"Counterpoint" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of Johann Sebastian Bach's sons grew to manhood and became musicians. The eldest of them, WILHELM FRIEDERMANN BACH (1710-1784) was by common repute the most gifted; a famous organist, a famous improvisor and a complete master of counterpoint. But, unlike the rest of the family, he was a man of idle and dissolute habits, whose career was little more than a series of wasted opportunities. Educated at Leipzig, he was appointed in 1733 organist of the Sophienkirche at Dresden, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... a monk of the 13th century, in the solitude of his convent, made the grand discovery of counterpoint, or the science of harmony, as distinguished from melody; he also invented the present system of notation, and gave those names to the sounds of the diatonic scale still in use:—ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si; these being the first ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 337, October 25, 1828. • Various
... and multiformity of the active type. The attractions of fame never cheated Rousseau into forgetfulness of the commanding principle that a man's life ought to be steadily composed to oneness with itself in all its parts, as by mastery of an art of moral counterpoint, and not crowded with a wild mixture of aim and emotion like distracted masks in high carnival. He complains of the philosophers with whom he came into contact, that their philosophy was something foreign to them and outside of their own lives. They studied human nature for the sake of talking ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... terrestrial career April 14, 1857, in Wisconsin. His father was a revenue officer; his mother a skilled musician, who taught him the piano from his eighth year to his seventeenth, when he went to Chicago and studied harmony and counterpoint under Clarence Eddy, and the piano under Ledochowski. It is interesting to note that Kelley was diverted into music from painting by hearing "Blind Tom" play Liszt's transcription of Mendelssohn's "Midsummer Night's Dream" music. I imagine that this idiot-genius had very little ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... I can scarcely think that, sir. They seem to have had only the minor key, and to have known no more of counterpoint ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... clef, E-flat Major, 2/2 time. Graf Graf Graf Graf (in 3-part harmony) Graf (in 3-part counterpoint) Graf Graf Graf, liebster Graf, liebstes Schaf, bester Graf, bestes Schaf! ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... counterpoint sung or played above a theme. Highest part sung in part music. Discussion ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... care of a richer and fuller development. Metastasio is musical throughout; but, to follow up the simile, we may observe, that of poetical music, melody is the only part that he possesses, being deficient in harmonious compass, and in the mysterious effects of counterpoint. Or, to express myself in different terms, he is musical, but in no respect picturesque. His melodies are light and pleasant, but they are constantly repeated with little or no variation: when we have read a few of his pieces, we ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... abandoned his love for music, though he so devoted himself to medicine that in due course he was graduated with honors and received his degree. Incidentally, like Schumann at Heidelberg, he continued to study music, Hubert Ries being his teacher in violin playing, and the venerable Professor Dehn in counterpoint and composition. After graduation he returned to his native Posen to practise medicine, and remained there thus ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... for a minute or two as the south-west wind went past his ears, and played a strange tune on the innumerable stems of the bents and the hard-stalked blossoms, to which the bees sang counterpoint. Then the heart arose within him, and he drew the sword from the scabbard, and waved it about his head, and shook it toward the south, and cried out, "Now, welcome world, and be thou blessed from one end to the other, from the ocean ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... What are the chief problems which she will have to face? She must first of all make up her mind whether she wishes to confine her work to the teaching of a solo instrument, together with some work in harmony or counterpoint, along orthodox lines, or whether she wishes to be in touch with modern methods of guiding the general musical education of children, as taken in some schools in the morning curriculum. If the latter, she must enter on a course ...
— Music As A Language - Lectures to Music Students • Ethel Home
... like little stars rising and falling on the horizon, and always just above a low, black cloud. A moment more, and the evening breeze out of the west brought a long-drawn harmony of chanting to the Lady Goda's ear, the high sweet notes of youthful voices sustained by the rich counterpoint of many grown men's tones. She started, and held her breath, shivered a little, and snatched at the rose bush beside her, so that the thorns struck through the soft green gauntlet and pricked her, though she felt nothing. There was death in the air; there ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... music, waxing, waning, now joined in wild symphony by the voices, now left alone to counterpoint the noise of ...
— Life Sentence • James McConnell
... complete development is practically an instrumental composition, retaining, however, its bond with the past on the one hand through the words, on the other through the canto fermo in the tenor, the familiar ancient tune round which the counterpoint was woven in a kind of canonical imitation, first (fifteenth century) in three parts then (sixteenth) in four, but always with the canto fermo in rhythmic contrast to the rest of the composition. It has been pointed ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... celebrities, etc., have scarcely affected me, and I have remained intact and unashamed; but on my wife and Liza, who have not been through the same hardening process and are weak, all this has fallen like an avalanche of snow, overwhelming them. Gnekker and the young ladies talk of fugues, of counterpoint, of singers and pianists, of Bach and Brahms, while my wife, afraid of their suspecting her of ignorance of music, smiles to them sympathetically and mutters: "That's exquisite... really! You don't say so!..." Gnekker eats with solid dignity, jests with solid dignity, ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... meshes of sound, so in prose-writing there must be scales run, fingerings worked out, and harmonies mastered. For in a page of lo bello stile you will find trills and arpeggios, turns, grace notes, a main theme, a sub theme, thorough-bass, counterpoint, and form. ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... the surging counterpoint, ceased playing, and with the adroitness of a Raleigh turned to the Prince and said, "Pardon me, your Royal Highness, I fear we have been carried away by the vortex of the melody." The execution of chamber compositions belonging to the higher walks of counterpoint ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... simple harmony yet how infinitely varied, and how inexpressibly touching are its effects! In studying music as a mere matter of intellectual science, all is simple; it is only an easy chapter in acoustics. But in studying it on the side of the emotions, in studying the laws of counterpoint and of musical form, which are governed by the effect upon the ear and the heart, we find intricacy and difficulties, increased beyond our power ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... city—beautiful Milano under the blue Italian skies, the bluest in the world. As a young girl, the daughter of well-to-do parents, I studied piano at the Royal Conservatory there, and also musical theory and counterpoint. I shall ever be grateful I started in this way, with a thorough musical foundation, for it has always been of great advantage to me in further study. When my father met with reverses, I made good use of my pianistic training by ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this or that morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it; that is to say, agreeably to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of the various ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... immediately afterwards, especially from Attorney-General Noy, who asked the Star-Chamber what it had to do with the immorality of stage-plays to exclaim that church-music is not the noise of men, but rather "a bleating of brute beasts—choristers bellow the tenor as it were oxen, bark a counterpoint as a kennel of dogs, roar out a treble like a set of bulls, grunt out a bass as it were a number of hogs." But Mr Attorney took surely a more nice distinction when he made a charge against the author in these ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... those whom fortune doth advaunce. But the false Foxe most kindly plaid his part: [Kindly, according to his nature.] For whatsoever mother-wit or arte Could worke, he put in proofe: no practise slie, No counterpoint of cunning policie, 1140 [Counterpoint, counterplot.] Ne reach, no breach, that might him profit bring, But he the same did to his purpose wring. Nought suffered he the Ape to give or graunt, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... musicianship. Zachow cannot indeed be classed as a great composer, but he was considerably more than merely a sound average teacher. For one thing, he possessed a large library of music. Handel was not only made to master the arts of counterpoint and fugue, but he was also set to study the works of other composers, and to train his sense of style by writing music in direct imitation of them. In those days there was no possibility of buying all sorts ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... three examples from Samson Agonistes of interwoven tunes, a sort of counterpoint of ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... not only from a technical standpoint, but from a musical standpoint as well. He has added a new flavor to the individual masterpieces of Chopin. He has made them wonderfully clever and really very interesting studies in harmony and counterpoint, so that one forgets their technical intricacies in the beauty of the compositions. One cannot say that their original beauty has been enhanced, but he has made them wonderfully fascinating compositions despite their ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... 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 ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... another. Here you may assist at interminable disputes as to the relative merits of Tasso and Ariosto, or listen to a learned dissertation on the verse engraved on a carnelian stone; but as to the questions now agitating the world, they are held of less account than a problem in counterpoint or the construction of a doubtful line in Ovid. As long as Truth goes naked she can scarce hope to be received in good company; and her appearance would probably cause as much confusion among the Bishop's literati as in the councils of the ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... monk who flourished at Arezzo, in Italy, during the 11th century, the first to promote the theoretical study of music; he is credited, amongst other things, with the invention of counterpoint, and was the first to designate notes by means of alphabetical letters, and to establish ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... draws—I mean he scores like an amateur who has not made a very profound study of harmony, and sings his pretty song to his simple accompaniment with so sweet and true a natural voice that we are charmed. It is the magic of nature, whereas Keene is a very Sebastian Bach in his counterpoint. There is nothing of the amateur about him; his knowledge of harmony in black and white is complete and thorough; mere consummate scoring has become to him a second nature; each separate note of his voice reveals the long training of the professional singer; and if his ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier
... say, 'that even in Germany no lady speaks aught 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 quote Malherbes, saying with a smile and a sigh as he looked at her radiant youth: 'Et rose, elle ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... while I staid for the barber, tried to compose a duo of counterpoint, and I think it will do very well, it being by Mr. Berckenshaw's rule. By and by by appointment comes Mr. Povy's coach, and, more than I expected, him himself, to fetch me to Brainford: so he and I immediately set ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... dancing, riding, boxing, and fencing, and excelled in the more active of these pursuits. The study of music was also serious, and carried on under two masters. Mr. John Relfe, author of a valuable work on counterpoint, was his instructor in thorough-bass; Mr. Abel, a pupil of Moscheles, in execution. He wrote music for songs which he himself sang; among them Donne's 'Go and catch a falling star'; Hood's 'I will not have the mad Clytie'; Peacock's 'The mountain sheep ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... studied your counterpoint to some purpose," he vouchsafed, finally; then: "Where did you get ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... to Park, it got its chief movement from push-carts of fruit and other foods, while the "wash" of five hundred families blew its banners overhead. Vendors of all kinds uttered their nasal or raucous cries, in counterpoint to the treble screams ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... went, who received him kindly, and referred him to his own teacher, the old and experienced "Maestro di Capella" Giretti, from Naples, who gave him instructions for six months, three times a-week in counterpoint. During this period he wrote twenty-four Fugues for four hands, with pen, ink, and paper alone, and without any instrument, which his master did not allow him, and, assisted by his own inclination, made rapid progress. The great Paer also took much interest in him, giving him compositions ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various
... works has any real musical value; but, as is usually the case with the talent which stops short of genius, he thought a great deal of himself, and was inclined to look down upon Haydn as an interloper, unskilled in that rigid counterpoint which was the "heaven's law" of the old-time composer. Indeed, he described his associate as "a mere fop" ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... accounting," he said to himself. "It'll be easily a month before I hear from old Howe in America, and longer before I hear from Henslowe, and already I've spent twenty francs on food. Can't make it this way. Then, in real possessions, I have one volume of Villon, a green book on counterpoint, a map of France torn in two, and ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... so intelligent, he often talked to me about his music and his studies; he had an Italian translation of Cherubini's Treatise, and had nearly finished all the exercises down to the end of florid counterpoint in four parts. His professor was much pleased with him, and had congratulated him upon possessing a mind full of resource and originality—just the sort of mind that is required for composing music of the highest class. He explained to me that counterpoint is a microcosm. In life ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... and it mayhap so move thee; but I am foreign from the rudiments of counterpoint and technique and ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne |
