Why will you not make use of this, in order that you may recognize in so beautiful an art the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... way, is a piano-player fan, contending that when the principles of beautiful tone production are understood, mechanical means will 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 So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... has been and is now very much the fashion. In ten minutes, the gates were forced open—old Koops knocked down, and trod under foot till he was dead—every article of value that was portable was secured; chairs, tables, glasses, not portable, were thrown out of the window; Wilhelmina's harp and pianoforte battered to fragments; beds, bedding, everything flew about in the air, and then the fragments of the furniture were set fire to, and in less than an hour, Mynheer Krause's splendid house was burning furiously, while the mob cheered and cried, "Long ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... special Anthem to be sung his visits were much more frequent. Then the Sedleys gave grand musical parties to which Mr. Grandison was of course, invited, playing Miss Sedley's accompaniment on the pianoforte, while she entranced the assembled company with her singing; in fact, no gathering of the Sedley family was complete without the presence of the handsome and ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... habit of going to the suburban theatre once a week, or to the Monday Popular Concerts, or both, very perceptibly ameliorates its manners. But none of these breaches in the Englishman's castle-house can be made without a cannonade of books and pianoforte music. The books and music cannot be kept out, because they alone can make the hideous boredom of the hearth bearable. If its victims may not live real lives, they may at least read about imaginary ones, and perhaps learn from ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte
... never inquisitive, her quick sympathies rendered the most trivial interchange of ideas an emotional exercise. This power, which would have made her a successful actress, found its usual outlet in her pianoforte playing, which affected her hearers as only extraordinary nervous and passionate force can affect people. She had neither the patience nor the sternness of mental quality which is required in a creative genius: the little songs and poems which she sometimes composed were insipid ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... imbued by love." Rubinstein proceeded along the lines of history, or orthodox belief, as unreservedly in his "Christus" as he had done in his "Moses." The work may be said to have brought his creative activities to a close, although two compositions (a set of six pianoforte pieces and an orchestral suite) appear in his list of numbered works after the sacred opera. He died on November 20, 1894, without having seen a stage representation of it. Nor did he live to see a public theatrical performance of his "Moses," though he was privileged ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... to the prosperity of a ball as good wine to the excellence of a dinner. No hostess should tax her friends for this part of the entertainment. It is the most injudicious economy imaginable. Ladies who would prefer to dance are tied to the pianoforte; and as few amateurs have been trained in the art of playing dance music with that strict attention to time and accent which is absolutely necessary to the comfort of the dancers, a total and general discontent ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... she had held out her hand to him affectionately directly she came in. After dinner Lemm drew out of his coat-tail pocket, into which he had continually been fumbling, a small roll of music-paper and compressing his lips he laid it without speaking on the pianoforte. It was a song composed by him the evening before, to some old-fashioned German words, in which mention was made of the stars. Lisa sat down at once to the piano and played at sight the song.... Alas! the music turned out to be complicated and painfully strained; ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... introduction here, his legs were as quiet as in their nature they could be, having been elevated, for the greater comfort of the owner, to the top of a pianoforte, and presenting an inclination of forty-five degrees to Mr. Wilkeson's body, reposing calmly and smoking an antique pipe in his favorite chair below. One of his long arms was hanging listlessly by his side, and the other made a sharp projecting ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... derived from chauve. War is a solvent of equanimity; in the cant but expressive phrase it becomes harder to keep one's hair on. Again, inter arma silent Musae. Fewer people have been playing the pianoforte, an exercise which has always exerted a stimulating effect on the follicles. Our political correspondent at Paris writes that M. PADEREWSKI'S once luxuriant chevelure has suffered sadly since he has ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various
... offer of an exchange of livings with a friend in Yorkshire, but I have hitherto refused on account of my mother. There we would go. Your musical powers shall be still further developed; you shall have whatever pianoforte you like; you shall have anything, Fancy, anything to make you happy—pony-carriage, flowers, birds, pleasant society; yes, you have enough in you for any society, after a few months of travel with me! Will ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... useful of the many works which the Messrs. Cocks have published. We cordially recommend this volume; like the Author's 'Modern Instructions for the Pianoforte,' it will become one of the most popular works of the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 194, July 16, 1853 • Various
... sensation throughout the organ world. In this action the "pneumatic blow" was for the first time attained and an attack and repetition secured in advance of anything thought possible at that time, in connection with the organ or the pianoforte. ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... desire for intellectual improvement. But the colonial girl is sharper at picking up what her mistress does know than the English one, and she has more of the boy's emulation. Whatever her station in life, she is bound to strum the piano; but in no country is a good pianoforte player more rare, or do you hear greater trash strummed in a drawing-room. Languages and the other accomplishments are either neglected or slurred over; but, on the other hand, nearly every colonial girl learns something of household work, and can cook some sort of a dinner, ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... many cases of persons mentally reading off scores when playing the pianoforte, or manuscript when they are making speeches. One statesman has assured me that a certain hesitation in utterance which he has at times, is due to his being plagued by the image of his manuscript speech with its original erasures and corrections. He cannot lay the ghost, and he ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... played the minuet from the pianoforte sonata which he found 'very Germanic' and powerfully built: and the 'Wedding Day at Troldhaugen,' ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... in a measure subsided, I gave orders for the soup to be served, at the same time turning the current into the electric pianoforte. I had wished for this opening number something attractive yet dignified, which would in a manner of speaking symbolize an occasion to me at least highly momentous. To this end I had chosen Handel's celebrated Largo, and at the ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... about the Revolution, the Reign of Terror, and the times that followed. Her family was ruined by the Revolution and the slight, frail, young girl undertook to earn her living by giving lessons in French, on the pianoforte—the instrument was a novelty then—in singing, painting, embroidery, in fact in everything she knew and in much that she did not. If she did not know, she learned then and there so that she could teach. ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... drawing room and scratched at the door till he opened it, for this was part of the house which he had shut up, thinking three or four rooms enough for them now, and to save the dusting of it. Then it seemed she would have him play to her on the pianoforte: she led him to it, nay, what is more, she would herself pick out the music he was to play. First it was a fugue of Handel's, then one of Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words, and then "The Diver," and then music from Gilbert and Sullivan; but each piece of music she picked out ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett
... his last gold breast-pin in advertisements, he realised that to get pianoforte pupils in London was as easy as to get songs published. By the time he quite realised it, it was May, and then he sat down ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... much to promote its study among undergraduates. It was therefore a cause of much gratification to the two young men, and it afterwards became a strong bond of friendship, to discover that one was as devoted to the pianoforte as was the other to the violin. Mr. Gaskell, though in easy circumstances, had not a pianoforte in his rooms, and was pleased to use a fine instrument by D'Almaine that John had that term received as a ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... Miss Bouverie opened it herself with the inevitably thankless pianoforte solo, in this case gratuitously meretricious into the bargain, albeit the arbitrary choice of no less a judge than Mrs. Clarkson. It was received with perfunctory applause, through which a dissipated stockman thundered thickly for a song. Miss Bouverie averted her eyes from Sir Julian ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... Pole, and for a large part of his life a resident of France, among the German composers, may require an explanatory word. Chopin's whole early training was in the German school, and he may be looked on as one of the founders of the latest school of pianoforte composition, whose highest development is in contemporary Germany. He represents German music by his affinities and his influences in art, and bears too close a relation to important changes in musical form to be ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... any one who looked at my song "Man in Vain" in Ulysses might think it was taken from "Batti, batti." I should like to say it was taken from, or suggested by, a few bars in the opening of Beethoven's pianoforte sonata op. 78, and a few bars in the accompaniment to the duet "Hark how the Songsters" in Purcell's Timon of Athens. I am not aware of having borrowed more in the song than what follows as natural development of these two ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... strike a few chords on the piano, which immediately attracted the attention of the two young ladies, who told us they had seen us at church, where they were in the choir. They were beginning to learn some pieces to sing at Christmas, and, producing a pianoforte copy, asked my brother to play the accompaniment while they tried them over. He made some excuses, but they said they knew he could play as soon as they heard him strike the chords; so, as his excuses ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... to Mrs. Turner, Flora glanced round the room, and was not a little surprised to find a pianoforte making part of the furniture, an open drawing-box, of a very expensive kind, with card-board and other drawing materials, occupied a side-table. These were articles of refinement she had not expected from a man-like ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... noted organizer of musical affairs. Began class-system of pianoforte-teaching in America at Providence, R. I., in 1851. Founded a Musical Institute at East Greenwich, R. I., in 1859, and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, 1867. Was one of the chief organizers ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... villains (at present they haven't a chance) and make the whole thing into a film play. The wanderings of the two boys offer a fine opportunity for scenic variety; while the sentiment is of precisely the nature to be stimulated by a pianoforte accompaniment. As a three-reel exclusive, in short, I can fancy The Lost Prince entering ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 150, February 2, 1916 • Various
... and less ready to swear alliance with the stranger; but they were not disagreeable girls, and improved considerably after a few days' acquaintance, showing themselves willing to take the bass in pianoforte duets, sing a decent second, exhibit their sketch-books and photographic collections in a friendly manner, and communicate new stitches and patterns in point de ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... nothing of East Side.' Her absolute unconsciousness of his spiritual tumult, her stolidity before this spectacle of his triumphant genius, her matter-of-fact acceptance of his racial affinity, her refusal to be impressed by the heroism of a Hebrew pianoforte solo, all she said and did not say, jarred upon his quivering nerves, chilled his high emotion. 'Will you say I shall have much pleasure?' ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... said Cornelius had very nice manners, as indeed he had and had need to have. Occasionally, perhaps four or five times in the year, the Reverend Edward Pewlay, who had what he called a tenor voice, and his wife, who played the pianoforte very fairly, came over to assist at a Penny Reading. He lived "over Harlow way," as the natives expressed it; he was what was called in those parts a rabid Anglican, because he preached in his surplice and had services on the Saints' days, and the vicar of Billingsfield ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... ascertained that the wings of a gnat flap at the rate of 15,000 times per second. The pitch of the note produced by this insect in the act of flying is, therefore, more than two octaves above the highest note of a seven-octave pianoforte.—Lardner's Handbook. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... children's party. Mrs. Marchcote told me something quite different from that. Listen, Basil. A young German—Herr Wildermann is his name—has come to Tarnworth in hopes of making his living by teaching the violin. He can give pianoforte lessons also, but he plays the violin better. He plays it, she says, very beautifully. He has got no pupils yet, Basil. But—who do you think is going to ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... was an auctioneer, And made three hundred pounds a year; And HARRIET HALE, most strange to say, Gave pianoforte lessons at a sovereign ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... cook in Vienna. Franz Peter Schubert was the thirteenth of a family of fourteen children, nine of whom died in infancy. His love of music was apparent when he was very young. A relative often took him to visit a pianoforte warehouse, and there, and on an old worn-out piano at home, the child studied his first exercises without a master. At the age of seven he had a teacher, Michael Holzer, who used to cry out, "When I wish to teach him anything, he always knows it already." When he was eleven years old ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 17, March 4, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... the wildest disorder—music, money, clothing, on the floor—linen from the wash upon the dirty bed—broken coffee-cups upon the table. The open pianoforte was covered thickly with dust. Beethoven entered to greet his visitors. Benedict has thus described him: 'Just so must have looked Lear, or one of Ossian's bards. His thick gray hair was flung upwards, and disclosed ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... directly he begins to play. I should have thought he would be pretty well used to it by now, but he never gets in tune again for the rest of the evening. You would be quite disappointed if Mrs. Green ever concluded her most finished and spirited pianoforte solo on ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... two men sitting opposite each other,—one performed on a caisson, a log of hollowed wood, four feet high, skin-covered, and fancifully carved; the other on the national Anjya, a rude "Marimba," the prototype of the pianoforte. It is made of seven or eight hard- wood slats, pinned with bamboo tacks to transverse banana trunks lying on the ground: like the grande caisse, it is played upon with sticks, plectra like tent-pegs. Mr. W. Winwood Reade ("Savage Africa," ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... at ease), a term in music to indicate slow time; also a slow movement in a symphony, sonata, &c., or an independent piece, such as Mozart's pianoforte ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... league? From what funds are they paid, and with what ceremonies are they sworn to secrecy? Are there none such? Observe what follows. A little time ago the Bleater's London Correspondent had this passage: "Boddleboy is pianoforte playing at St. Januarius's Gallery, with pretty tolerable success! He clears three hundred pounds per night. Not bad this!!" The builder of St. Januarius's Gallery (plunged to the throat in the ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... a larger proportion of the people, outside the classes which professedly account themselves musical, have more or less acquaintance with his music), just as they know the work of half a dozen English composers, MacDowell, though he had played his pianoforte concertos in London, remained almost unknown in England outside of strictly musical circles. It is certain that had MacDowell been an Englishman he would have been immensely better known in America than, being an American, he ever was ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... place of a good cry upstairs, and a cloud of ill-temper has often been dispersed by a timely practice. One of Schubert's friends used to say that, although very cross before sitting down to his piano, a long scramble-duet through a symphony or through one of his own delicious and erratic pianoforte duets, always restored ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... ordinary sitting-places of the room. Two large low sofas of rosewood and crimson silk, gold-flowered, form the only seats, with the exception of two light conversation chairs, also of rose-wood. There is a pianoforte (rose-wood, also), without cover, and thrown open. An octagonal table, formed altogether of the richest gold-threaded marble, is placed near one of the sofas. This is also without cover—the drapery of the curtains has been thought sufficient.. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... where will you put Mrs. Lookaloft, whose husband, though a tenant on the estate, hunts in a red coat, whose daughters go to a fashionable seminary in Barchester, who calls her farm-house Rosebank, and who has a pianoforte in her drawing-room? The Misses Lookaloft, as they call themselves, won't sit contented among the bumpkins. Mrs. Lookaloft won't squeeze her fine clothes on a bench and talk familiarly about cream and ducklings to good Mrs. Greenacre. And yet Mrs. Lookaloft is no fit companion ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... 1667-1731. Apprenticed to Niccolo Amati. Is best known as the inventor of the "hammer system," and, therefore, the father of the modern pianoforte. Bow instruments of his make are rare, but authentic examples are in every way excellent. A fine Double Bass, dated 1715, is in the museum of the Musical Academy in Florence. Violoncellos and other instruments are known, and it is to be regretted that ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... "is good enough for Daphne. She's so absolutely sweet. She sings, Charles, divinely. She dresses perfectly. She plays the pianoforte exquisitely. She sings, did ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 11, 1914 • Various
... music, ancient and modern, had as yet met with no response. After he had been a year in England the only steps towards making a fortune were two public performances at charity matinees, one or two pupils in pianoforte playing, and an occasional but rare engagement for stray pupils at ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... French air, and went and ran her fingers up and down the keys of the pianoforte, which great new instrument had supplanted the old harpsichord in the house. Tom and I, standing at the fireplace, watched her face as the candle-light fell ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... doll. She soon displayed a remarkable memory, and great quickness of apprehension. When she was quite a young child, she learned with facility several of the problems of Euclid. As she grew older, she acquired the French, Italian, and German languages; became a clever pianoforte player; and showed a true taste and sentiment in drawing. But, as soon as she had completely vanquished the difficulties of any one branch of study, it was her way to lose interest in it, and pass to another. While ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... ashore as little as possible. Most articles of furniture were already, however, before our visit, gone from the plantation-house, which was now used only as a picket-station. The only valuable article was a pianoforte, for which a regular packing-box lay invitingly ready outside. I had made up my mind, in accordance with the orders given to naval commanders in that department,* to burn all picket-stations, and all villages from which I should be covertly ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... life is to manufacture stories and plays for the people. My signature merely guarantees the quality just as the name of a maker on a pianoforte guarantees the instrument. But every such maker employs others whose names do not appear in connection with ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... some needlework, and Fanny turning over the leaves of a music-book, and occasionally humming some bars of her favourite songs, as the gentlemen came into the drawing-room. Fanny rose from the pianoforte as ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... pursuing it." "Work," said Mozart, "is my chief pleasure." Beethoven's favourite maxim was, "The barriers are not erected which can say to aspiring talents and industry, 'Thus far and no farther.'" When Moscheles submitted his score of 'Fidelio' for the pianoforte to Beethoven, the latter found written at the bottom of the last page, "Finis, with God's help." Beethoven immediately wrote underneath, "O man! help thyself!" This was the motto of his artistic life. John Sebastian Bach said of himself, "I was industrious; ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... she came on exceedingly well, for though she could not write sonnets, she brought herself to read them; and though there seemed no chance of her throwing a whole party into raptures by a prelude on the pianoforte of her own composition, she could listen to other people's ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... they touched fire to the breach. Beltran was a Rebel. Vivia was a Rebel, too! She ran down-stairs into her little parlor overflowing with flowers. As she walked to and fro, the silent keys of her pianoforte met her eye. Excellent conductors. Half standing, half sitting, she awoke its voices, and, to a rolling, silvery thunder ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... as it does on the open sea, shaking the old doors and the window-sashes below in the wood-sheds. Beneath him he could hear sounds well known and full of charm, songs that escaped in the satisfaction of work accomplished, assembled laughter, the pianoforte lesson being given by Bonne Maman, the tic-tac of the metronome, all the delicious household stir that pleased his heart. He lived with his darlings, who certainly never could have guessed that they had him so ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... Billy; "I've had worse given me to set in musical comedies. Now let me see," murmured Mr. Cracker as he seated himself at the pianoforte, "scansion is the great ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... in a strange hall, where I pitched my pianoforte, and sang the voluptuous airs of Bertoni's Armida. That enchantress might have raised her palace in this situation; and, had I been Rinaldo, I certainly should not very ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... him to assist the imagination of an inquirer, than a professional print or emblem of his calling (much favoured in the trade), representing a hair-dresser of easy manners curling a lady of distinguished fashion, in the presence of a patent upright grand pianoforte. ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... her gifted father a great talent for music. She was a remarkably skilful performer upon the pianoforte. So retentive was her memory that she could play without notes a large portion of the works of ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... was fifteen years of age, and a very charming performer on the pianoforte, as the good nuns at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, at Vevinord, told the father. Mademoiselle Madelon was looking forward to her fourteenth anniversary, and she, too, was a very pretty pianist, and altogether a young prodigy of learning and goodness, ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... not enjoy the concert as much as the others. She said the pianoforte playing was very indifferent—she wondered what Captain Leclerc, who sat in the front row next to ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... homely philosophy of Dr. Primrose, and reflect how the wife will wear, and whether she have the qualities that will keep the house in order. Others, again, are lured into matrimony by the tinkling of the pianoforte, or the elaboration of a bunch of flowers upon a Bristol board. Remember Calfsfoot. His wife actually fiddled him into the church. Was there ever an uglier woman? Two of her front teeth were gone, ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... dormouse Englishman fellow-servant fisherman Frenchman forget-me-not goosequill handful mouthful cupful maidservant pianoforte stepson ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... MORHANGE (1813-1888), French musical composer, was born and died in Paris. Alkan was his nom de guerre. Admitted to the Conservatoire of Paris in his sixth year, he had a distinguished career there until 1830. He visited London in 1833, after which he settled in Paris as a pianoforte teacher till his death. He is important as the composer of a large number of pianoforte etudes, embodying the most extravagant technical difficulties. His invention was not modern enough to secure for these works ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... carriage of her own? What ladies took care of her when she went out? Did she like dancing? What were the fashionable dances at noblemen's houses? Did young ladies in the great world practise the pianoforte much? How many offers had my sister had? Did she go to Court, as well as my father? What did she talk about to gentlemen, and what did gentlemen talk about to her? If she were speaking to a duke, how often would she say "your ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... developments were possible, and we have reason to believe that experiments were made in England, France, Germany and all civilized countries about this time, for the production of the instrument which we call, in this day, a Pianoforte. (Piano e forte: ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer
... lips was a direct spiritual intervention. These gentlemen have become Puseyites already, and are, my friend states, in the high way to Catholicism. Madame Sand herself was a Catholic some time since: having been converted to that faith along with M. N—, of the Academy of Music; Mr. L—, the pianoforte player; and one or two other chosen individuals, by the famous Abbe de la M—. Abbe de la M— (so told me in the Diligence, a priest, who read his breviary and gossiped alternately very curiously and pleasantly) is himself an ame perdue: the man spoke ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... silence, in which Mrs. Mansfield glanced about the room. Despite its size it was cozy. It looked as if it were lived in, perpetually and intimately used. There was nothing in it that was very handsome or very valuable, except a fine Steinway grand pianoforte; but there was nothing ugly or vulgar. And there were quantities of books, not covered with repellent glass. They were ranged in dark cases, which furnished the walls, and lay everywhere on tables, among magazines and papers, scores and volumes of songs and loose manuscript ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... action to become inherited—and I think it can be shown that this does sometimes happen—then the resemblance between what originally was a habit and an instinct becomes so close as not to be distinguished. If Mozart, instead of playing the pianoforte at three years old with wonderfully little practice, had played a tune with no practice at all, he might truly be said to have done so instinctively. But it would be the most serious error to suppose ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... as well as bands of harpers and pipers, were in vogue in Ireland before the coming of the English. Dante, quoted by Galilei, testifies to the fact that Italy received the harp from Ireland; and, it may be added, the Irish harp suggested the pianoforte. In the Anglo-Norman ballad, "The Entrenchment of New Ross"—in 1265—allusion is made to pipes and flutes, and carols and dancing. Another poem, dating from about 1320, refers to Irish dances in a ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... repartees of the first violin to the second, the apt resume and orderly reorganization of their epigrammatic interchanges by the 'cello and the double-bass, the steady typewritten report and summary of the whole by the pianoforte, and the regretful exception to so many points taken by the clarionet. If so, you have no doubt felt, as we have, a sense of perfect satisfaction at faultless musical structure, without having to surrender your soul unconditionally to the ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... violinist, Mr John Tiplady Carrodus, who, by the way, paid a visit to his native town of Keighley a few weeks ago. Mr Fred Carrodus had with him a gentleman whom he introduced to me as Mr Hermann, pianoforte manufacturer, and to whom I was introduced by Mr Carrodus as Bill o' th' Hoylus End, the Yorkshire poet. For four or five hours we were bosom friends and comrades, as it were. Mr Hermann knew his ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... such a man, it is said, in contradistinction to others, that he is an educated man. In a little higher circle, what they call education means the same thing as with the people; only to the conditions of education are added playing on the pianoforte, a knowledge of French, the writing of Russian without orthographical errors, and a still greater degree of external cleanliness. In a still more elevated sphere, education means all this with the addition of the English language, and a diploma ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... the novelist as a broad proposition are entirely different; and when the playwright is dealing with a long, finely-written, complex novel he can hardly expect his adaptation to bear a greater resemblance to the original than that of an easy pianoforte transcription to one of the later ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... then occupying with his soldiers. It was a fine house, with polished parquet floors and wide staircases. The dining-room was ornamented with delicate frescoes in gilt frames. In the drawing-room stood a new grand pianoforte, and light gilt chairs and sofas, looking strangely out of place on the field of war. By the front-door, sticking in the wall, was a shell which had failed to burst. I wonder if it is still there, or if anyone has ventured to shift it. It was half inside ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... more amusing to watch the grilling of a victim than to be scorched themselves; and the Kapellmeister in that mood—oh Je! They smiled warily at one another behind their scores, and stared at the slight, girlish figure beside the pianoforte. ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... cormorant. As you will see from consulting Murray, halibut means "holy-butt" (or flat-fish), and holy fishes are possessed of magical powers. When I lived on the coast of Florida I had a tame tarpon, which could swallow anything—croquet balls, door scrapers—and once ate an entire cottage pianoforte in half-an-hour. Here I may add that in my travels in Turkestan I was attacked by a boa-constrictor, and, though I escaped with my life, it proceeded to swallow the Bactrian camel on which I was riding. On the following ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... a living pianoforte with a vast complication of machinery and wires inside, but with no means of telling who the player is, and with only a guess as to why the player plays at all. I can only know what is being played, whether the mode is merry or ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... pictures of the Barbizon school. These books and these pictures were the elegant monument of hobbies which their owner had outlived. His present hobby happened to be music. A Steinway grand-piano was prominent in the chamber, and before the ebony instrument stood a mechanical pianoforte-player. ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... When he had uttered all those "ve-rys," one after another with still increasing emphasis, Rachel had no doubt believed them all. And she was taking great trouble with herself, practising every day for two hours together, with a looking-glass before her on the pianoforte, as Mr. Moss had made her quite understand that the opening of her mouth wide was the chief qualification necessary to her, beyond that which nature had done for her. Rachel did think it possible that she might become the undoubted prima donna of the day, as M. Le Gros had called her; and ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... in a woman! Of his neighbours generally, Mrs. Baerens, the wife of a German merchant, an exquisite player on the pianoforte, was the most inclined to lead him to speak of Lady Camper. She was a kind prattling woman, and was known to have been a governess before her charms withdrew the gastronomic Gottfried Baerens from his devotion ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... trumpets sounded, and the yellow flutes took up the melody on high notes, and bore it away through the trees. It was weird fairy-music, but quite delightful. The nearest approach to it that I know of above ground is to hear a wild dreamy air very well whistled to a pianoforte accompaniment. ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... appropriate air has just been composed for this song by Mr Walter Burns of Cupar-Fife, which has been arranged with symphonies and accompaniments for the pianoforte by Mr Edward ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... brief career, set to music several of Bjoernson's plays, and composed some strong pianoforte pieces and songs. "He was," says Siewers, "a man with a bold fresh way of looking at things, strong artistic interests, an untiring love of work, and deep national feeling. He had decided influence ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... these Lawrences, and the Black Bear must have been a curious kind of inn. Miss Burney was greatly surprised at hearing the sounds of singing and pianoforte-playing while she was beneath its roof. It was only the Miss Lawrences practising—but the inn-keepers' daughters of the last century were not generally possessed of such accomplishments. Then, still very wonderful for an inn, 'the house,' says Miss Burney, ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... half to five and a half feet in diameter, one tree furnishing two, three, or four such logs. Some trees have yielded 12,000 superficial feet, and at average price pieces have sold for $15,000. Messrs. Broadwood London, pianoforte manufacturers, paid L3,000 for three logs, all cut from one tree, and each about fifteen feet long and more than three feet square. The tree is cut at two seasons of the year—in the autumn and about Christmas time. The trunk, of course, furnishes timber of the largest dimensions, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various
... entitled "The Pianoforte Sonata: its Origin and Development." Some of the early sonatas mentioned in it were, however, written for instruments of the jack or tangent kind. Even Beethoven's sonatas up to Op. 27, inclusive, were published for "Clavicembalo o Pianoforte." The Germans ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... symphonies and sonatas; ballads and polkas; harmonic societies; choral societies; melodists' clubs; glee clubs; madrigal clubs. Here you have the quiet announcement of a quartett-party; next to it, the advertisement of one of the Philharmonic Societies—the giants of the musical world; pianoforte teachers announce one of their series of classic performances; great instrumental soloists have each a concert for the special behoof and glorification of the beneficiaire. Mr So-and-so's grand annual concert jostles Miss ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... failed to attend), couched in these terms: "Dear Rogers, leave the ancient music and come to ancient Cork, 93." Lady Cork's drawing-rooms were rather peculiar in their arrangement: they did not contain that very usual piece of furniture, a pianoforte, so that if ever she especially desired to have music she hired an instrument for the evening; the rest of the furniture consisted only of very large and handsome armchairs placed round the apartments ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... beat me on the piano. I know nearly all the girls' songs in San Toy and the Belle of New York. Father loves to hear me when I sing 'Rhoda Pagoda.' Perhaps, Miss Tredgold, you'd like to hear me play on the pianoforte. I dote on dance music; don't you, Miss Tredgold? Dance music is so lively; it warms the cockles of the heart—don't it, ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... Portable organs. Monochords with keys. Guido d'Arezzo. Clavier type. Virginal in Elizabethan age. Early clavier masters. First woman court clavier player. Scarlatti and Bach. True art of clavier-playing. Sonata form. Where Haydn gained much. Mozart and Clementi. Pianoforte and improvements. Viennese school. Clementi school. Giant on lofty heights. Oscar Bie on Beethoven. Golden age of pianoforte. Piano composers and virtuosi, from Weber to the present time. Teachers and performers often ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... bewildered drove of half-starved Paddies stood the two immense, broad-shouldered, high-fed Yorkshiremen, dressed in long-tailed coats, corduroy breeches, and yellow-topped boots, each accompanied by a chest of clothes not much less than a pianoforte, and a huge pile of spades, pick-axes, and other implements of husbandry. They possessed money also, and letters of credit, and described themselves as being persons of some substance at home. Why they emigrated they would not tell; but such were their ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... faults in the execution nor the beauty of the music, did as she saw the others do—pretended to be pleased and applauded decorously. Madame Szczymplica, whom she expected to meet at Mrs. Hoskyn's, appeared, and played a fantasia for pianoforte and orchestra by the famous Jack, another of Mrs. Hoskyn's circle. There was in the programme an analysis of this composition from which Alice learned that by attentively listening to the adagio she could hear the angels singing therein. She listened as attentively as ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... fine gal I've done my best to attract the notice of, while I was serving her in the shop—that is, when I've seen her get out of a carriage! There has been luck to many a chap like me, in the same line of speculation: look at Tom Tarnish—how did he get Miss Twang, the rich pianoforte-maker's daughter?—and now he's cut the shop, and lives at Hackney, like a regular gentleman! Ah! that was a stroke! But somehow it hasn't answered with me yet; the gals don't take! How I have set my eyes to be sure, and ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren |
