"Cello" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... page 72.) A similarly simple instrument is in use to the present day in many parts of the east. The Arab form of it, known as the rebec, is represented on p. 113, Fig. 23. It has two strings of silk, and is played with the point downward, like a 'cello. It is not possible after this lapse of time to determine which was the original form of the violin in Europe. Very early we find the crwth in the hands of the Celtic players, as noticed in chapter VI. The form given in Fig. 22 (p. 107) is ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... rises towards white, a movement little suited to it, its appeal to men grows weaker and more distant. In music a light blue is like a flute, a darker blue a cello; a still darker a thunderous double bass; and the darkest ...
— Concerning the Spiritual in Art • Wassily Kandinsky
... continually, sounding like the strings of harps, tuned to a forgotten scale, and having a resonance as searching as the strings of the cello. ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... German guy, Baron Duesseldorf; and the other was young Beverley Duer, whose fad is takin' movin' pictures of wild animals in their native jungles and givin' private movie shows in the Plaza ballroom. Some strong on the wise conversation himself, Beverley is. He paints a bit, plays the 'cello pretty fair, has a collection of ivory carvin's, and has traveled all over the lot. You can't faze him with the snappy repartee, either; ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... YOU? Piano Organ Violin Clarinet Flute Harp Coronet 'Cello Guitar Ukulele Saxophone Banjo, (Plectrum 5-String or Tenor) Piccolo Hawaiian Steel Guitar Drums and Traps Mandolin Sight Singing Trombone Piano Accordion Voice and Speech Culture Harmony and Composition Automatic Finger ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... have probably written more for other instruments. His pianoforte concertos belong to his early period, and betray a lack of experience in the treatment of the orchestra. But he wrote two pieces of chamber music which have never been excelled—a 'cello sonata and a trio. The 'cello sonata was the last of his larger works, and in my opinion it is superior to any of the 'cello sonatas of Mendelssohn, Brahms, and even Beethoven and Rubinstein. The trio, though an earlier work, is, like the 'cello sonata, admirably ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... during the intervals of music-making in the most formidable manner. He heard Auber and Rossini operas and Rolla, the Italian violinist, and listened with delight to Dotzauer and Kummer the violoncellists—the cello being an instrument for which he had a consuming affection. Rubini, the brother of the great tenor, he met, and was promised important letters of introduction if he desired to visit Italy. He saw Klengel again, who told the young ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... for already there was a throng before the door. The music had started up, and half a block away you could hear the dull "broom, broom" of a cello, with the squeaking of two fiddles which vied with each other in intricate and altitudinous gymnastics. Seeing the throng, Marija abandoned precipitately the debate concerning the ancestors of her coachman, and, springing from the moving carriage, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... was a very sociable man; and, when on a sketching tour, liked to have a young artist or two with him. Jack Nisbett played the violin, and Sam the 'cello, etc. Jack was fond of telling that Sam used to let them all choose the best views, and then he would take what was left; and Jack, with mild astonishment, would say, that 'it generally turned out to be the ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... piece of "laudable idolatry," as Burney calls it, was thus described by a contemporary journalist: "Mr. Handel is represented in a loose robe, sweeping the lyre, and listening to its sounds; which a little boy sculptured at his feet seems to be writing down on the back of a violon-cello. The whole composition is in an elegant taste." Commissioned by an impresario who had made a fortune out of the use of Handel's music, it now appropriately adorns the vestibule of Messrs. Novello's music-shop in ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... now. The trees had burst forth again into leaf, the spiraea bushes seemed weighted down with snow, and with a note like that of the quivering bass string of a 'cello the bees hummed among the fruit blossoms. And there beside me in her filmy dress was Maude, a part of it all—the meaning of all that set my being clamouring. She was like some ripened, delicious flower ready to be picked.... One of those pernicious, make-believe volumes had fallen on the bench ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... uproarious. At such times Mendelssohn seemed to fail in knowing the applause was for him, and appeared as one half-dazed or embarrassed, when suddenly remembering where he was, he would seize the nearest 'cello, violin or oboe, and drag the astonished man to the front to share the honors and bouquets. If this was artistry it was of a high order and should be ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... rich, deep voice lost its undertone of melancholy, and rang joyously, with the soft beauty of a 'cello's ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... like the strings of harps tuned to a forgotten scale, and having a resonance as searching as the strings of the 'cello. ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats
... gift which drew the two girls together with a strong attraction: she was a devoted lover of music and so accomplished a pianist as to be almost a genius—for one of her age. The whole family seemed to be musical. Her father played the 'cello and Ted the violin, but Phyllis's work at the piano far surpassed theirs. And Leslie, too, loved music devotedly, though she neither sang nor played any instrument. It was a revelation to her when, on the next rainy afternoon, she accompanied ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... symphony "An das Vaterland," and Beethoven's Triple Concerto, for piano, violin and cello, given in New York City by ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... I know that thou art a man, my king!—a Rajput, a son of kings, and ... my husband!" Pitched to a minor, thrilling key, her accents were as musical as the singing of a 'cello. "For thou dost know what thou must dare this night of nights, and he is a brave man who can dare so much, unfaltering. Tell me thou art not ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... and always, for the rest of her life, she would hate him. He pulled up his horse as he thought, and sat as though he were in chains. He was, according to his reckoning, out of earshot, but Stanton's deep baritone had the carrying power of a 'cello. Max heard it say in a tone to reach a woman's heart: "Child! You come to me like a white dove. God bless you! I needed you. I don't know whether I can let ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... voice with its deep cello quality was vibrant with emotion. "You don't know what that means to me. Men have called me many things but few have ever called me friend except in lip service for what they thought they could get out of it. And from you—well, I can ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... little, low rippling laugh that had in it an undertone of sadness. There was a peculiar, throaty quality in her voice, like a muted violin or 'cello. "Don't be so frightened, please, for I'm not going to stay long, really. I'm merely the sort of woman who can't stay over night anywhere without a lot ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... 'cello, like tea, was a word of deep significance. Amzi glared at Phil, who raised ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... the drama from beginning to end, is the love-motive. Its fundamental form is that in which it appears in the second bar of the Prelude in the oboe (No. 1).[35] Variants of it occur without the characteristic semitone suspension (1a) or with a falling seventh (1b). The cello motive of the opening phrase of the Prelude may also be considered as derived from the same by contrary ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... fine, which in the period of the empire was called the Tuscanic and was regarded as a kind of style co-ordinate with the various Greek temple-structures, not only generally resembled the Greek temple in being an enclosed space (-cello-) usually quadrangular, over which walls and columns raised aloft a sloping roof, but was also in details, especially in the column itself and its architectural features, thoroughly dependent on the Greek system. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... sequence of creative work unworthy of MacDowell, a falling off common to most composers of standing at some time or other. The technical side of the work is fair, the tone quality of the violoncello having been evidently considered. The piece is dedicated to Popper, whose name is familiar to all 'cello players. ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... pay him a visit. At that time he was much interested in the big drum, and we found him when we arrived in full practice, with his music-book open before him. He made us all join in the concert. Father undertook the 'cello, and Mr. Dodgson hunted up a comb and some paper, and, amidst much fun and laughter, the walls echoed with the finished roll, or shake, of the big drum—a roll ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... wraith, the hall was empty when P. Sybarite entered it. But it echoed with sounds of rowdy revelry from the room in back: mechanical clatter of galled and spavined piano, despondent growling of a broken-winded 'cello, nervous giggling and moaning of an excoriated violin—the three wringing from the score of O You Beautiful Doll an entirely adequate accompaniment to the perfunctory ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... began to sing. The deep rich voice, low and vibrant, as the softest tone of 'cello, thrilled ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... methods of diet and training. I declare, my dear, if I were to go into the room where Theodore Thomas was rehearsing his orchestra, and see the flutists using their flutes for hammers, and the violinists using their violins for tennis rackets, and the divine old cello in the hands of a lusty blacksmith who was utilizing it for an anvil, the sight would be nothing to what it is to see the muddle we make of the children's sweet lives. God meant us for musical instruments, and gave to each soul its capacity ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... the wedding's going to be, but I'm mighty sure that I have met the one girl. Max, there never was a girl like her. Witty she is, and wise; as beautiful as a summer's dawn; merry and brave; rides, drives, plays the 'cello, dances like a moon-shadow; and all that,"—with a wave ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... all'umil tetto Le piu solenni che vi potean farsi; E piu d'un mese poi stero a diletto I duo tranquilli amanti a ricrearsi. Piu lunge non vedea del giovinetto La donna, ne di lui potea saziarsi: Ne, per mai sempre pendegli dal cello, Il suo disir ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... upon the pinions of that resonant and cello-like voice, attained an almost supernatural influence over their perverted natures. When it ceased, an audible sigh arose, an involuntary tribute of ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... had said, she played her fiddle with its body downward, and resting on her knees, as though it had been an undersized 'cello. I then vaguely remembered having dreamed of such a ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... We have an impartial acquaintance with the tastes and views of cardinals and comic singers; and the future of the papacy is given almost as much space as Little Tich's talent for water-colour, and his fondness for the 'cello and his baby. Moreover, that coil of cable which makes the whole world kin has burdened us with the celebrities of the universe. When to these are added the celebrities of the past, of every period, country, and variety, the brain reels. Too many cooks ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... not depend upon the ability to see with the eyes. This will be better understood when the coeducation of blind and seeing children becomes more general—God speed the day! As music teachers, concert players, leaders of orchestra, or masters of the violin and 'cello, the blind should have an even chance of success, but their inability to read music at sight, or watch the director's baton often deprives them of positions which their quick ear and well trained memory ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... effected by the voice gliding from one tone to another, and is equally available on stringed instruments, the violin or 'cello, the mandoline or zither. It is a grace of style much abused by inartistic singers. Being an ornament, good taste dictates that it be used sparingly. A frequent sliding from one tone to another is a grave fault, and most disagreeable ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... can't explain it. But your voice just goes all through me, cool and fine. It's like a wind of coolness—just right. It's like the first of the sea-breeze settin' in in the afternoon after a scorchin' hot morning. An' sometimes, when you talk low, it sounds round and sweet like the 'cello in the Macdonough Theater orchestra. And it never goes high up, or sharp, or squeaky, or scratchy, like some women's voices when they're mad, or fresh, or excited, till they remind me of a bum phonograph record. Why, your voice, it just goes ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... when he finds what a lot of his books you've brought up out of the library," said Roy to himself, as he stood watching the plump, smooth-faced youngish man, who, with an oblong music-book open before him on the table, was seated upon a stool, with a 'cello between his legs, gravely sawing away at the strings, and frowning severely whenever, through bad stopping with his fingers—and that was pretty often—he produced notes "out of tune and harsh." The musician was ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... best way to please such an artist is to humor the illusion that his exertions give pleasure. No human performance can last forever—not even a concert. A string broke, and the musician, putting his 'cello aside with a sigh, suffered the conversation to run in a new channel opened ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... serious rite with the Bremers. The father played the piano, and the next oldest son to Friedrich was struggling with a 'cello; and when they played, the whole family sat in the parlor, even the tiny tots, ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... age. Durant knew a man who had taught himself the 'cello at fifty-five. But the Colonel was not that sort of adventurous dilettante. Neither was Mrs. Fazakerly exactly like a violoncello, she was more like a piano; while Miss Tancred, from the Colonel's point of view, was like a hurdy-gurdy. Not a difficult instrument ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... kings. And after all, he did not hear me; I could tell that by the look on his face as he sat there staring into the light, the lank, dark hair framing his waxen brow, his shoulders hanging forward, his lean, strong, sentient fingers wrapped around the brown neck of "Ugo," the 'cello, tightly. ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... to learn that the mouth-organ is the favorite instrument among the soldiers in a certain Labour unit. The advantage of this instrument is that when carried in the pocket it does not spoil the figure like a cello. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 30, 1917 • Various
... him, the community should be satisfied also. The gossips had never been able to decide which of the Bartlett girls was likelier to assume the role of Phil's stepmother. There were those who favored Rose. As Kirkwood played the 'cello, Rose to some observers seemed more plausible by reason of her musical talent. Others believed that it would be Nan, as Nan was "literary" and Kirkwood was a scholar, suspected of "writing," though just what he wrote no one was able to say. ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... name was Henry Wheaton, and he was said to be a frequent caller at Mrs. Wells', and she played his accompaniments, and Mr. Wells was often detained in New York until the late train. Then there was another young man who played the 'cello, and he called often. And there was Ellis Bainbridge, who had a fine tenor voice, and he called. It was delightful to have a woman of that sort, of whom nothing distinctly culpable could be affirmed, against whom no good reason could be brought for excluding her from the ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... After some association with geniuses he withdrew from the art-world, confessing himself unable to bear the society of those who did not dress for dinner; but while repudiating, he continued to spy the art-world from a distance. An audience is, however, necessary to a 'cello player, and the Turf Club and the Royal Yacht Club contained not a dozen members, he said, who would recognise the Heroica Symphony if they happened to hear it, which was not likely. Lately he had declared openly that he was ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... He studied at Northwestern University, but took his degree of B.A. from Princeton in 1902, and afterwards spent a year in study at the University of Berlin. Mr. Schauffler was a musician before he took up literature and was a pupil of many famous masters of the 'cello. He has written upon musical subjects, notably in his volume, "The Musical Amateur". He has also written several books of travel, such as "Romantic Germany" and "Romantic America". He attracted wide attention by his poem upon immigration, "The Scum o' the Earth", which is the ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... pity; our choir is so excellent—two violins, a viola, clarinet, 'cello, double bass, the trumpets and drums, and of course ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... piccolo, the flute, the oboes, the clarionets, filling the air with a silver spray of notes; the drums throbbing, the trumpets shrilling, the four horns pealing with long stately notes, the trombones and bassoons vibrating, the violins and violas sobbing in linked sweetness, the 'cello and the contra-bass moaning their under-chant. And then, in the morning, when the first rough sketch was written, the glory faded. He threw down his pen, and called himself an ass for wasting his time ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... He is the son of an old friend; a very dear old friend. His name is August and he wants me to—to give him a start in life. He is a 'cello player. You know what is a 'cello? It's a large violin and stands up when you play it, so," and he took his own violin and placing it between his knees showed her ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... men. Socks had been to him not an article of faith but a detail of economy. His attitude to socks had lacked in reverence and technique. He had not perceived that socks may be as sound a symbol of culture as the 'cello or even demountable rims. He had been able to think with respect of ties and damp pique collars secured by gold safety-pins; and to the belted fawn overcoat that the St. Klopstock banker's son had brought back from St. Paul, he had given jealous ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... century preferred human voices whose timbre approached closest to the violin, the oboe or the 'cello, and considered that such were peculiarly fitted for lyric and dramatic expression. The eunuch sings as if he had an oboe in his throat; it is much too harsh and lacking in brilliancy for our ear, which values incomparably higher the more brilliant, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... men come down from the mountains nine days before Christmas to sing a novena to a plaintive melody accompanied by 'cello and violin. "All day long," writes Signora Caico about Montedoro in Caltanissetta, "the melancholy dirge |113| was sung round the village, house after house, always the same minor tune, the words being different every day, so that in nine days the whole song was sung ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... was in progress. From some concealed place came the music of a string orchestra. Every window of the great pile was open for ventilation, and Ben could hear and see almost as plainly as the guests themselves. For a time, deep, insistent, throbbing in measured beat, came the drone of the 'cello, the wail of the clarionet, and, faintly audible beneath, the rustle of moving feet. Then the music ceased; and a few seconds later a throng of heated dancers swarmed through the open doorway to the surrounding veranda, ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... seemed filled with the spirit of both the man and the demon. Every stanza in his clear enunciation seemed a separate string of sombre pearls, each syllable aglow with its own inherent beauty. When he ceased it was as if the soul of some great 'cello had stopped vibrating, leaving only the memory of its melody. For a few seconds no one moved nor spoke. No one had ever heard Richard in finer voice nor had they ever listened to more perfect rhythmic beauty. So great was the effect on the audience that one old habitue, ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Uncle showed me the "Leader" there, With his pale, bleak forehead and long, black hair; Showed me the "Second," and "'Cello," and "Bass," And the "B-Flat," pouting and puffing his face At the little end of the horn he blew Silvery bubbles of music through; And he coined me names of them, each in turn, Some comical name that I laughed to learn, Clean on down to the last and best,— The lively little ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... and had obtained a clerkship in a Ministry. Alzugaray got drunk on music. His great enthusiasm was for playing the 'cello. Caesar used to call on him at his office ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... takes the place of sight, why should it not, to some extent, take the place of hearing, since sounds set up, in sonorous bodies, vibrations perceptible by touch? By placing the hand on the body of a 'cello one can distinguish without the use of eye or ear, merely by the way in which the wood vibrates and trembles, whether the sound given out is sharp or flat, whether it is drawn from the treble string or the bass. If our touch were trained to note these differences, no doubt ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... bronze and russet and gold, Colour with colour, dying things with dead, That break along this visual orchestra: As in that other one, the audible, Horn answers horn, hautboy and violin Talk, and the 'cello calls the clarionet And flute, and the poor heart is glad. There is no hope ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... is a brief lyric with one main melody, sung at first by a solo cello amidst a weaving of muted strings; later it is taken up by the first violins. The solo cello returns for a further song in duet with the violins, where the violas, too, entwine their melody, or the cello is joined ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... every night unless serious affairs keep him away! There you may see him nodding his old head and bursting his gloves with applauding when a good thing is done. He ought to have led an orchestra or played a 'cello. He is too ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... thought of having supper without trifle, tipsy-cake, and syllabub, in those days, as of finishing the evening without Sir Roger. Dancing had begun at seven-thirty. The lady at the piano was drooping with weariness. Violin and 'cello yawned over their bows; only spasmodically and half-heartedly the thrum and jingle of the tambourine ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... is a more representative instrument, enabling one pair of hands to grasp the whole harmony of a composition, or a compendium thereof; but the violin, with the other members of its family, viola, 'cello, &c., is the more social instrument, bringing together groups of kindred spirits who can play in parts, and read together the quartets, &c., of the greatest masters, or play sonata duos, trios, &c., with the piano-forte. And the string-instruments are infinitely ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... again the dear home of that blessed year: the kindly housemother; the chubby Maedchen who knitted her a silk purse, and cried when she left; the father with his beloved 'cello and his ...
— A Reversion To Type • Josephine Daskam
... not look the farewell, and began slowly to go round the room, laying his hand upon each in turn—his favourite books and pictures, his piano, the violin, the cornet, and the big 'cello in its case where it stood in the corner—all such dear old friends, and it was good-bye ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... visitors assembled, stuffed into her two parlours, while the eatables were spread in a kitchen metamorphosed with decorations of crinkled paper, they found, buttressed into a corner by the freshly tuned piano, the Rye Quartet, consisting of the piano-tuner himself, his wife, who played the 'cello, and his two daughters with fiddles and white pique frocks. At first the music was rather an embarrassment, for while it played eating and conversation were alike suspended, and the guests stood with open mouths and cooling cups of ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... all this, ten violin players in costume entered the scene in the first act, five from each side. Then a troupe of Tritons came swimming in, playing lutes, harps, flutes, one even having a kind of 'cello. When Jupiter makes his appearance, he is accompanied by forty musicians. The festivities on this occasion are said to have cost over five million francs. Musically, the ballet was no advance towards expressiveness in art. An air which accompanied "Circe's" entrance, may be ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... 'cello in particular, will welcome the latest volume of 'THE STRAD' Library, 'Chats to 'Cello Students,' by Arthur Broadley.... Mr. Broadley not only knows what he is talking about, but has practised what he says. From the choice of an instrument to finished ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... afternoon, and seeing Olga's shut motor coming from the station with four men inside, she leaped to the conclusion that these were four musicians for the music. A second motor followed with luggage, and she quite distinctly saw the unmistakable shape of a 'cello against the window. After that no more guessing was necessary, for it was clear that poor Olga had hired the awful string-quartet from Brinton, that played in the lounge at the Royal Hotel after dinner. The Brinton string-quartet! She had heard them once at a distance and that was quite enough. ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... of it is under the roof, so that you can hear the rain on it. The boys lay on the floor, and Mother and I sat on the couch, and we listened to the rain on the roof and the sound—something like rain—of the piano, and Father's 'cello booming along with it. They played a thing called "Air Religieux" that I think none of us will ever hear again without thinking of the humming on the roof and the candles all around the room and one big ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... assuming that some iron substance is at hand that will answer the purpose of an anvil. The thickness of the iron wire must depend upon the requirements and size of the work in repair, a viola of course taking stouter wire than a violin, a 'cello still more so. A useful average for violin work would be an eighth of an inch diameter. Strong wire however is not always to hand, time also is occasionally short; when so, wood must be resorted to, cutting it with a sharp knife to ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... whose periphery began at once to contract; and after a few minutes the gorge again accepted me as a part of its harmless self. A huge bee zoomed past, and just behind my head a hummingbird beat the air into a froth of sound, as vibrant as the richest tones of a cello. My concentrated interest seemed to become known to the life of the surrounding glade, and I was bombarded with sight, sound, and odor, as if on purpose to distract my attention. But I remained unmoved, and indications of rare and desirable ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... the comparison could be continued, that quartets of string instruments could play under the palate, with the violin simulated by old brandy, fumous and fine, piercing and frail; the tenor violin by rum, louder and more sonorous; the cello by the lacerating and lingering ratafia, melancholy and caressing; with the double-bass, full-bodied, solid and dark as the old bitters. If one wished to form a quintet, one could even add a fifth instrument with the vibrant taste, the silvery detached ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... were a musical family. Nancy always went to the piano and played for her father after dinner, sometimes Mrs. Nairn joined in with her violin, and to-night Tim appeared with his 'cello. ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... the Plaza Santa Ana were encumbered with wicker chairs. At one corner seven blind musicians all in a row, with violins, a cello, guitars and a mournful cornet, toodled and wheezed and twiddled through the "Blue Danube." At another a crumpled old man, with a monkey dressed in red silk drawers on his shoulder, ground out "la Paloma" from a hurdygurdy. In the middle of the green plot a fountain sparkled in the yellow ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... and matrons among the households of the absent soldiery quite willing to be consoled and comforted. There were bright lights, therefore, further along the edge of the steep, beyond those of the hospital, and the squeak of fiddle and drone of 'cello, mingled with the plaintive piping of the flute, were heard at intervals through the silence of the wintry night. No tramp of sentry broke the hush about the little rift between the heights—the major holding that none was necessary where there were ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... unable to get into the concert hall of his famous rival. He would then listen outside the window and analyze the sound in this fashion: "Fifty per cent. of the sound is made by the tuba, 20 per cent. by the bass drum, 15 per cent. by the 'cello and 10 per cent. by the clarinet. There are some other instruments, but they are not loud and I guess if we can leave them out nobody will know the difference." So he makes up his orchestra out of these four alone and many people do ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... theme (page 289, measure 2), the motive of Gentleness, for the last time (page 290, measure 3), and the Melisande theme (pages 290-292). As Melisande recognizes Arkel, and asks if it be true "that the winter is coming," a solo violin, solo 'cello, and two clarinets play an affecting phrase (page 294, measure 5). She tells Arkel that she does not wish the windows closed until the sun has sunk into the sea, and the orchestra accompanies her in a passage of curiously delicate ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... pear-shaped face, her grizzled hair parted above it and twisted to a large outstanding knob behind. She wore eyeglasses and peered through them at her music with intelligent intensity and profound humility. The violin was played by an enormous young man with red hair, and the viola, second violin and 'cello by three young women, all of the black-and-tan ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... yard a sound of tuning instruments, squeak of fiddle, croon of 'cello, a falling triangle ringing and tinkling to the floor; ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... than silk slippers make Upon a ballroom floor, when sweet Violin and 'cello wake Music ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare
... kiss on it. She shivered and then rapidly glided into the adjoining room, where the jumble of sounds produced by tuning a variety of musical instruments was now heard. The strident notes of violins, the rumbling boom of a cello, and the broken chords of a piano were confusedly mingling, and the male guests were slowly dropping in or taking up a position, a half-smoked Havana or cigarette between the lips, just outside the door, so as to combine two sources of enjoyment. ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... for an instant with her clear, untroubled gaze full upon Agatha, then drew forward a chair from its mathematical position against the wall. When she spoke, her voice was a surprise, it was so low and deep, with a resonance like that of the 'cello. It was not the voice of a young woman; it was, rather, a rare gift of age, telling how beautiful an old woman's speech could be. Moreover, it carried refinement of birth and culture, a beauty of phrase and enunciation, which would have ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger |
