"Pianist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... author of the work a translation of which is here offered to the public, was during his long life a distinguished teacher of music. He died in the autumn of 1873. He was the father and teacher of the celebrated pianist, Clara Wieck, now Fr. Dr. Clara Schumann, widow of the renowned composer Robert Schumann, who was also a pupil of Wieck. His second daughter, Fraeulein Marie Wieck, is well known in Germany as an artistic performer ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... respect, but which irritated her extremely. Max Elliot was charming, of course, when she spoke of her husband's talent. But she saw at once that he was concentrated on Sennier. She felt at once that he did not at the moment want to "go mad" over any other composer. If Claude had been a singer, a pianist, or a fiddler, things would have been different. Max Elliot had taken charge of the Frenchman's financial affairs, solely out of friendship, and was investing the American and other gains in various admirable enterprises. Madame Sennier, who ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... had recently come to live at the schist-works, where the husband was managing engineer. The lady had a charming voice, and used to sing in the church with Mary, who played the harmonium. This led to an intimacy, and with an additional singer and pianist in the person of my niece we often organized private concerts, in which my husband took great pleasure. There was nothing he enjoyed more than such private recreation, except perhaps the satisfaction of taking trouble to make things agreeable to others. Here is an ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... a brilliant pianist at six, and gave concerts at nine. Verdi was appointed musical director at Milan in youth. Rossini composed an opera at the age of sixteen, and ceased to compose ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... early attracted by the abilities of Josef Hofmann. In 1898, he met the pianist, who was then twenty-two years old. Of his musical ability Bok could not judge, but he was much impressed by his unusual mentality, and soon both learned and felt that Hofmann's art was deeply and firmly rooted. Hofmann had a wider knowledge of affairs than other musicians ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... flesh and blood, or of certain grades of intimacy, can come in at the side-door, if they will, at any hour and in any mood. Some of them have a scale of your whole nervous system, and can play all the gamut of your sensibilities in semitones, —touching the naked nerve-pulps as a pianist strikes the keys of his instrument. I am satisfied that there are as great masters of this nerve-playing as Vieuxtemps or Thalberg in their lines of performance. Married life is the school in which the most accomplished artists ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... MENTER, the famous pianist, now inhabits a castle in the Tyrol (Schloss Itter), where she has just received the Abbe Liszt, who passed several days there, getting up at 4 o'clock A. M., to work, attending mass at 7.30, and then continuing work until midday. The Abbe, who was received with guns and triumphal arches, ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... brilliant pianist of the concert hall; the cornet-player of the "Army" ring; the blind fiddler at the corner; the mother, singing her angel-donation to sleep; Clancy, thundering forth something concerning his broken heart, whilst tailing up the stringing ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... troublesome to play, offers an effective contrast to the major. A graceful Tempo di Menuetto brings the work to an effective close. The other Sonata in E flat[76] is much more difficult to play. The writing is fuller, and it contains passages which even a modern pianist need not disdain. It is really strange that the sonata is not sometimes heard at the Popular Concerts. In the opening Allegro the exposition section contains more than the two orthodox themes, and the development ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... the force of his character that he should have the friendship of such people. He had done nothing as yet to lead people to believe that he would ever become a great composer. As has been stated, however, he was a pianist of great originality, with a remarkable talent for improvising, which, no doubt, had much to do in making him a welcome guest ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... for only two years. One year they must serve, parade, drill, march, and mount guard, though they are not required to live in the barracks. Occasional cases of hardship or injustice occur. We know of a poor, but promising pianist whose studies were cut short and his fingers stiffened by the three-years' service. Leaving out of view exceptional facts, the system works well. All the youth of the country acquire health, strength, an upright carriage, and habits of punctuality and cleanliness. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... service, in spite of the severity of the season, he took cold on leaving the church, which in a short time led to a fatal result. He expired in the arms of his wife, the sister of M. Erard, the celebrated pianist. He was in the seventy-second year of his age. The life of this unfortunate Maestro, says the Athenaeum, would be a curious rather than a pleasing story, were it thoroughly written. He was educated at the Conservatorio de la Pieta of Naples, and began his career when seventeen ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... This pianist, like all other pianists, was a German. A German, like the eminent Liszt and the great Mendelssohn, and Steibelt, and Dussek, and Meyer, and Mozart, and Doelher, and Thalberg, and Dreschok, and Hiller, and ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... to go, he turns.] Shall I bring that Russian pianist around to play for you some day ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... the pianist of the program. "It took me a long time to acquire the taste. But I've got it now," she added, as she helped herself bountifully to the ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... fellow, look at that canvas. What a method! You are like an amateur pianist who tries laboriously to obtain tone, without having mastered the keyboard. One cannot blunder into great art. Only Englishmen make the attempt. You are a nation of amateurs. (He turns away, and sees a sketch on the L ...
— The Black Cat - A Play in Three Acts • John Todhunter
... circle, yclept "a life of concerts." Should you find evidence too flagrant, even for your prepossessed eyes, of the inexperience of my pen, bear in mind, I pray you, that I am but a musician, and only a pianist at that. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... rapidly descended in the social scale, and now she was scarcely ever out of prison. It was very difficult to realize that this poor soul, who now was never known to use any but vile language and oaths, was once a beautiful young woman, a linguist, pianist, singer, also otherwise accomplished person. Though all efforts (there had been many) in her behalf had proved futile, I determined to make an attempt to save her. Accordingly I paid a special visit ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... also a regular attendant with his mother at the Queen's Hall and Albert Hall concerts. Ballad singing did not appeal to him in the same degree as operatic and orchestral music. Thanks to instinctive gifts and assiduous practice he became a scholarly and an accomplished musician. A brilliant pianist, his playing was marked by power and passion, and the colour and glow of an intense and sensitive personality. He could memorise the most intricate composition, and would play for hours without a note. Music was almost a religion with him: he found ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... gone, he asked Mabel, who he knew was an excellent pianist, to favor him with one of her very best pieces—"something lively and new which will wake us up," ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... an Irish gentleman of the Indo-European Telegraphs. A burly, jolly Dutchman stood drinks all round to members of the Russian and English Banks alike, and a French sage-femme just arrived discussed her prospects with the hotel proprietress. The Shah's A.D.C. and favourite music-composer and pianist came frequently to enliven the evenings with some really magnificent playing, and by way of diversion some wild Belgian employees of the derelict sugar-factory used almost nightly to cover with insults a notable "Chevalier d'industrie" whose ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... sang and played to their heart's content, while the rest, glass in hand, talked and laughed, or listened as they chose. Bartley had not been called upon, but he was burning to try that song in which he had failed so dismally in the logging-camp. When the pianist rose at last, he slipped down into the chair, and, striking the chords of the accompaniment, he gave his piece with brilliant audacity. The room silenced itself and then burst into a roar of applause, and cries of "Encore!" There could be no doubt of the success. "Look here, Ricker," ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... the girls went on another shopping expedition, and in the afternoon attended a recital given by a celebrated pianist. After the recital, instead of going home, Miss Southard surprised her guests by taking them over to the theatre where her brother was playing. Mr. Southard had arranged that they should be admitted to his dressing room. It was the same theatre in which Anne had played the previous winter and ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... a sinking of hearts as Eustace Hignett moved down the room and took his place at the piano. A pianist! This argued more singing. The more pessimistic began to fear that the imitation was going to be one of those imitations of well-known opera artistes which, though rare, do occasionally add to the horrors of ships' concerts. They stared at Hignett apprehensively. ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... to know the reach of your arm is to sprain it. I sprained mine, and it wasn't until the ligaments began to pull that I had the courage to face the fact that I was made out of bookkeeper instead of concert-pianist stuff." ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... concerto; he lives it. Be sure to watch his face." It was not a very impressive face as artists go. It was rather heavy, rather sullen, and seemingly incapable of mirroring more than the elementary passions. The great pianist entered the hall almost unwillingly, and wound his way among the musicians with consummate indifference to the roar of applause that greeted him. You might have said that he was once more a little boy being ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... is something beyond this which is not harmless but detestable, and that is the deliberate playing on sexual attraction in order to extract homage and to demonstrate power. A girl will sometimes play on a man as a pianist on his instrument, put a strain on him that is intolerable, fray his nerves and destroy his self-control, while she herself, protected not by virtue but frigidity, complacently affirms that she "can take care of herself." The blatant dishonesty ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... some reason the prize was never awarded, and we had our trouble for nothing. On my way to Chicago I stayed at a mining town to lecture on effective voting. I found the hostess of the tiny hotel a brilliant pianist and a perfect linguist, and she quoted poetry—her own and other people's—by the yard. A lady I journeyed with told me that she had been travelling for seven years with her husband and "Chambers's Encyclopedia." I thought they used the encyclopaedia ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... professors, every educational advantage. They told me she was a little prodigy. She speaks French, Italian, German, better than most natives. She has a wonderful genius for music, and might make her fortune as a pianist, if it was not made for her otherwise! I traveled all over Europe; every one told me she was a marvel. The director of the opera in Paris saw her dance at a child's party at Spa, and offered me an enormous sum if I would give her up to him and let him have her educated for ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... chop-stick, making it change ends, and catching the bowl, they were ready for a general applause. In striking the bowl and thus manipulating his chop-sticks, his hands moved almost as rapidly as those of an expert pianist. ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... alone on the stage with five or six footlights—which they ought to call face-lights—flashing in my eyes, and when the pianist began to vamp and I to sing it was like pitching my voice into a tunnel, and I became so dreadfully nervous that I was forced to laugh. That seemed to vex my unseen audience, who thought me 'rot'; so I said, 'Let there be ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... Tinsdale about a month it was discovered that she could play the piano. It happened on a rainy Sunday in Sunday school, and the regular pianist was late. The superintendent looked about helplessly and asked if there was anybody present who could play, although he knew the musical ability of everybody in the village. The minister's wife had already pleaded a cut ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... is the soul of good dancing as well as of wit, and you will be wise to heed this from the very start of your professional stage career. Never show a dance to any prospective employer unless your dance has been thoroughly set and properly rehearsed with whoever is to play the music, pianist or orchestra. Never offer any excuses at such a time. Be sure of yourself, and only do one ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... thinking principle was the real self and the body merely a material encasement, it was no wonder that they valued the body less and held mind as of great value. They failed to see that mind without a material organ of expression is, in this world, of no account. A great pianist with no piano could not make music, and he would be considered a strange being if he did not care for his instrument most scrupulously. Think of a Rubinstein voluntarily breaking the piano strings or smashing ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... personally, three ladies who have exchanged the woman's work for the man's. One was deserted by her husband, and left with two young children. She hired a capable woman to look after the house, and joined a ladies' orchestra as pianist at two pounds a week. She now earns four, and works twelve hours a day. The husband of the second fell ill. She set him to write letters and run errands, which was light work that he could do, and started a dressmaker's ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... had been a concert pianist; now she had such large arthritic knobs on all of her knuckles that her hands had become claws. Though there was still that very same fine upright in the cabin that I had learned to play as a child, she had long since given up the piano. Her knees also had large arthritic knobs; this proud ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... she was a member of this boarding-school has given these reminiscences of Marian's life there: "She learned everything with ease," says this person, "but was passionately devoted to music, and became thoroughly accomplished as a pianist. Her masters always brought the most difficult solos for her to play in public, and everywhere said she might make a performer equal to any then upon the concert stage. She was keenly susceptible to what she thought her lack of personal ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... opera. However, since the nature and quality of the music does not matter here, we may quote: "Hearing a Barbary organ in the street, I picture the instrument to myself. I see the man turning the crank. If military music sounds from afar, I see a regiment marching." An excellent pianist plays for a friend Beethoven's sonata in C sharp minor, putting into its execution all the pathos of which he is capable. The other sees in it "the tumult and excitement of a fair." Here the musical rendering is misinterpreted through misapprehension. I have several times noted this—in ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... who possessed a fine voice, willingly sang whenever a musical program was arranged for an evening, while his lovely young wife, who was an accomplished pianist, played his accompaniments, or rendered solos, thus generously adding to the pleasure ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks
... for a while), who "wreaks" it, to borrow Byron's word, on conversation as the natural outlet of his sensibilities and spiritual activities, is likely to talk better than the poet, who plays on the instrument of verse. A great pianist or violinist is rarely a great singer. To write a poem is to expend the vital force which would have made one brilliant for an hour or two, and to expend it on an instrument with more pipes, reeds, keys, stops, and pedals than the Great Organ that shakes New England every ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... that Beethoven never composed simple plaintive airs—for example," exclaimed the pianist, playing softly while she spoke. "You think he wrote only sonatas, quartettes, fugues, grand, operas, like Fidelio. Have you never heard this ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... the House of Congress at Washington developed a unanimous sentiment, that a good cook is more cultured than a pianist, and that girls should not be allowed piano lessons until they learn how to cook good biscuits. We have read of girls "whose heads were stuffed with useless knowledge, but not one in twenty knew ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... was by way of being musical—that is to say, a famous pianist had been engaged to let off a lot of rockets from his finger-tips, and a buffo singer from the opera roared out his "Figaro la, Figaro qua," with all the strength of his brazen lungs; while one or two gifted amateurs sang glees in washed-out, apologetical accents, which ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... her friend and ardent admirer, Frederic Chopin, was recovering from a chest attack, the first presage of the illness that caused his early death. The eminent pianist and composer had also been recommended to winter in the South, and greatly needed repose and change of air to recruit him from the fatigues of the Parisian season. It was arranged that the convalescent should make one of the expedition to Majorca. He joined Madame Sand and her children at Perpignan, ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... the compensation of the pianist in the Normal School is hereby established at the rate of fifty cents (50c) per hour during the period January 1 to August ...
— Schedule of Salaries for Teachers, members of the Supervising staff and others. - January 1-August 31, 1920, inclusive • Boston (Mass.). School Committee
... of education in painting and that in music or any other art or occupation in which the highest executive ability is required, we shall see that we give insufficient opportunity for the painter's hand to acquire the subtle skill we find in the successful violinist or pianist, and which is due to the early and incessant practice in the manual operations of his art. The fact is recognized, that the education of a violinist must begin in the early years, when the will and hand are flexible, and not merely the training, but the occupation, is almost exclusive, for the specialist ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... cried Bixiou, ruffling his locks till they stood on end. Gifted with the same talent for mimicking absurdities which Chopin the pianist possesses to so high a degree, he proceeded forthwith to represent ...
— A Man of Business • Honore de Balzac
... sketch books[134] have been preserved and edited, and they illustrate, most vividly, Beethoven's method of composing: slow, cautious, but invincible in its final effect; an idea frequently being altered as many as twenty times. At the age of twenty-two he was chiefly known as a pianist with wonderful facility in improvisation; his compositions had been insignificant. The next eight years—up to 1800, when Beethoven was thirty—were spent in acquainting himself with the Viennese aristocracy and in building up a public ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... to play." Each one straightened her shoulders and leaned eagerly forward, fairly holding her breath in anticipation, for Azzie's fame as a pianist was far-reaching. ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... with all her heart that Portia had not made a tragic mistake in this matter of her marriage. She couldn't herself quite see how a sensible girl like Portia could have done anything so reckless as to marry a romantic young Italian pianist, ten years at least her junior. It couldn't be denied that the experiment seemed to have worked well so far. Portia certainly seemed happy enough last night; contented. There was a sort of glow about her there never was before. But the question was how long would ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... talk. Like a pianist who strikes the notes of his instrument tentatively, feeling about for the right key, he touched on one subject after another, confident that in the end he would light on something really interesting to his passenger. Michael Kane was happy in this, that he could talk equally well ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... Shawn,' said Shawn's master, coming forward in his shirt-sleeves as the last echoes of a mighty chord expired under the dome. He meditatively stroked his graying beard while the pianist returned to ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... and looks very nice and pretty. Then we had a little rosebud of a Chelsea girl who sang, and a pianist. I read 'Minister's Housekeeper' and Topsy, and the audience was very jolly and appreciative. ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... what you say of acting, I would argue that everyone with imagination must find delight in the stage, but I can't understand the author of Aunt Rachel having a desire, or rather a passion, to exchange a greater art for a smaller one. It is not smaller, you hold. But surely it is, as the pianist is less than the composer. I need not tell you again what it is to me to have the dedication. The whole arrangement of this house has been altered to give the book its place of honour, the positions of hundreds of books has been altered, the ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... over the sheets with flurried rapidity, as if he were searching for a lost article of which he was in desperate need. Presently he placed some sheets upon the piano and began vehemently to explain something to the pianist. The pianist stared at the music doubtfully—he was a plump old man with a rosy, bald crown, and his shiny linen and neat tie made him look as if he were on his way to a party. The violinist bent over him, suggesting rhythms with his shoulders and running ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... a pianist at the Black Cat—a real pianist, not just a person who plays the piano. She is a striking figure in a quaint, tunic-like dress, greying hair and a keen face, and a personal friend of half the frequenters. ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... joined the three at the bar. With the advent of Burning Daylight the whole place became suddenly brighter and cheerier. The barkeepers were active. Voices were raised. Somebody laughed. And when the fiddler, peering into the front room, remarked to the pianist, "It's Burning Daylight," the waltz-time perceptibly quickened, and the dancers, catching the contagion, began to whirl about as if they really enjoyed it. It was known to them of old time that nothing languished when Burning Daylight ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... shook off this rare sombre mood, and awoke to the full consciousness that Friedland was fled. Well, better so. The stupid fool would come back soon enough, and to-day, with Prince Puckler-Muskau, Baron Korff, General de Pfuel, and von Buelow the pianist, coming to lunch, and perhaps Wagner, if he could finish his rehearsal of "Lohengrin" in time, he was not sorry to see his table relieved of the dull pomposity and brilliant watch-chain of the pillar of Prague society. How mean to hide one's Judaism! What ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Music.] — N. musician, artiste, performer, player, minstrel; bard &c. (poet) 597; [specific types of musicians] accompanist, accordionist, instrumentalist, organist, pianist, violinist, flautist; harper, fiddler, fifer[obs3], trumpeter, piper, drummer; catgut scraper. band, orchestral waits. vocalist, melodist; singer, warbler; songster, chaunter[obs3], chauntress[obs3], songstress; cantatrice[obs3]. choir, quire, chorister; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the riot act. Bravo! bravo! bravo! and the battle ceases, and the babble commences. Place for the foreign train, the performers par metier! Full of confidence are they; amidst all their smiles and obsequiousness, there is a business air about the thing. As soon as the pianist has asked the piano how it finds itself, and the piano has intimated that it is pretty well, but somewhat out of tune, a collateral fiddler and a violoncello brace up their respective nerves, compare notes, and when ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... she cried, when the pianist stopped and whirled about. "I had no idea you could play ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... operatic performances! It is now the conductor's aim not merely to see that a composition is played correctly and with good ensemble; more than that, the leader of today gives his own version or reading of the composition just as the pianist or violinist does. Instead of being a mere "time beater" he has become an interpreter, and (except in the case of the organist-director of a choir) he attempts to do nothing except so to manipulate his musical forces as to secure an ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... guests, they received thirty kopecks for an easy dance, and a half rouble for a quadrille. But one-half of this price was taken out by the proprietress, Anna Markovna; the other, however, the musicians divided evenly. In this manner the pianist received only a quarter of the general earnings, which, of course, was unjust, since Isaiah Savvich played as one self-taught and was distinguished for having no more ear for music than a piece of wood. The pianist was constantly compelled to drag him on ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... graciously condescended to play for his hostess, and the sensitiveness of his ear was no longer shocked. She never dared to undeceive him, but mentioned the fact to another musician, a violinist, who exclaimed, greatly amused, "The idea of a pianist pretending to be fastidious about concord in music! Why, the instrument at its best is a bundle of discords." Both of these musicians were guilty of affectation; for, although the piano's chords are slightly dissonant, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... draw the United States flag, in red, white and blue, Fig. 27, have the school sing "The Red, White and Blue," or have the song sung as a solo or played by orchestra, pianist or organist. This makes a very effective feature, as some time is required to draw the flag. Be careful to construct the flag properly. To save time, ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... unintelligible manner a string of presumably obscene songs, accompanied on the piano with frantic gestures and astonishing musical skill by a man whom I had always regarded as a respectable Fabian Researcher, but who now turned out to be a Demon Pianist out-Heroding (my secretary put in two rs, and explains that she was thinking of Harrods) Svengali. A horribly sacrilegious character was given to the proceedings by the fact that the tune they were singing when I entered ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... did not err on the side of reticence. Presently, having described a kind of amorous circle, he came again to: "O Love!" But this time his voice cracked: which made him angry, with a stern and controlled anger. Still singing, he turned slowly to the pianist, and fiercely glared at the pianist's unconscious back. The obvious inference was that if his voice had cracked the fault was the pianist's. The pianist, poor thing, utterly unaware of the castigation she was receiving, stuck to her ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... chose to give most of her time to music. Without being a genius, she played remarkably well, and she made her work available for others by playing the organ in a church which was rich, in everything but money. I knew another fine pianist who gave lessons to children who could not otherwise have had them. In both these cases the ladies were as much bound by their self-imposed tasks as if they had been earning their living, and their characters received almost as great benefit; ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... and candle-light. The body of the chapel was perfectly clear, the community sat in carved wooden stalls round the altar, the pupils assisted from the galleries above, and hidden under the gallery was the small but very perfect choir of nuns and children. The hymns of Pere Hermann, a famous pianist and composer, a pupil of Liszt, a convert from Judaism, and afterward a Carmelite friar, are very popular in France, and of these the music chiefly consisted. At the communion the superioress stepped ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... loss of time, her perspicacity penetrated the disguises, although not to the motives that impelled the plotters. She centered her thoughts on the old, white-locked pianist, who silently listened to all the parties and was tolerated even when the piano was closed; he was taciturn, always blandly smiling and bent in a servile bow. Nevertheless, this was the principal of the conspirators and even the viscount-baron treated ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... I no longer shaved, and to my wife's annoyance, for the first and only time in my life allowed my beard to grow quite long. I tried to bear everything patiently, and the only thing that threatened really to drive me to despair was a pianist in the room adjoining ours who during the livelong day practised Liszt's fantasy on Lucia di Lammermoor. I had to put a stop to this torture, so, to give him an idea of what he made us endure, one day I moved ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... publisher, on seeing him enter the shop, "you are just in time. A gentleman has been here who wants a pianist; he is an Englishman, and will probably pay well. Are ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... many advantages in a morning party. It affords ladies who do not attend evening receptions the pleasure of meeting on a semi-formal occasion, and is also a well chosen occasion for introducing a new pianist or singer. For a busy woman of fashion a matinee, beginning at two and ending at four or half-past, which are the usual hours for these entertainments, is a most convenient time. It does not interfere with a five o'clock tea, or a drive, nor unfit her for a dinner party or evening ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... reference to the greatness of his ideas; and in his capacity as artist his technical skill derives its value from the measure in which it is adequate to their expression. In the case of an accomplished pianist or violinist we take his proficiency of technique for granted, and we ask, What, with all this power of expression at his command, has he to say? In his rendering of the composer's work what has he of his own to contribute by way of interpretation? Conceding at once ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... Herricote, Joe Herricote. I'm president of our Christian Endeavor Society, and this is Roy Bryan; he's the secretary. This is Mame Beecher. I guess you remember her singing. She's chairman of our social committee, and Lila Cary's our pianist and chairman of the music committee. We've come to see if you won't ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... expressly for the piano by a pianist of the day. David sat on her left hand and watched intently ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... introduction. The women chat after dinner like old friends; every one knows that the roof is a sufficient guarantee. This is as it should be; but great awkwardness results in the United States if one lady speaks to another and receives no answer. "Pray, can you tell me who the pianist is?" said a leader of society to a young girl near her at a private concert. The young lady looked distressed and blushed, and did not answer. Having seen a deaf-mute in the room whom she knew, the speaker concluded that this young lady belonged to that class of persons, and was very much surprised ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... contract he signed called for more—but when he went to managers and told them that he wanted to separate from his sextet and go on as a regular pianist, they laughed at him aud told him he was crazy—it would he an artistic suicide. He used to laugh afterward at the phrase "artistic ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... statement, Browning was not a really fine pianist. As a very young man, he used to play several instruments, and once he had been able to play all of Beethoven's sonatas on the piano. In later life he became ambitious to improve his skill with this instrument, and had much trouble, for his fingers ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... against a pillar by the fountain. "I never hear a pianist, however great and famous, but I see the little cream-colored hammers within the piano bobbing up and down like acrobatic brownies. I never hear the plaudits of the crowd for the artist and watch him return ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... day of October, 1811, Franz Liszt, the greatest pianist of the last half century, was born at Raiding, in Hungary, and the entire musical world was united in celebrating his seventieth birthday, which took ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various
... of dotted muslin, and by occasional engravings and colored pictures representing the dances of various nations, judiciously selected. The rows of chairs along the two sides of the room were left unoccupied by the time the music was well under way, for the pianist, a tall colored woman with long fingers and a muscular wrist, played with a verve and a swing that set the feet of the ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... at this period developed in him a speculative tendency and taught him the power of forcible expression. Herbart learned to play on several musical instruments, and at the age of eleven displayed considerable talent as a pianist. ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... of the leg has not been contented to stop there. He has worked for years upon the construction of an artificial arm, and has at length succeeded in arranging a mechanism, which, if it cannot serve a pianist or violinist, is yet equal to holding the reins in driving, receiving fees for professional services, and similar easy labors. Where Mr. Palmer means to stop in supplying bodily losses it would be premature to say. We suppose the accidents happening ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... the said John Hall Wilton, agent for the said Phineas T. Barnum, at the request of the said Jenny Lind, agrees to pay to Julius Benedict, of London, to accompany the said Jenny Lind, as musical director, pianist, and superintendent of the musical department, also to assist the said Jenny Lind in one hundred and fifty concerts or oratorios, to be given in the United States of North America and Havana, the sum of five thousand pounds ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... resident of this metropolis, will delight this company by singing one of those soul-moving plantation melodies which have made his name famous over two hemispheres. Mr. 'Pussy Me-ow' Simmons, the distinguished fiddling pianist, late of the Bowery, very late, I may remark, and now on the waiting list at Wallack's Theatre—every other month, I am told—will ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... know that the queerest persons in the world, about eating and drinking, are actresses, Magsie," she added, smiling, "so I don't know whether to offer you tea, or hot soup, or an egg beaten up in milk, or what! We had a pianist here about a ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... detached from the battery, and Cpl. Thomas J. Brennan, of Pottsville, Penna., were candidates for the divisional foot ball team that played at Souilly with a number of other divisional elevens. Philip J. Cusick, of Parsons, Penna., the battery's favorite pianist, was selected to make a tour with the regimental minstrel show that was put on to tour the circuit of A. E. F. playhouses. Cusick was recalled to the battery the latter part of February when he received notice ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... was there, just as I am sure of the humor of the two brothers who next appeared as 'Singing and Dancing Comedians' of the coon type. I know that they sang and they danced, and worked sable pleasantries upon one another with the help of the pianist, who often helps out the dialogue of the stage in vaudeville. They were not so good as the next people, a jealous husband and a pretty wife, who seized every occasion in the slight drama of 'The Singing Lesson,' ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... farther on, in the valley of Punaruu, the amiable violinist and pianist showed me the ruins of defense works thrown up by the French to withstand the attacks of the great chieftain, Oropaa of Punaauia, who with his warriors had here disputed foot by foot the advance of the invaders. These Tahitians were without artillery, mostly without guns ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... great, richly furnished drawing-room was brilliantly lighted, and the magnificent Erard grand piano sang and rang again with music, now martial and loud, now soft and solemn, now gay and sparkling. I made the very pleasant discovery that Harold Beecham. was an excellent pianist, a gifted player on the violin, and sang with a strong, clear, well-trained tenor, which penetrated far into the night. How many, many times I have lived those nights over again! The great room with its rich appointments, the superb piano, the lights, ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... the eighteenth century John Field of Dublin was a distinguished pianist. He subsequently (1814) invented the nocturne, developed by Chopin. Sir John Stevenson (the arranger of the Irish Melodies), Tom Cooke, William Southwell (inventor of the damper action for pianofortes), Henry Mountain, ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... national art of Norway by his excellent arrangements of hallings and spring dances for piano and violin. Thomas Thellefsen (1823-1874), a pupil and friend of Chopin, was distinguished as a national composer as well as a pianist, and Carl F.E. Neupert (1842-1888), who lived in America six years, did much by his concert tours and ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... boy, seeing the great Carnival of 1859, when the Prince of Wales was in Rome, and the masks which had been forbidden since the revolution were allowed again in his honour; and before the flower throwing began, I saw Liszt, the pianist, not yet in orders, but dressed in a close-fitting and very fashionable grey frock-coat, with a grey high hat, young then, tall, athletic and erect; he came out suddenly from a doorway, looked to the right and left in evident fear of being made a mark for 'confetti,' crossed ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... there was to be music—the Brownlie girls played the violin beautifully, and Dorothy was an acknowledged pianist; then Agnes Sinclair was to entertain with monologues, and the boys were to have a ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose
... the fine arts the mastery of both hands is advantageous. The sculptor, the carver, the draughtsman, the engraver, the cameo-cutter, each has recourse at times to the left hand for special manipulative dexterity; the pianist depends little less on the left hand than on the right; and as for the organist, with the numerous pedals and stops of the modern grand organ, a quadrumanous musician would still find reason to envy the ampler scope which a Briareus could command."—Dr. Daniel Wilson, Left-Handedness. ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... in the course of years that Frederick Augustus would not take her back, she changed her mind as to the illegality of her divorce and married, September 25, 1907, Enrico Toselli, an Italian composer and pianist of ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... in character and tastes, as she lives a life of quiet retirement, is a devoted wife and-mother, yet often giving her time and energies to a good work, or an artistic enterprise. She also is exceedingly fond of music and is an accomplished pianist. A passion for music belongs to this family by a double inheritance. Even poor, old, blind George the Third consoled himself at his organ, for the loss of an empire and the darkening of ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... both these occasions I had been in the company of people who spent at least as much in a week as I did in a year. Why was I, a penniless and unknown young man, admitted there? Simply because, though I was an execrable pianist, and never improved until the happy invention of the pianola made a Paderewski of me, I could play a simple accompaniment at sight more congenially to a singer than most amateurs. It is true that the musical side of London society, with its streak of ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... breaking a mental habit, painting out a mass of associations, which he had felt in ceasing to believe in a religion, or, more acutely, after quarrelling with a friend. He knew that was absurd. The picture came to him of encountering the Jew, or Diringer, or old Wolf, or little Streckmann, the pianist, in a raid on the East Coast, or on the Continent, slashing at them in a stagey, dimly-imagined battle. Ridiculous. He vaguely imagined a series of heroic feats, vast enterprise, ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... earliest companies of this sort was organized and sustained under the leadership of Nelson Kneass, who, while skilful in his manipulations of the banjo, was quite an accomplished pianist besides, as well as a favorite ballad-singer. He had some pretensions as a composer, but has left his name identified with no work of any interest. His company met with such success in Pittsburg, that its visits were repeated ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... were swept by a master hand. The wires were not hammered; they were touched knowingly as by the player's own fingers, and so they sang—and from out among the chords there stole an errant melody. This was not "piano-playing" and not a pianist's triumphant nimbleness—it was music. Art is the language of a heart that knows how to speak, and a heart that knew how was speaking here. What it told was something immeasurably wistful, something that might have welled up in the breast of a young ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... do the impossible,—a word which Napoleon told his officer was beastly, never to be spoken, and in his dictionary not found. "With God all things are possible," and that means possible to whoever works with Him. Said the pianist to his pupils, "If you do not expect or intend to write finer music than Beethoven, you have no business to compose at all." Mr. Sumner aimed at the sun; and the feeling of philanthropic duty with which he stirred the body politic out of the custom of chronic oppression and old habit of wrong ...
— Senatorial Character - A Sermon in West Church, Boston, Sunday, 15th of March, - After the Decease of Charles Sumner. • C. A. Bartol
... boy pianist received such awe as Claire gave to this contemptuous young god, with grease on his peachy cheeks. She did come on. But she rather hoped that she was in great danger. It was humiliating to telephone to a garage for nothing. When she came into the gas-smelling ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... within him. Czerny declares that his playing of slow movements was full of the greatest expression,—an experience to be remembered. He used the pedal largely, and was most particular in the placing of the hands and the drift of the fingers upon the keys. As a pianist, he was surnamed 'Giant among players,' and men like Vogler, Hummel, and Woelffl were of a truth great players; but as Sir George Grove aptly says, in speaking of Beethoven's tours de force in performance, his transposing and playing at sight, etc., 'It ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... representative songs and piano pieces, completed his achievements before the production of Pelleas et Melisande brought him fame and a measure of relief from lean and pinching days. He has from time to time made public appearances in Paris as a pianist in concerts of chamber music; and he has even resorted—one wonders how desperately?—to the writing of music criticism for various journals and reviews. "Artists," he has somewhat cynically observed, "struggle long enough ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... diner; and here again we find an explanation for the tourist's impressions. When the Viennese goes to dinner, he does so privately. Bianca's dinner that night was typical. There were twelve at table. There was music by a semi-professional pianist. The service was perfect—it was more like a dinner in a cabinet particulier at a Parisian cafe than one in a private apartment. But here we catch the spirit of Vienna, the transforming of what the other cities do publicly into the intimacies ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... that, when Mrs. Crawley was particularly down on her luck, she gave concerts and lessons in music here and there. There was a Madame de Raudon, who certainly had a matinee musicale at Wildbad, accompanied by Herr Spoff, premier pianist to the Hospodar of Wallachia, and my little friend Mr. Eaves, who knew everybody and had travelled everywhere, always used to declare that he was at Strasburg in the year 1830, when a certain Madame Rebecque made her appearance in the opera of ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... people giggled, and some groaned a little. The showman couldn't say a word; he looked at the pianist sharp, but he was all lovely and serene—he didn't know there was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Bella and Lily seem to be getting on very well indeed. That governess of theirs—we won't have any more mystery; it was I who undertook the trifling expense. A really excellent teacher, I have every reason to believe. I am told that Bella promises to be a remarkable pianist, and Lily is uncommonly strong in languages. But my interest in them is merely that of a ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... get on very well with Royal persons! I have heard a very great Majesty indeed praise a common little American woman's abominable singing, as though she were a prima-donna, and saw him give a jewelled cigar-case to an amateur pianist, whose fingers rattled on the keyboard like bones on a tom-tom. But then the common little American woman invited his Majesty's 'cheres amies' to her house; and the amateur pianist was content to lose money to ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... my pianist about Wagner's Lohengrin; he plays with great taste and feeling, and I purchased a fine Parisian piano to enable ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... little pianist, introduced as Bennie Saminsky—played with much feeling and taste. All the rest ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... of words, and a brief concluding chapter, the subject matter of the volume falls into three main divisions. Chapters II and III are based on the fact that we must all use words in combination—must fling the words out by the handfuls, even as the accomplished pianist must strike his notes. Chapters IV and V are based on the fact that we must become thoroughly acquainted with individual words—that no one who scorns to study the separate elements of speech can command powerful and discriminating utterance. Chapters VI, VII, VIII, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... a rather remarkable pianist staying at this same pension," she wrote; "and she plays for us very often. Something in the charm and delicacy of her touch makes me think of Blue Bonnet's, when she plays her little 'Ave Maria.' I have talked with her about Blue Bonnet and she thinks with me that ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... their endeavors to lure back the dancers, determined to join the excitement, and ceased playing. The leader laid down his violin, the pianist trailed up the key- board with a departing twitter and quit his stool. They all crossed the hall, headed for the crowd, some of them making ready to bet. As they approached the Bronco Kid, his lips thinned and slid apart slightly, ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... fresh-skinned. He walked always; he was forever tramping off to the pine-hooded hills, with his painting-kit over his shoulders and his camp-stool under his arm. Later, Elsa began to understand that he was a true scholar, not merely an educated man. He was besides a linguist of amazing facility, a pianist who invariably preferred as his audience his own two ears. Arthur would have been a great dramatist or a great poet, if . . . If what? If what? Ah, that had been the crux of it all, of her doubt, of her hesitance. If he had fought for prizes coveted by mankind, if ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... Chopin long without becoming dulled and spoiled. So with composition become an interval between two trains, and expression an attempt to please audiences and to establish oneself with the public as a popular pianist, it is not the most preposterous of thoughts that Leo Ornstein has lost something he once possessed ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... seen slight but convincing evidences? Why should Donna so often appear with a single white rose pinned to her dress or take to playing the same tunes on the piano that the Professor played on his violin, particularly when she was an exceedingly poor pianist? ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... shouted "Bravo!" Then a fat gentleman in spectacles, very sedate and even grim of aspect, recited in a bass voice a sketch by Shtchedrin;[57] the audience applauded the sketch, not him.—Then the pianist, who was already known to Aratoff, presented himself, and pounded out the same Liszt fantasia; the pianist was favoured with a recall. He bowed, with his hand resting on the back of a chair, and after each bow he tossed ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... of the species, of the tribe, of the family; it may devote itself to the service of an abstract principle or subserve the purposes of individual caprice. It differs from instinct as a piano differs from a barrel-organ. The pianist has to master his art by years of toil, but can apply it to all possible variations or extravaganzas of music. The organ-grinder can delight his audience as much by his first as by his last performance, but his repertoire is limited. Reason is indefinite, free, and versatile. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... indescribable smartness of their cut, a genre which had never been obtruded on her notice before, astonished Mrs Fyne, who came out into the hall with her hat on; for she was about to go out to hear a new pianist (a girl) in a friend's house. The youth addressing Mrs Fyne easily begged her not to let "that silly thing go back to us any more." There had been, he said, nothing but "ructions" at home about her for the last three weeks. Everybody in the family was heartily ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... If we suppose with the majority of men that the soul is an independent entity, which has nothing to do with the body originally, but merely inhabits it for a time, and gives expression to its experiences through the brain just as the pianist does through his instrument, we must assign a point in human embryology at which the soul enters into the brain; and at death again we must assign a moment at which it abandons the body. As, further, each human individual has inherited certain personal features ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel
... the "Minute Waltz" as an encore, first telling her audience what it was. Thereupon a huge man in a large riding suit took out an immense silver watch, held it open almost under her nose, and gravely proceeded to time her. The pianist's fingers flew along the keys, and her anxiety was rewarded when the man closed the watch with a loud slap and said in a booming voice: ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... a live organist, pianist or orchestra to lead the music. A director to lead the singing, ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander
... in fact, the protests of Derain's genius against his talent, and whether they are good or not I cannot say. Derain has a super-natural gift for making things: give him a tin kettle and in half a morning he will hammer you out a Summerian head; he has the fingers of a pianist, an aptitude that brings beauty to life with a turn of the wrist; in a word, that sensibility of touch which keeps an ordinary craftsman happy for a lifetime: and these things terrify him. He ties both ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... & Co., New York City: Manufactured for our use and loaned to us one of the handsomest pianos they could make, with beautiful Louis XV decorations in ormolu, which was used on state occasions or when some well-known singer or pianist was available. It was the ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... tell Herr Von Barwig what you know. If he can teach such a finished pianist as Helene, I am determined that you shall have the advantage of ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... musical persons to learn that it was through the efforts of Adolphe Henselt, piano virtuoso and composer, that Dostoievsky was finally allowed to leave Siberia and publish his writings. Henselt, who was at the time court pianist and teacher of the Czarina, appealed to her, and thus the ball was set rolling that ended in the clemency of the Czar. To Henselt, then, Russian literature is indebted for the "greater Dostoievsky." Why he was ever sent to Siberia is still a mystery. He had avowed his disbelief ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... than none," Morris Perlmutter commented, "which it is very clear to me, Abe, that with the example of Poland in front of them, the Italians being also a musical people and seeing that Poland has got it a first-class A-number-one pianist like Paderewski for a President, y'understand, they are taking the opportunity of Fiume to put in Caruso or Scotti or one ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... he is not home, and will not come to-day. He is visiting—why do they bother us?" a woman's voice was heard to say, and the rhapsody continued, then ceased, and the sound of a chair moved back was heard. The angry pianist herself evidently wished to reprimand the importunate visitor who came at such ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... see his face, but she noted that he had an enormous shock of snow-white hair. At one side of him stood another old man, his thin cheek resting lovingly against his violin, his whole soul intent upon the flood of melody he was bringing forth, while on the other side of the pianist, her quiet face fairly transfigured stood Constance, pouring out ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester |
