"Pianissimo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... eighth-note motion throughout all the measures of this part of the work. It can only be made tolerable by careful observance of the "sotto voce" at beginning and gradually increasing in power up to the fortissimo in the fortieth measure. Again it subsides into pianissimo, and again the crescendo. Finally the original melody in D-flat is resumed—and with what grateful sweetness!—and the piece is ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... hesitatingly up the center aisle, eager for good seats but afraid to go too far, the organist wipes his palms upon his trousers legs, squares his shoulders, and plunges into the program that he has played at all weddings for fifteen years past. It begins with Mendelssohn's Spring Song, pianissimo. Then comes Rubinstein's Melody in F, with a touch of forte toward the close, and then Nevin's "Oh, That We Two Were Maying" and then the Chopin waltz in A flat, Opus 69, No. 1, and then the Spring Song again, and then a free fantasia ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... Light, sound and tactual vibrations press upon you from every side. At a busy corner of a city street these vibrations rise to a tumultuous fortissimo; in the hush of a night upon the plains they sink to pianissimo. Yet at every moment of your day or night they are there in greater or less degree, titillating the unsleeping nerve-ends of ...
— Applied Psychology: Making Your Own World • Warren Hilton
... one hand on the back of his chair, and began speaking. The music instantly sank to pianissimo, and remained so for as long as he was on ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... slow Hungarian waltz, that most witching of dances, danced perfectly only by those of the warm-blooded southern temperament, now commenced. It was played pianissimo, and stole through the room like the fluttering breath of a soft sea wind. I had always been an excellent waltzer, and my step had fitted in with that of Nina as harmoniously as the two notes of a perfect chord. She found it so on this occasion, ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... skilful players. I remember an occasion when all the musicians began to breathe at ease on my taking this piece at the true moderate pace: then the humorous sforzato of the basses and bassoons at once produced an intelligible effect; the short crescendi became clear, the delicate pianissimo close was effective, and the gentle gravity of the returning principal movement was properly felt. Now, the late Capellmeister Reissiger, of Dresden, once conducted this symphony there, and I happened ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... sonata in A has a characteristic principal theme, and one in the dominant key of bewitching beauty. The coda gives a last reminiscence of the opening theme; but its almost defiant character has vanished away; for it is now played pianissimo. Schubert, in the importance of his codas, recalls Beethoven; each, however, made it serve a different purpose. The latter, at any rate in his Allegro movements, gathers together his strength, as if for ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... did, too. While I am talking nonsense with Little Handsome, I hear her amusing my good aunty, and I catch a few words, her utterance having a peculiar distinctness, and the lowest tones being fine and clear, like those of a good singer on a pianissimo strain. It is a peculiarly ladylike articulation; was she born and bred in Ratborough, I wonder? She never speaks while we are singing. Does she like music, then? I asked her once, but what sort of answer is "Yes!" to such a question? And that is ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various |
