"Contralto" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a rich contralto voice, that of a boy rather than a man, the slight blur of the South distinguishable ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... cabinets and picture-galleries, to whom their compact method of utterance is, so to speak, secondarily natural. That they are precious and beauteous no one can deny. How sparkling are the successive descriptions of women—blonde, brune, Spanish, contralto-voiced, coquettish, etc.—whom the poet, like some capricious artist, invites into his atelier, drapes hastily with old Moorish or Venetian or diaphanous costumes, and then reflects in a diminishing mirror, changing the model into a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... a warm, full contralto of exquisite culture. It suggested depths of rich sound behind, from which the singer, if she chose, might draw, until the room and the deck and the sea ached with sweetness. I scarcely dared to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... konstituci-o constitution. konstru-i to build. konsul-o consul. konsult-i to seek advice of, consult. kont-o account (book-keeping, commercial). kontent-a content, satisfied. kontinent-o continent (geographical). kontrakt-i to contract, agree. kontralt-o contralto. kontraux (prep.), against, opposite, opposed to (159, 160). kontrol-i to control, inspect, examine and check. kontur-o outline, contour. kontuz-i to bruise. konven-i to be suitable, be fitting or convenient. konvink-i to convince, persuade. kopi-i to copy. kor-o heart (of ...
— A Complete Grammar of Esperanto • Ivy Kellerman
... on the now deserted pavement, exhorting and cheering him, a loud contralto voice vulgarised by an Italian accent ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... wives—" "Why two?" asked I. "You carry your affected simplicity too far", he cried. "How can there be a completely harmonious union without the combination of the Four in One, viz. the Bass and Tenor of the Man and the Soprano and Contralto of the two Women?" "But supposing," said I, "that a man should prefer one wife or three?" "It is impossible," he said; "it is as inconceivable as that two and one should make five, or that the human eye should see a Straight ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... In the contralto aria "He shall feed His flock," in Handel's Messiah, the unaccented word "shall" falls on the most strongly accented note of the bar. If performed thus, it would give a most aggressive character to the passage, ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... stood firmly planted in the centre of a pile of luggage, as to which she was giving involved but lucid directions to the footman who had just admitted her. She went on with these directions regardless of Darrow's entrance, merely fixing her small pale eyes on him while she proceeded, in a deep contralto voice, and a fluent French pronounced with the purest Boston accent, to specify the destination of her bags; and this enabled Darrow to give her back a gaze protracted enough to take in all the details of her plain thick-set ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... "Jettatura," "Une Nuit de Cleopatre," etc., and then the very diamonds of the crown, "Les Emaux et Camees," "La Symphonie en Blanc Majeure," in which the adjective blanc and blanche is repeated with miraculous felicity in each stanza. And then Contralto,— ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... pardon," said a pleasant but somewhat decided contralto voice, "but I don't think you heard me knock. Ah, I see you did ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... distinction. She was the daughter of a Covent Garden upholsterer, and sister of Dr Arne (1710-1778) the composer. Mrs Cibber had a beautiful voice and began her career in opera. She was the original Galatea in Handel's Acis and Galatea, and the contralto arias in the Messiah are said to have been written for her. She played Zarah in Aaron Hill's version of Voltaire's Zaire in 1736, and it was as a tragic actress, not as a singer, that her greatest triumphs were won. From Colley Cibber she learned a sing-song method of declamation. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... "The pure contralto sings in the organ loft, The carpenter dresses his plank—the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp, The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving dinner, The pilot seizes the king-pin—he heaves down with a strong arm, The mate stands braced in the ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... contralto voice which had been carefully cultivated. Every evening in the twilight, with only the flickering of the wood fire in the room, she would sit at the piano and sing. Lane would close his eyes and let the mellow voice charm his every sense. It called up his highest ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... above a book held open upon his knee, the shape of which bespoke a Bible; while on the other side a bevy of children were romping with their dogs or playing with sharp knives in the hard ground. A woman over by the gate lifted a sweet contralto voice in an old-time love-song, and had hardly lilted the opening line before others joined her, making the night resound to the tender melody. I saw the soldiers pause in their work to beat time, and marked the dark forms of the sentries above on the ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... it had the rich depth and pathos of contralto, and the vibrant clearness of soprano. Now it threaded a tremulous pathway among the pathetic minor notes, while the fingers seemed to drop a faint sigh ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... was lost upon Jack: I do not think he even heard it. His handsome, colorless face, albeit a trifle worn and thoughtful, was inscrutable. Only once, during the singing of a hymn, at a certain note in the contralto's voice, there crept into his dark eyes a look of wistful tenderness, so yearning and yet so hopeless, that those who were watching him felt their own glisten. Yet I retain a very vivid remembrance of his standing up ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... hermit and woodthrush? Both are gifted singers whose notes, rising serene in far mountain haunts, touch our spirits like a prayer. The melody of the woodthrush is not so wild, so ethereal and so far away as the hermit's, but when he rings his vesper bell in his divine contralto voice, no other sound in Nature can excel it. We have heard many nightingales and skylarks singing, but their songs do not attain that depth of soul-thrilling harmony found alone in the song of the thrush. So, too, here in ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... some adjacent den, there floated a tenor aria, the Bella figlia del amore, pierced suddenly and beautifully by a contralto's ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... preconcerted signal, the throats are all atune. I lie on my back with eyes half closed, and analyze the chorus of warblers, thrushes, finches, and flycatchers; while, soaring above all, a little withdrawn and alone rises the divine contralto of the hermit. That richly modulated warble proceeding from the top of yonder birch, and which unpracticed ears would mistake for the voice of the scarlet tanager, comes from that rare visitant, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... worshiper. It loves, not the beautiful, but the strange, the unprecedented, the astounding; it suffers from an incurable heliogabalisme. A soprano who can gargle her way up to G sharp in altissimo interests it almost as much as a contralto who has slept publicly with a grand duke. If it cannot get the tenor who receives $3,000 a night, it will take the tenor who fought the manager with bung-starters last Tuesday. But this is merely saying that the ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... go home, with a tray on which there was a pitcher of something nice and cold that tasted of orange, and some small doughnuts. Miss Rand sat down on an apple branch, which seat she preferred to a chair, and she sang for them, at Peggy's request, some Scotch songs, in a sweet contralto voice. ...
— Peggy in Her Blue Frock • Eliza Orne White
... be deafened,' said Rose, laughing, as she escaped from him a moment, to arrange for a song from a tall formidable maiden, built after the fashion of Mr. Gilbert's contralto heroines, with a voice which bore out the ample ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... or very low voices may continue their practice higher or lower as the voice is soprano, or bass, or contralto, but much practice on the extremes of the voice is unadvisable. If pure tones are produced in the medium range of the voice the highest or lowest tones will be found ready when called for. Therefore practise the extremes of the voice ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... grave by six stalwart negroes, laborers on the estate. A lad followed, leading poor Thurlow's favorite horse. Then the widow and her son, the relatives, friends, and family servants. A fine male quartet sang "Nearer, my God, to Thee," and a soul-stirring contralto, "Asleep in Jesus." Tears stood in the eyes of all, the negroes weeping openly and uncontrollably. As the grave was filled in, the snow began to fall in real earnest, gusts of wind lashing the pines into fury. It was ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... During this season the Havana Opera Company again visited America bringing Steffanone, Bosio, Tedesco (soprani); Vietto (contralto); Salvi, Bettini and Lorini (tenori); Badiali, Setti, Marini, and Coletti (bassi)—the best company heard in ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... the natural gifts with which this lady is endowed, the great musical skill which she has acquired, both as a singer and an instrumentalist, is a convincing argument against the assertion so often made, that the negro race is incapable of intellectual culture of a high standard.... Her voice is a contralto, of great clearness and mellow tone in the upper register, and full, resonant, and powerful in the lower, though slightly masculine in its timbre. It is peculiarly effective in ballad-songs of the pathetic cast, several of which Miss Greenfield sang last night in a very expressive manner. ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... where he would have expected to meet with one. No air was played—only a few chords were lightly touched by fingers which were evidently expert. Presently a female voice was heard to sing in rich contralto tones. The air was extremely simple, and very beautiful—at least, so thought Oliver, as he leaned against a wall and listened to the words. These, also, were simple enough, but sounded both sweet and sensible to the listener, coming as they did from a woman's lips ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... and strayed. His fingers were always nervously seeking hidden keys and he was quick with enthusiasm,—instinct with life. His bride of a year or more,—dark, too, in her whiter way,—was of the calm and quiet type. Her soft contralto voice thrilled us often as she sang, while her ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... Justice was not done to it on the stage at the Royalty, but there are two morceaux in it which ought to become popular; one being a song entitled "Her Eye," which, were it wedded to serious words, would be highly popular as a contralto song, just as SULLIVAN'S charming "Hush a bye Bacon," in Cox and Box, became "Birds of the Night." Then the Gavotte in this book is as graceful and catching as the Gavotte de Louis Treize, and would be in great request with orchestras ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... the post of conductor and solo violinist to the King of Hanover, a position which he retained for twelve years, during which time he enhanced his reputation as a musician, and married Amalia Weiss, a celebrated contralto singer. In 1866 the troubles which enveloped Germany brought Joachim's engagement in Hanover to an end, but two years later he entered upon what has proved to be the most important part of his career, when he was appointed professor of violin at the Hochschule for music in ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... sweet to hear. It died away and for a little while there was silence broken only by a rustling sound like to that of people taking their seats in a dark theatre. Then a woman began to sing in a beautiful, contralto voice, but in what language I do not know, for I could not catch the words, if these were words and not only ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... happy. She had not been cleared. She bought and dispersed Bibles, contributed more money to the plate, contralto'd gloriously in all the hymns, but would not tell her soul. In vain Abel Ah Yo wrestled with her. She would not go down on her knees at the penitent form and voice the things of tarnish within her— ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... storm, the wind tossing the soft kimono in which she was clad and the rain wetting her face. Under the tin roof, the air was filled with the rattling reverberation of the rain. The woman lifted her head and, with the rain beating down upon her, began singing, her fine contralto voice rising above the rattle of the rain on the roof and going on uninterrupted by the crash of the thunder. She sang of a lover riding through the storm to his mistress. One refrain ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... worn, and Madame Frezzolini, as the last imported celebrity from Europe; her voice, too, is past its prime, but her art is pronounced immaculate, and she is quite a charmer, if we may trust the critics. For contralto there is Vestvali, the dashing tall one, who delights in man's clothes, and sings Charles the Fifth, the baritone (!) rle in "Ernani." There is a delicate new tenor, Labocetta, and another named Maccaferri, and a fresh, universally admired baritone, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... gestures were solemn and almost hieratic. The heroine, who wore her gown as though it were a Greek peplus, with arm uplifted, and head lowered, was nothing else but Antigone, and she smiled with a smile of eternal sacrifice, carefully modulating the lower notes of her beautiful contralto voice. The heavy father walked about like a fencing-master, with automatic gestures, a funereal dignity,—romanticism in a frock-coat. The juvenile lead gulped and gasped and squeezed out a sob or two. The piece was written in the style of a tragic serial story: ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... a concert had been arranged by a musical society in a town near Glasgow—a suburb of the city. I was to appear with a quartet soprano, contralto, tenor and bass. The two ladies and the tenor greeted me cheerfully enough, and seemed glad to see me—the contralto, indeed, was very friendly, and said she always went to hear me when she had the chance. But the ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... very correct. She would take her turn at the harmonium in church, and, when she was there, you never heard a wrong note in the bass, nor an inappropriate flourish, nor bad time. She could sing, too, but never would, except her part in a psalm. Her voice was a deep contralto, and she chose to be ashamed of this heavenly organ, because a pack of envious girls had giggled, and said it was ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... fading traces of tears; she is no giddy girl, but a strong woman with fine irregular features, large and luminous eyes, broad intelligent forehead, eyebrows so thick and close together that detraction might call her beetle-browed, powerful mouth and chin, fine contralto voice (with an occasional stammer), expression alternately repellent and attractive, but always striking and sincere. No one has ever found her lovely; but there are times when she has a fascination ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... repeated, dropping her voice to a contralto note that she was fond of. "Tell me, Marm Prudence; tell me all! have I broken ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... on the balcony after evening tea, reading. At the same time, in the drawing-room, Tanya taking soprano, one of the young ladies a contralto, and the young man with his violin, were practising a well-known serenade of Braga's. Kovrin listened to the words—they were Russian—and could not understand their meaning. At last, leaving his book and ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... shortly," said the old gentleman to Stanley as he rose; "go to the drawing-room, girls, and give Mr Hall some music. You'll find that my Katie sings and plays very sweetly, although she won't let me say so. Fanny joins her with a fine contralto, I believe, and Queeker, too, he sings—a—a what is it, Queeker?—a ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... indulged; relieved, strengthened, nor ever sated, by a continuous study of both theoretical and practical music, she approached both piano and organ with eager yet withholding foot, each as a great and effectual door ready to open into regions of delight. But she was gifted also with a fine contralto voice, of exceptional scope and flexibility, whose capacity of being educated into an organ of expression was not thrown away upon one who had a world inside her to express—doubtless as yet not a little chaotic, but in process of assuming form that ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... Consequently our amateurs felt it their duty to witness the performance, and thus pick up some valuable hints for future use by such a mild form of "under-study." Not only our three friends, but two others of the company—the second soprano and the contralto—started on their short railway journey on a certain evening in March, intending to return by ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... concurrently with medicine, and to better result, was able to furnish accompaniments. The concert began, and Piers, who had felt misgivings, was most agreeably surprised. Not only had Bridget a voice, a very sweet mezzo-contralto, but she sang with remarkable feeling. More than once the listener had much ado to keep tears out of his eyes; they were at his throat all the time, and his heart swelled with the passionate emotion which had lurked there ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... the pans scoured and put away in the baskets, the picnickers gathered about the dying bonfires for a "sing-song." This always included all the songs they loved best, the songs Mr. and Mrs. Lee had known in their youth and the songs of the present day. And Aunt Josephine's rich contralto ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... both hands to her ears, as if the noise distressed her, then dropped them, straightened herself resolutely, and answered in a pleasant contralto, whose rich notes betokened power ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... expression of the most perfect goodness, with very amiable manners. I was surprised by hearing her sing several very difficult Italian songs with great expression and wonderful facility. She has a fine contralto, which has been cultivated; but some Spanish ballads, and little songs of the country, she sang so delightfully, and with so much good-nature and readiness, that had it not been a first visit, I should have begged her to continue during half the morning. Fine voices are ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... work surprised. Her own voice was contralto, but it would have taken her a week to learn to sing a second from the notes, and she had never ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... said Clementina in a deep contralto voice, which seemed even deeper from its restraint. "You don't seem to have any sense. Anybody'd think you never had seen a ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... put in Mary de Peyster, nee Mary Morgan, in her soft contralto voice, that seemed to effervesce with mischief. "Tell Matilda what you're ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... by no means so complete as he expected. He presently was aware of a camp-meeting hymn hummed somewhat ostentatiously by a deep contralto voice, which he at once recognized as Melinda's, and saw that severe virgin proceeding from the kitchen along the ridge until within a few paces of the buckeyes, when she stopped and, with her hand shading her eyes, apparently began to examine the distant fields. ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... bed. Then she carried her to the little rocker by the window and with a look that was the very essence of motherhood began to rock the two year old to sleep. Presently there floated down to Amos, smoking his pipe on the front step, Lydia's childish, throaty contralto: ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... Mrs. Gordon said, "Won't you sing something?" and Mary sat down to the piano and sang to them. Such singing no one there had ever heard before. Her deep contralto voice was powerful, flexible, and obviously well-trained; besides which she had the great natural gift of putting "feeling" into her singing. The children sat spellbound. The station-hands and house-servants, who had been playing the concertina and yarning on the wood-heap at the ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... ride to Tarrytown), Out of the papers. I watchfully waited, Yearning a coup that would place him on the Musical map. A coup, such as kissing a Marshal Joffre, Aeroplaning over the bay, Diving with Annette Kellerman. Then for three days I quit the city To get a simple contralto into the western papers. Returning I entered my office; the phone jangled. The burly tenor was tearfully sobbing and moaning over the wire; Tremor and emotion choked his throat. This was his ominous message: ...
— The Broadway Anthology • Edward L. Bernays, Samuel Hoffenstein, Walter J. Kingsley, Murdock Pemberton
... referred you to the priest? Quite so." She laughed softly, her voice a mellow contralto. "The Father has been gone for a month; he wouldn't have let you in if ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... I heard a sweet contralto voice in the adjoining room break out into a song from one of the popular revues. It was Gabrielle's ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... high spirits, except when asked to do the one thing she could do—sing! Then she became—quite genuinely—a nervous, hesitant, pale little thing. However, the suppliant hostess bore her off, and presently her rich contralto notes passed through the garden, adding to its passion and mystery, and through the open French windows, John could see her standing against the wall near the piano, her head thrown back, her eyes half-closed, her creamy throat swelling in the ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... "Hum! Born in New Jersey in the year 1858. Contralto—hum! La Scala, hum! Prima donna Imperial Opera of Warsaw—yes! Retired from operatic stage—ha! Living in London—quite so! Your Majesty, as I understand, became entangled with this young person, wrote her some compromising letters, and is now desirous of ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... a voice exceedingly sweet and rich; an uncommon contralto; and when she sang one of these hymns, it came with its fall power. Mrs. Armadale heard her, and murmured a "Praise the Lord!" And Charity, getting the breakfast, heard her; and made ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... the boy began to sing in a full, rich contralto voice, which betrayed a tremour, however, that evidently formed no part of the air. His words, so far as they might be ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... workers was a naked laughing boy, with a fine contralto that rang out so merrily through all the din as to create something of a sensation in the hotel. A young woman, one of the guests, came out upon the balcony to look, and exclaimed: 'That boy's voice is RED'—whereat everybody smiled. Under ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... well! McKinstry reckoned music as about as useful as the crackling of thorns under a pot; so he never cared to know, what was the fact, that this youngest daughter of Gurney's had one of the purest contralto voices in the States. She came home, grown, but just as shy; only tired, needing care: no one could look in Lizzy Gurney's face without wishing to comfort and help the child. The Gurneys were so wretchedly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... the first that Mr. Caryll heard from her lips. They made an excellent impression upon him, bearing witness to her good sense and judgment—although belatedly aroused—and informing him, although the pitch was strained just now; that the rich contralto of her voice was full of music. He was a judge of voices, as of much ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... that this Vittoria was no other than the famous singer, Vittoria Tesi, "a contralto of masculine strength," as one listener describes her voice. She was very dramatic, and made her chief success in men's roles, singing bass songs transposed an octave higher. She was born at Florence in 1690, and would have been seventeen years old when ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... musical bird long passed from light, Which over the earth before man came was winging; There's a contralto voice I heard last night, That lodges in me ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... foremost charm. It was a deep voice; the profoundest contralto with an illimitable strength ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... perfect as it may be in tone, is yet always very deficient in compass, as is obvious from the fact that the bass voice, the barytone, the contralto, and the soprano have all different registers, and are all required to produce a complete vocal harmony. If we could make organ-pipes with movable, self-regulating lips, with self-shortening and self-lengthening tubes, so that each tube should command the two or three octaves ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... in tones which would have lent a charm to the driest of statistical details, what the hour was. I had never before been impressed with any particular interest attaching to the hour of three in the morning, but as I heard it announced in those low, rich, thrilling contralto tones, it appeared fairly to coruscate with previously latent suggestions of romance and poetry, which, if somewhat vague, were very pleasing. Turning out the gas that I might the more easily imagine ...
— With The Eyes Shut - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... changed entirely. Gone were the heavy guttural tones. In their place was a rich, rather throaty contralto. Carnes gave a cry of astonishment and turned his ...
— The Great Drought • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... charge of the score! That falls to him by right as a compatriot. Then, that would give him an opportunity to break lances with Mehul and Rossini. If that fool of a Gerfaut would only come! Let us see what would be the three characters: Soprano, Suzannah; contralto, David; the old men, two basses; as for the tenor, he would be, of course, Suzannah's husband. There would be a superb entrance for him upon his return from the army, 'cavatina guerriera con cori'. Oh! that terrible Gerfaut! the wolves ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... is it about Laura?" she asked in her cordial contralto voice. "A person who has borne living in the house with a flute may be said to have ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... and used it too with constant soap and water. With her lessons she did not succeed, more particularly with arithmetic, which she abhorred. Sometimes they were done, sometimes left undone, but she never failed in history. Her voice was a contralto of most remarkable power, strong enough to fill a cathedral, but altogether undisciplined. She was fond of music, and the organist at the church offered to teach her with his own daughters, if she would sing with them on Sundays; but she ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... to hear the general's bass raging, but through the inner door came the strident tones of the lieutenant's modulating contralto. He had expected to see the general towering over the girl's shrinking figure, but as he entered she was bent earnestly in the middle, and the top of her torso inclined toward General Morrison, who had tilted as far back as his swivel chair ...
— A Fine Fix • R. C. Noll
... have found her figure unfamiliar and striking where once it had been merely tall and slender and strong, ordinarily dressed. Then how would Jim Cleve ever recognize her? She remembered her voice that had been called a contralto, low and deep; and how she used to sing the simple songs she knew. She could not disguise that voice. But she need not let Jim hear it. Then there was a return of the idea that he would instinctively recognize her—that no disguise could be proof to a lover who had ruined himself ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... cries another, twirling his cane. "I'll tell you what I think of her; she is a woman between thirty and thirty-five; faded complexion, handsome eyes, flat figure, contralto voice worn out, much dressed, rather rouged, charming manners; in short, my dear fellow, the remains of a pretty woman who is still worth the trouble of a passion." This remark is from the species Fop, who has just breakfasted, doesn't weigh his words, and is about to mount his horse. At ...
— Madame Firmiani • Honore de Balzac
... at the post; Tenor Di Grazia, his twin brother; Giovanni Baritono, a Soldier of Fortune; Piccolo, an innkeeper; Fra Tonerero Basso, a priest; Signorina Prima Soprano, a bar maid; Signorina Mezzo, also a bar maid, and Signora Contralto, Piccolo's wife, besides villagers, eight topers, musicians, five couples of rustic brides and grooms, and a dancing bear and his keeper. Let us not forget the mythical mouse and the ribbon from which The Garters ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... plain flanked by gray Hymettos, and away to the sea. There were no voices rising from below. There was no sound of traffic on the white road which wound away down the slope to the hidden city. Her contralto voice lingered on the words; her lips drew them out softly, ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... their songs to the winds that played so gently around us. One of the voices was a soprano of much sweetness and flexibility, for it ascended the scale with great ease, and its higher notes were flutelike. The other was a contralto of no mean order. And there joined in chorus with these, two male voices, evidently well trained, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... such cases—but whatever may happen, I shall still be loyal; I shall always have your interests at heart.' Her words faltered and she turned her head away. 'You did love me once, Arthur, I can't forget that.' The contralto voice trembled ever so little, and the gloved hand smoothed gently the brass ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... open fires in the yard; they spread out long webs of jeans and linen on the grass to dry or bleach, and all the while they sang—sang the measured rhythm of familiar hymns in the high soprano of white women—sang wild, plaintive lyrics in the liquid contralto of negresses. Men were repairing fences, and doing other Winter work in the fields, and from the woods came the ringing staccato of choppers. She met on the road leisurely-traveling negro women, who louted low to her, and then as she passed, turn to gaze after her with feminine ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... coat, carefully adjusting the collar. Then fingering an imaginary watch-chain, she began. Her face grew grave—her neck seemed to thicken. Her voice was a throaty contralto. ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... contralto voice was raised above the rest. "You are unethical, Savarona, to announce such a thing before adapting it to ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... Freda, and there was a shade of sadness in her tone. Her voice was deeper than most women's voices—a rich contralto with something striking and individual about it. I could hear her quite plainly; but Derrick spoke less distinctly—he always had a ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... said the lady, in a sweet contralto. "I think I am not mistaken; this is the young lady who arrived last evening, and is registered,"—she looked full in the ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... with her fingers wandering o'er the keys, The white enchantress with the golden hair Breathed all her soul through some unvalued rhyme; Some flower of song that long had lost its bloom; Lo! its dead summer kindled as she sang! The sweet contralto, like the ringdove's coo, Thrilled it with brooding, fond, caressing tones, And the pale minstrel's passion lived again, Tearful and trembling as a dewy rose The wind has shaken till it fills the air With light and fragrance. Such the wondrous charm A song can borrow ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... could see even less than of Bob's, for the hood of the cape was upturned into a cowl, and even in Switzerland the stars are only stars. But while I peered she let me hear her voice, and a very rich one it was—almost deep in tone—the voice of a woman who would sing contralto. ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... had an inkling that there had been some deep disappointment in the background, which had turned a passionately affectionate nature into a fastidious and critical temperament. She had a wonderful contralto voice, and a real genius for music; she could rarely be persuaded to touch an instrument; but occasionally, with a small and familiar party, she would sing a few old songs with a passion and a depth of melancholy feeling that produced an almost physical ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... been agitated in such fashion; he knew himself as he had never known himself. It was as if some potent element, undreamed of before, came rushing into the ordered sphere of his world, and shouldered its elements from the rhythm of their going. It was a full contralto, with pathos in the very heart of it, and it seemed to wrap itself round his heart like a serpent of saddest splendor, and press the blood from it up into his eyes. The ladies were too much occupied to hear him announced, or ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... the high prices paid to fortunate artists in these times may be found in the fact that Alboni, the famous contralto singer, has been engaged to sing at Madrid, at the enormous rate of $400 dollars per day, while Roger, the tenor, who used to sing at the Comic Opera at Paris, and who was transplanted to the Grand ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... arrange a concert in aid of the widows and orphans of officials killed in a recent railway accident. She stipulated that she should sing in two duets only, choosing the other voice herself, and she selected Miss Hilda Wilson, the well-known contralto of ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... musical evenings, with about three second-rate professionals, and a sprinkling of local talent. The Misses Hillier play the harp and violin, with particularly red arms and bony elbows, their sister-in-law sings in a throaty contralto, and the ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... 1906, Mr. Clemens, following a musical recital by his daughter in Norfolk, Conn., addressed her audience on the subject of stage-fright. He thanked the people for making things as easy as possible for his daughter's American debut as a contralto, and then told of his first experience before ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... violet or a child, perpetually perfuming the air. It could be traced at last—for she had not a good feature—to the possession of a pair of very soft, and shy, brown eyes, and of a voice, simply agreeable in conversation, which burgeoned out in song into the richest contralto imaginable, causing her to be known widely in society as "the Miss Masters who sings." Indeed, she had a wonderful musical talent, which she had cultivated largely. Her playing had even approved itself ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... as it were, out of the music, and a moment later the Song of the Revolution rolled forth in a flood of triumphant melody, above which Natasha's pure contralto thrilled sweet and strong, till to Arnold's intoxicated senses it seemed like the voice of some angel singing from the sky in the ears of men, and it was not until the hymn had been ended for some moments that he was recalled ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... movement, a phase greatly promoted by one of those unreasonable objections people of Ann Veronica's temperament take at times—to the girl in the next cell to her own. She was a large, resilient girl, with a foolish smile, a still more foolish expression of earnestness, and a throaty contralto voice. She was noisy and hilarious and enthusiastic, and her hair was always abominably done. In the chapel she sang with an open-lunged gusto that silenced Ann Veronica altogether, and in the exercising-yard ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... the living-room, offering a rough, red hand to an exquisite creature who seemed a blurred mass of pale green and burnished gold, redolent of violets, and who murmured, in a beautifully modulated contralto: "How do you do, Miss Starr! I am very glad ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... crossed the room and spoke to Theodora, who instantly, without the slightest demur, joined her friends. Lothair felt agitated, as he could not doubt Theodora was going to sing. And so it was; when Euphrosyne had finished, and the chorus she had inspired had died away, there rose a deep contralto sound, which, though without effort, seemed to Lothair the most thrilling tone he had ever listened to. Deeper and richer, and richer and deeper, it seemed to become, as it wound with exquisite facility ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... Italian opera-singer, was born at Cesena, Romagna, and was trained in music at Bologna, where she became a pupil of Rossini. She had a magnificent contralto voice, and in 1843 made her first appearance at La Scala, Milan, being recognized at once as a public favourite. In England her reputation was established by her appearance at Covent Garden in 1847, and she had brilliant success ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Sarah sang the soprano; Mary, Margaret and Lauretta sang the alto. Mary's voice being a deep contralto, she improvised the third part. The plaintive song, with the sentiment of home surroundings, touched the hearts of all the passengers and turned their thoughts homewards, and many an ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... true, that when Miss JESSIE KING was charmingly giving the contralto song, "While my Watch I'm Keeping," a gentleman in the crowded audience suddenly put his hand to his waistcoat-pocket and exclaimed, "Good gracious! it's gone!" He will never forget the title of that song. The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 17, 1892 • Various
... next moment her deep majestic contralto, accompanied by my own thin and quavering soprano, were sending out into the silent air the holy notes which to me are like ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... several small, select cliques, each engaged in deadly and bitter feud with the rest. When the moon-eyed soprano arose, with a gentle flutter, and opened her charming mouth in solo, her friends settled themselves in their pews with a general rustle of satisfaction, while the friends of the contralto exchanged civilly significant glances; and on the way home the solo in question was disposed of in a manner at once thorough and final. The same thing occurred when the contralto was prominent, or the tenor, or the baritone, or the basso, each of whom it was confidently asserted ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... birds that are gifted with the sweetest of songs. In the bed of the Morogoro River lives a warbler who sings from the late afternoon until dusk, and he is one of the very few birds that have that deep contralto note, the "Jug" of the nightingale. And there are little wrens with drab bodies and crimson tails that live beside the dwellings of men and pick up crumbs from the doors of our tents, and hunt the rose trees for insects. In the thorn bushes of higher altitudes are grey finches that might have ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... of the scene suggested it to her, or whether it was merely a coincidence, I do not know, but Miss Darrow began to sing "In the Gloaming" in a deep, rich contralto voice which seemed fraught with a weird, melancholy power. When I say that her voice was ineffably sympathetic I would not have you confound this quality either with the sepulchral or the aspirated tone which usually is made to do duty for sympathy, especially in contralto voices. Every ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... find her again, with her rival Sontag out of the way, and Sontag's lover to console. She furnished him with contrast enough, for she differed from Sontag in these respects, that she was only twenty-two, she was a contralto, dark and Spanish, and was known to be married. Her consolation of De Beriot was complete. They lived together the rest of her life, touring in concerts occasionally, with enormous financial success, she creating an immortal name as an operatic singer, ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... little Amelia Wheeler had the rudiments of a fairly good contralto. I had begun to wonder if the poor child might not be able at least to sing a little, and so make up for—other things; and now she tries to sing high like Lily Jennings, and I simply cannot prevent it. She has heard Lily play, too, and has lost her own touch, and now it is neither one thing ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... done, had retired again) came guffaws, and gurgles, and wails of laughter. The three men in the automobile eyed each other inquiringly. The laughter drew nearer. They could distinguish, amid mirth unmistakably negroid, a beautiful contralto voice demanding. "Did you see 'em skedaddle, Lige? Oh, wasn't it glorious! Riding on their stomachs, their ears, any old way. Holding on ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... voices rose and fell together, now soft, now triumphant, harmonizing as if they sung together for years. Dare's second was low, pathetic, and it blended at once with Ruth's clear young contralto. Charles wondered that the others should applaud when the duet was finished. Ruth's voice went best alone ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... thrasher for his liking and he slips down into the brush. And then, by rare good fortune, a blue-bird begins his song. He has been chided by some because he has a magnificent contralto voice and scarcely ever uses it. Have we not been taught to chide the man who hides his talent in a napkin, or his light under a bushel? But how he can sing when he does sing! This is one of the mornings. The rich contralto thrush-like melody, ...
— Some Spring Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... was peeping over the bannisters at him, and the vision's eyes were sparkling with a lucent mischief and a wonderful, half-hushed contralto was demanding of him: ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... criminal unheard!" Remembering that she was so lately from the convent, he ventured this speech in a deep, thrilling voice, only to receive a distinct shock for his pains, for she greeted it with an irrepressible, most unexpected peal of contralto laughter, and his lips parted slightly with the ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... and mystical there was in these words, sung as she sang them in a low, soft, contralto, sustained by the pathetic quiver of the zither strings throbbing under the pressure of her white fingers, and Angus asked her where she had ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... was not as absurd as it may seem, for it is a fact that the voice which is called a contralto, if it is a good and clear and fairly resonant voice, sounds at a distance very much indeed like a 'cello or the lower register of a violin. And that is especially true when the voice is hushed to a half-articulate ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... husband and two children," Aline Goring murmured, in her soft contralto. "You remember Eugene? At the Springs that summer?" The husband, a tall, smooth-shaven, young man with glasses and the delicate air of the steam-heated American ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... efforts had not been in vain; they were accomplished far beyond the ordinary run of young girls. Lillian inherited her father's talent for drawing. She was an excellent artist. Beatrice excelled in music. She had a magnificent contralto voice that had been carefully trained. Both were cultivated, graceful, elegant girls, and Lady Earle often sighed to think they should be living in such profound obscurity. She could do nothing; seventeen years had not changed Lord Earle's resolution. Time, far from softening, ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... she replied in a very throaty contralto that went with her figure and her thousand dollars worth of simple skirt and blouse. "You needn't 'Fix' anything. Just be sure that it's Flying Heels, Moonbeam, and Lady Grace in that order. One, two, three. Do ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... higher institution of learning. She wished, too, to cultivate her voice, and to use it in supporting herself later. She knew she could sing; she loved it, and the instructors at Briarwood encouraged her in the belief that she had a more than ordinarily fine contralto voice. ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... at once timid and childlike. Her footstep had feline grace, delicacy and distinction. She had a figure almost perfect, erect, lithe, with small hands and feet and tiny wrists. Her voice was a soft contralto, caress-ing and full of feeling, with a touch of the languor and delicate sensuousness of the Old South. About her personality there was a haunting charm, vivid and spiritual, the breath of a soul capable of the ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... mistress's quiet authority in her boyish contralto voice, "put Glory in the covered wagon, and drive down the road as far as the valley turning. There's a man lying near the right bank, drunk, or sick, may be, or perhaps crippled by a fall. Bring him up here, unless somebody has found him already, or you happen to know who he is and where ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... form," observed the fishy-eyed gentleman, in deep contralto tones, "for any gentleman to take it upon himself to reply to a remark addressed to ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... surprise—I, who had heard nothing but German fall from her lips?—when in a heavenly contralto she sang a chanson from "La Fille de Madame Angot," an opera forgotten these ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... morning a month later. And Miss Philura Rice—as was afterward remarked—sang the words with such enthusiasm and earnestness that her high soprano soared quite above all the other voices in the choir, and this despite the fact that Miss Electa Pratt was putting forth her nasal contralto with ...
— The Transfiguration of Miss Philura • Florence Morse Kingsley
... Edna had an even, contralto voice, and sang with the charm of temperament; but to the sensitive listener the enchantment of the sea seemed to linger in the tones of this creature who, with the sparkling drops still shining in her dark hair, poured out such strange ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... by Major and Mrs. Powell, to whose kind care we were committed by Colonel Gentry, who, being a bachelor, had no accommodation for ladies. It was very delightful, in the centre of a prairie wilderness, to meet with ladies, and to hear the rich contralto voice of Miss Powell, their daughter of eighteen, who promised to be a singer much ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... love. And lo, her enunciation was precise and clear, not lisping and incomplete like that of her family; and the voice, though deeper than usual with women, was still both youthful and womanly. She spoke in a rich chord; golden contralto strains mingled with hoarseness, as the red threads were mingled with the brown among her tresses. It was not only a voice that spoke to my heart directly; but it spoke to me of her. And yet her words immediately plunged me back ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... inspire fear, she was ready—not to say pleased—to accede. Selecting from the canterbury some old family ditties, that in years gone by had been played and sung by her mother, Elfride sat down to the pianoforte, and began, ''Twas on the evening of a winter's day,' in a pretty contralto voice. ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... CONTRALTO (from Ital. contra-alto, i.e. next above the alto), the term for the lowest variety of the female voice, as distinguished from the soprano and mezzo-soprano. Originally it signified, in choral music, the part next higher than the alto, given to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... perfectly, the circle about her touched their glasses while they sang, "For she's a jolly good fellow." Later, when the little supper was almost over, Ethel Elliot, leaning over to lay her hand on Margaret's, began in her rich contralto:— ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... of Madame Pavalucini, the celebrated contralto. As interviewed incidentally in the palm-room of The Slitz Hotel, over a cup of tea (one dollar), French Win-the-War pastry (one fifty) ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... his violin, and the Van Ness boys produced a banjo and a madolin. Everybody seemed to sing at least fairly well, and some of the voices were really fine. Patty's sweet soprano received many compliments, as also did Elise's full, clear contralto. The girls were accustomed to singing together, and Mr. Pauvret proved himself a true musician ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... Piazzetta of St. Mark, the moon comes up above the waters of the Adriatic and hangs serenely over the lagoons. No pen can justly describe such a sight—only a Claude Lorraine could paint it. Glancing gondolas on their noiseless track cut the silvery ripples; a sweet contralto voice, with guitar accompaniment, salutes the ear; stately palaces cast long, mysterious shadows upon the water; the Bridge of Sighs arches the canal between the palace and prison close at hand; oddly-rigged craft from ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... self-possession lasted but a moment. But as she turned her startled eyes to him Keenan's last doubt as to whether or not it was a mere mistake withered away from his mind. He knew, from the hot flush that mounted to her cheeks and from the mellow contralto of her carefully modulated English voice, that she belonged to that vaguely denominated yet rigidly delimited type that would always be ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... and Portuguese, she spoke French perfectly and English not badly, sang in a melodious contralto voice, drew well for an amateur, carved alabaster vases, and had all kinds of talents. She did not care to sing ballads, only cared ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... dreamland, the watcher of the midnight sun gave himself up to the half painful, half delicious sense of being drawn in, absorbed, and lost in infinite imaginings, when the intense stillness around him was broken by the sound of a voice singing, a full, rich contralto, that rang through the air with the clearness of a golden bell. The sweet liquid notes were those of an old Norwegian mountain melody, one of those wildly pathetic folk-songs that seem to hold all the sorrow, wonder, wistfulness, and indescribable yearning of a heart too full for other speech ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... the proper key, found it—under his breath—and began, very softly, and on a low note, to sing. Janet joined him with a subdued contralto, and the two voices, without words, made themselves into a harmonious undertone of an accompaniment. Upon this support, presently, rose Constance's pure notes. It was no "show singing," this time, and the song did not lift above a gentle volume which seemed ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... then did the doctor's agent say anything. When she spoke it was in a deep, contralto voice which gave the impression of riper years than either of the other two. Afterward Kinney learned that Rolla was nearly ten years their senior, a somewhat more lithe specimen of the same type, clad in the skin of what was once a magnificent goat. She ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... and singing when this I had heard, and more, Though tears half-blinded me; yes, I remained going on and on, Just as I used me to chord and to sing at the selfsame time! . . . For it's a contralto—my voice is; they'll hear it again here to- night In the psalmody notes that I love more than world or than flesh or ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... and readiest of laughs, was more popular, filling her dance orders first and playing the lead in theatricals, and Rena Drew was more prominent, president of the class and the debating society, and the proud owner of the strongest voice in the school quartette, a fine big contralto which wrapped itself round Judith's small, clear soprano at public appearances and nearly extinguished it. Willard, the most eligible of the boys, was Judith's unquestioned property, otherwise nothing distinguished her. She was one of the crowd, and accepted ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... other, the conspirators drew together in a knot; it was just an opera, the drums coming in at proper intervals, the tenor, baritone, and bass all where they should be—except that the voices were all of the same calibre. A woman once sang from the back row with a very fine contralto voice spoilt by being made artificially nasal; I notice all the women affect that unpleasantness. At one time a boy of angelic beauty was the soloist; and at another a child of six or eight, doubtless an infant phenomenon being trained, was placed in the centre. The little fellow ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Her voice was a contralto, with the little hint of roughness that made it warm and richly golden; that made it fall, indeed, upon the ears of the listening Elder like a cathedral chime calling him to forget all and worship—forget all but that he was five ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... you two were in here," she began in her full, rich contralto, "and I made so bold, Nell—Mrs. Masters is taking a party over to their ranch next Sunday. One of her men has disappointed her and she's just telephoned to give me the commission to fill his place. Mr. Chester, you are an inspiration sent straight from Heaven. Any other ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... our organist, averred his superiority to Packy Soule, whom he superseded, and was supported in this estimate by the remainder of the choir, with the exception of Roland Barnette, who helped with his reedy tenor. Josie Lockwood sang contralto and Bess Gabriel what we were informed was soprano—only Radville called it a treble. Tracey Tanner pumped the organ and puffed audibly in the pauses—a singular testimony to his devotion to Angie Tuthill, who "just ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... desired to make him speak, and did not know how to break through his moody silence. Suddenly she leaned back in the boat and began to sing in a rich contralto voice that moved him. He had never heard her sing before, had never heard any good singing for many years indeed, and he was fond of singing. The song she sang was a Portuguese love-song, very tender and passionate, addressed by a bereaved lover to his dead mistress, and ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... musical term applied to the highest adult male voice or counter-tenor, and to the lower boy's or woman's (contralto) ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... minute's hesitation, Fanny would begin to sing. She had a fine contralto voice. Everybody joined in the chorus, and it went well. Paul was not at all embarrassed, after a while, sitting in the room with ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... behind the summer-house I happened upon a bear asleep and retreated hurriedly. But on going towards the house I heard a well-known voice. "That is Augusta Holmes singing her opera," I said; "she sings all the different parts—soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass." At this time we were all talking about her, and I stood by the window listening until suddenly a well-known smell interrupted her. It was Ninon's cat that had misconducted herself. A window was thrown open, but the ventilation did not prove sufficient. Augusta ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... odd," she asked, "that we know each other so well, yet have never met until this moment?" Her voice was a rich, deep contralto, and very sweet. ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... glory is far more sudden and sad than that of actors generally is. Lady Macbeth is as great a part as Juliet for an actress of genius, but there are no 'old parts' for singers; the soprano dare not turn into a contralto with advancing years, nor does the unapproachable Parsifal of eight-and-twenty turn into an incomparable Amfortas at fifty. For the actor, it often happens that the first sign of age is fatigue; in the singer's ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... a voice of low note, in quality that of a flute at the grave end of its gamut. If she sang, she was a pure contralto unmistakably. ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... to those around me, and went over to the other side of the room whence I could obtain a view of the speaker. There were the deep, dark eyes, there were the full sensuous lips, the upper shaded with an impalpable down, there was the charcoal-black hair! I knew too well that rich contralto voice! It was my ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... him for a rather magnificent person, young, probably, because the dead man might be of his own age within a year, but decidedly impressive. He had gone so far as to imagine her an actress, of the sinuous, well-rounded type, who would address him in a deep contralto, and, if and when she fainted, would sink gracefully on to a couch correctly placed ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... few well-chosen words (almost indeed in "gipsy phrases") Mr. Boyden gives us the salient details of her career. Mrs. Kellow is a resident of Cresco, Iowa, a church singer of note, and the possessor of a contralto voice of great volume. As a composer she has to her credit "marches, cakewalks, schottisches, and other styles of instrumental music." We are given a picture of Mrs. Kellow at work: "Mrs. Kellow's best efforts are made in the evening, and in darkness, save the light ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... claim whatever upon the smallest share of my attention. When the long and tedious meal was at an end, upon her uncle's suggestion, she seated herself at the piano, and sang in a deep, powerful contralto, Schubert's magnificent arrangement of Heine's song ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... she said, in her deep contralto, and, as if involuntarily, she held out her hand. "You saved ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... needle to the revolving disk. I waited for no more than the opening orchestral strains. It is a leisurely rhythmed cacophony, and I had time to be almost beyond range ere the voice took up a tale I was hearing too often in one day. Even so I distantly perceived it to be a fruity contralto voice with ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... might be a hero—like Hercules, for example. The subject had to be classical, and the denouement happy. There were invariably six principal characters, three men and three women. The first woman was always a high soprano; the second or third a contralto; the first man, always the hero of the piece, an artificial soprano. The second man might be an artificial soprano or a contralto. The third man might be a bass or tenor. But it was not at all unusual to confide all the male parts to artificial sopranos. ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... what we have decided to do," continued Schafroff, moving nearer to Lialia, as if the matter were becoming much more complex, "we mean to ask Lida Sanina and Sina Karsavina to sing. Each a solo, first of all, and afterwards a duet. One is a contralto, and the other, a soprano, so that will do nicely. Then I shall play the violin, and afterwards Sarudine might ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... the remaining notes above, an almost startling change in the adjustment of the vocal tract would take place. The same would be true if a woman, capable of producing the entire female vocal compass, were to begin with the lowest contralto and sing up to the highest soprano tone. It is the general character of the adjustment of the vocal tract for a certain range of notes in the vocal scale that determines each register, the two principal changes ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... told you about, who is going to marry my cousin Giovanni, Prince Della Robbia's younger brother," said Idina Bland to her companion; "the Miss Grant who has been so much talked about here." Idina had a contralto voice, with tones in it almost as deep as those of a very young man. It was musical, and gave an effect of careful training, as if she had studied voice-production and ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... far back as I can remember, for the pure love of it. My voice was contralto, and I sang in a church in Naples from fourteen till I was eighteen. Then I had to go into the army for awhile. I had never learned how to sing, for I had never been taught. One day a young officer of my ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... not thinking of uniting the three thousand livres which this generous mother gave to her daughters to the thousand crowns a year which the Abbe Brigaud had bestowed on him. The shrill treble of Mademoiselle Emilie, the contralto of Mademoiselle Athenais, the accompaniment of both, had recalled to his recollection the pure and flexible voice and the distinguished execution of his neighbor. Thanks to that singular power which a great preoccupation gives us over exterior objects, the chevalier ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... to the piano without being asked, and sang to them for more than an hour. She chose folk-songs and tender melodies—little songs made of tears and laughter, and the simple ballads that never grow old. She had a deep, vibrant contralto voice of splendid range and volume; she sang with rare sympathy, and every word could be ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... you should follow Mr. Gwynne's example and stay here with us." He thought of silver chimes and contrasted her voice with Gora Dwight's angry contralto: he always thought of Gora in phrases. "So many Englishmen live out here ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... different are the songs sung by different brooks. Some are a mere tinkling, others are sweet as silver bells, with a tone besides which no bell ever had. Some sing in a careless, defiant tone. This one sung in a veiled voice, a contralto muffled in the hollows of overhanging banks, with a low, deep, musical gurgle in some of the stony eddies, in which a straw would float for days and nights till a flood came, borne round and round in a funnel-hearted whirlpool. The brook was deep for its size, ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... for my age and size,' she explained. 'Contralto, you know, but it ought to be stronger,' and she began, her face all dark against the last of ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... in the "Darby and Joan" of the song. They belong to song-land. To accept them I need a piano, a sympathetic contralto voice, a firelight effect, and that sentimental mood in myself, the foundation of which is a good dinner well digested. But there are Darbys and Joans of real flesh and blood to be met with—God bless them, and send more for our example—wholesome ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... resonance; ring &c v.; ringing, tintinabulation &c v.; reflexion [Brit.], reflection, reverberation; echo, reecho; zap, zot [Coll.]; buzz (hiss) 409. low note, base note, bass note, flat note, grave note, deep note; bass; basso, basso profondo [It]; baritone, barytone^; contralto. [device to cause resonance] echo chamber, resonator. [ringing in the ears] tinnitus [Med.]. [devices which make a resonating sound] bell, doorbell, buzzer; gong, cymbals (musical instruments) 417. [physical resonance] sympathetic vibrations; natural frequency, coupled vibration frequency; overtone; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget |
