"Counterpoint" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... being north of Favognana this meant that, in both cases, they choose for their resting-place the second island they come to. There is no mistake about this being what I read, for I made a memoria technica about it at the time out of what Rockstro, my old counterpoint master, used to say musicians do in performing the diatonic major scale unaccompanied. In ascending they pass over the grave supertonic and take the acute supertonic, and in descending they pass over ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... independently of his poems. The overture to The Mastersingers is delightful when you know what it is all about; but only those to whom it came as a concert piece without any such clue, and who judged its reckless counterpoint by the standard of Bach and of Mozart's Magic Flute overture, can realize how atrocious it used to sound to musicians of the old school. When I first heard it, with the clear march of the polyphony in Bach's B minor Mass fresh in my memory, I confess I thought that the parts ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... closely allied to the first. A return is soon made to the principal key, but there is no repetition of the opening theme. After a cadence ending on the tonic (B flat), and two coda-like bars, comes a fugal movement, still in the same key. The vigorous subject, the well-contrasted counterpoint, the interesting episodes, and many attractive details help one to forget the monotony of key so prevalent in the days in which this sonata was written. This, and indeed other fugues of Kuhnau show strong foreshadowings of Handel and Bach; of this matter, however, more anon. The counterpoint ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... i.e., note-duration, by movements of the feet and body. In the early stages of the training this principle is clearly observed; later it may be varied in many ingenious ways, for instance in what is known as plastic counterpoint, where the actual notes played are represented by movements of the arms, while the counterpoint in crotchets, quavers or semiquavers, is given ...
— The Eurhythmics of Jaques-Dalcroze • Emile Jaques-Dalcroze
... save French, and you, my child, must be a great lady some day. Believe me, there is no more magnificent being than a true grande dame, and for this destiny the good God fashioned you.' He trained Wilhelmine in music, till thorough-bass, counterpoint, and the rest became to her an easy exercise. He read her of the history of France; taught her to know and love the Roman de la Rose, and the poems of the singers of La Pleiade. Often he would ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... young and unknown composer, the "Caduta de' Giganti," one of Gluck's very earliest works, written when he was yet corrupted with all the vices of the Italian method. "Mein Gott! he is an idiot," said Handel; "he knows no more of counterpoint then mein cook." Handel did not see with prophetic eyes. He never met Gluck afterward, and we do not know his later opinion of the composer of "Orpheus and Eurydice" and "Iphigenia in Tauris." But Gluck had ever the profoundest admiration for ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... critic writes to me of this work: "The counterpoint is clear and flowing, and is managed with considerable taste and effect. It would be difficult to explain the great cleverness shown in the construction of the Catch without diagrams to illustrate the movements of the parts. It is certainly an ingenious ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... in little Jehan, as counterpoint; "down with Master Andry, the beadles and the scribes; the theologians, the doctors and the decretists; the procurators, the electors and ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... intelligible in themselves, mounting steadily from a starting-point of simplicity; then the same complexity and mass resolving itself as it were miraculously back into simplicity, this is an intellectual joy. It does not differ materially, whether found in the study of counterpoint, at thirty, or in the story of the old woman and her pig, at five. It is perfectly natural and wholesome, and it may perhaps be a more powerful developing force for the budding intellect ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... and sung in moments of pure joy, and which I left at Wootton, with all my music. Mademoiselle Davenport has perhaps curled her hair with them; but they are worthy of being preserved, and are, for the most part, of very good counterpoint. It was after one of these little excursions in which I had the pleasure of seeing the aunt at her ease and very cheerful, and in which my spirits were much enlivened, that I wrote to the vicar very rapidly and very ill, an epistle ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau |
