"Basso" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... here. Among his singers were Signorina Pedrotti, who created a great stir (though, I fancy, this was largely because of her beauty and the fact that the public, remembering the Signorina Garcia, wanted somebody to worship) and a basso ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... of the action, Wagner is above all an actor. The first thing that occurs to him is a scene which is certain to produce a strong effect, a real actio,(10) with a basso-relievo of attitudes; an overwhelming scene, this he now proceeds to elaborate more deeply, and out of it he draws his characters. The whole of what remains to be done follows of itself, fully in keeping with a technical economy which has no reason to ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... judgment in Rome, but you see how he is deceived." I bought of the same man a small engraved emerald, which he had just purchased of a peasant, and, without much examination, sold me for one scudo, as a basso-impero of ordinary quality. My eyes were better, and had seen, in what he thought a handful of flowers, a cross; and on cleaning it we found it to be an early Christian stone of much greater value than he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... a miracle built up of many of the conventional figurations of the older music. There is the continuous shake, handed on from instrument to instrument, the slashing figure of the upper strings, the kind of basso ostinato, conventionally indicating the galloping of horses, and the chief melody, a mere bugle-call, altered by a change of rhythm into a thing of superb strength. The only part of the music that ever so remotely suggests extravagance is the Valkyrie's call; and it, after ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... The cafe, Basso and Bregaillon, has a "vue splendide" (in the daytime), so the bill says. What you see at night is a well lit quay with the cafe lights shining out across the dark water in the dock on to some white steam yachts. After getting rid of a uniformed interpreter, ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... business of life in song, nor expire in recitative. That is true, but even fairy tales have their consistency. Every part is adapted to every other, and, in the key, the whole is harmonious. Hermann, for instance, the basso, who sang Mephistopheles, would have been quite perfect if he had only remembered this. But he forgot that Mephisto is a sly and subtle devil. He caricatured him. He made him a buffoon and repulsive. Such extravagance could not have imposed upon Faust or Martha; yet ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... in a Venetian song—"Ogni fumo viene al basso"—which he rendered in the following lines, alluding to the legend of the Moro's fresco in the ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... with voices but a little the worse for wear, can sadly contrast the vocal glories of the past with those of the present. Who are the great singers of to-day? Two or three prime donne and as many baritones. There is not a single basso living to suggest Lablache, not a tenor to revive the triumphs of Rubini, Mario, Giuglini or the subject of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... de Basso's terrible "Ode to a Dead Body," in fifteenth-century Italian; which utters, with extraordinary power, the ascetic thought of the Middle Age, dwelling with a kind of gloomy exultation on the foulness of the human ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... to soothe the bass down, but they couldn't. He looked like a great pouter pigeon, strutting about the room, and then he got red, and I thought he looked like an angry turkey cock. The secretary of the society came in, and the basso attacked him at once. ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... in cui ho tutta mia speranza Che possi e vogli al gran bisogno altarme; Non mi lasciare in su l'estremo passo; Non guardar me, ma chi degno crearme; No'l mio valor, ma l'alta sua sembianza; Che in me ti mova a curar d'uorm si basso. Medusa, e l'error mio lo han fatto un sasso D'umor vano stillante; Vergine, tu di sante Lagrime, e pie adempi 'l mio cor lasso; Ch' almen l'ultlmo pianto sia divoto, Senza terrestro limo; Come fu'l ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... I heard my first splendid singer. A patent medicine cart was in the street and one of its troupe, a basso, sang Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep with such art that I listened with delight. His lion-like pose, his mighty voice, his studied phrasing, revealed to me higher qualities of musical art than ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... his pocket a sort of basso relievo carved in pine. It represented Neptune armed with a harpoon instead of a trident; the captain always contending that the god of the seas should never carry the latter, but that, in its place, he ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the stupendous ruins at Carnac, on the site of ancient Thebes, one hundred paces wide and sixty deep, completely crowded with pillars, which, together with the ceiling, roof, and walls, were decorated with figures in basso-relievo, and hieroglyphics—all marvellously beautiful and finely painted, and as fresh, splendid and glorious, after so many ages, as if they had ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... any such beings nowadays as the great Eliphalet, with his large features and conversational basso profundo, seemed to me. His very name had something elephantine about it, and it seemed to me that the house shook from cellar to garret at his footfall. Some have pretended that he had Olympian aspirations, and wanted to ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... melodious and far-reaching, and it was not an acquired "bishop's voice"—it was his own. The biggest basso I ever heard was just five feet high and weighed one hundred twenty in his stockings; Brignoli, the tenor, weighed two hundred forty. Avoirdupois as a rule lessens the volume of the voice and heightens the register—you can't have both adipose and chest tone. Webster and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... of the young ladies, to the chagrin and embarrassment of the male rustics who had left their manners at home. The story forms a melodramatic stage-setting which the mummers have not been slow to use, representing the seven daughters as a ballet, the shepherds as a male chorus, and Moses as basso-profundo and hero. We are told that the girls went home and told their father of the chivalrous stranger they had met, and he, with all the deference of the desert, sent for him "that he might ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... tenor, and the latter, mortally wounded, fell into the arms of his friends uttering broken, vehement notes. The chorus—made up of the city watch and town's people—crowded in upon the back of the stage. The soprano and her confidante returned. The basso, a black-bearded, bull necked man, sombre, mysterious, parted the chorus to right and left, and advanced to the footlights. The contralto, dressed as a boy, appeared. The soprano took stage, and abruptly the closing scene of ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... Italy?" Morris said. "Which Paderewski didn't have to tune pianos on the side to make a living over here, neither, Abe, and, besides, Abe, if they would let Caruso have a free hand in the formation of his Cabinet, he would probably get a good barytone for Secretary of State, a basso for Secretary of Commerce and Labor, De Luca for Secretary of the Treasury, Martinelli for Secretary of War, and draw on the Chicago Opera Company for Secretaries of the Navy, the Interior, and Agriculture. After that, Abe, all the Italian government would got to do would be to ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... bronze: the general to be represented in a Roman dress, holding a truncheon in his right hand, and his head encircled with a laurel wreath. The statue to be supported by a marble pedestal on which are to be represented, in basso relievo, the following principal events of the war, in which General Washington commanded in person: the evacuation of Boston:—the capture of the Hessians at Trenton:—the battle of Princeton:—the action of Monmouth:—and the surrender ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... rattling panels, in spite of every effort to make them fast, rattled the more. One night when the servants were alone in the house, of its own volition the organ sent forth, to break the still hours, a blood-curdling basso-profundo groan that suggested ghosts to their superstitious minds. The housemaid came to regard the instrument as something uncanny, and, even as the cook had done before her, shook the dust of the house ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... exception that I have met with, yet among our boat voices to the high tenor which they seem all to possess is in the person of an individual named Isaac, a basso profondo of the deepest dye, who nevertheless never attempts to produce with his different register any different effects in the chorus by venturing a second, but sings like the rest in unison, perfect unison, of both time and tune. ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... murmured the fisherman. And then, suddenly,—with a rich and splendid basso that seemed to thrill every fibre of the ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... in Christendom, phenomena of art pour in, heralded by the utmost possible amount of puffing, and equally anxious to secure English gold and a London reputation. It is strange to observe how universally the musical tribute is paid. A tenor turns up from some Russian provincial town; a basso works himself to London from a theatre in Constantinople; rumours arrive of a peerless prima donna, with a voice which is to outstrip everything ever heard of, who has been dug out, by some travelling amateur, from her native obscurity in a Spanish or ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... listening to I Puritani on the evening of the 7th of July. General Burnside and his wife had one of the proscenium boxes, and my wife and I were their guests. The second act had just closed with the famous trumpet song, in which Susini, the great basso of the day, had created a furore. A messenger entered the box where the general was surrounded by a brilliant company, and gave him a dispatch which announced the surrender of Vicksburg and Pemberton's army. Burnside, overjoyed, announced the great ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... on a flight of steps. "Ve-ni-te a-do-re-mus!" he croaked in a quavering basso. And his tangled mind went through strange processes. Suddenly, there came to him in a flash of exaggerated memory the figure of the Christmas Angel which not ten minutes earlier he had kicked into the street. A pious horror fell ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... It is your young foolishness that speaks. Yes! And my old foolishness—brought to test a million times by life—says that you are a young dog as yet, and it is too early for you to bark in a basso." ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... one real! Ladies' and gents' hosiery at a real a pair! Look-a-here now! A real a pair!" Then, lowering his register, he would continue, gravely: "A nice Bayonne waistcoat. A splendid bargain!" And as a finale, he would add in a basso profundo: "Only ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... cross which sparkled on her blue and scarlet vest. High throned on a pyramid of knapsacks, canteens, and rugs, toasted a thousand times in all brandies and red wines that the stores would yield, sung of in improvised odes that were chanted by voices which might have won European fame as tenor or as basso, caressed and sued with all the rapid, fiery, lightly-come and lightly-go love of the camp, with twice a hundred flashing, darkling eyes bent on her in the hot admiration that her vain, coquette spirit found delight in, ruling as she would with jest, and caprice, and command, and bravado all these ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... conscientious, my dear brother, as many other publishers, who grind to death us poor composers, you will know pretty well how to derive ample profit when the works appear. I now briefly state what you can have from me. 1st. A Septet, per il violino, viola, violoncello, contra-basso, clarinetto, corno, fagotto;—tutti obbligati (I can write nothing that is not obbligato, having come into the world with an obbligato accompaniment!) This Septet pleases very much. For more general use it might be arranged for one more violino, viola, and violoncello, instead ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... immense fragments of masonry, some of which were evidently portions of a boldly moulded cornice that had once adorned the inner walls of the structure, while others bore upon their faces signs of having been exquisitely sculptured in alto or basso rilievo. It was a melancholy sight, even to the unimpressionable Dick, this irreparable ruin of a once noble and surpassingly beautiful building; but Phil, as he gazed round him in silence, was so deeply moved that, for the moment, ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... try to bamboozle me," said the judge in a covert tone to his daughter, and with a glance at the parlor window, whence now issued the rumble of Warren Smith's basso. "I tell you that girl would follow ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... received with acclamation G.C.M. A great painter? oh! certainly, G.C.M. If a great painter, why not a great novelist? Well, pass, great novelist, G.C.M. But if a poetic, a pictorial, a story-telling or music-composing artist, why not a singing artist? Why not a basso-profondo? Why not a primo tenore? And if a singer, why should not a ballet-dancer come bounding on the stage with his cordon, and cut capers to the music of a row of decorated fiddlers? A chemist puts in his claim for having invented a new ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... principal temple are made of metal, and the door posts of ivory. On the first are the most beautiful arabesques in basso-relief, and on the second, in inlaid work, representing flowers and other objects. Before the principal entrance, four of the largest elephant's teeth ever found are stuck up by way ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... foreknowledge absolute, wandering through eternity without lighting on any fresh discovery of importance in that extensive field—Fan not infrequently found herself taking part in a somewhat monotonous trio, with the Captain, baritone, or basso rather, for he was rather depressed in mind, and Tom, tenor, an artist who sang with feeling, but with insufficient control ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... in profound basso, as low I think as "double G," and when he opened his mouth, I saw that his teeth were ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... stars have given very interesting accounts of their experiences. Signor Caruso, the famous tenor and one of the principals of the company, had one of the most thrilling experiences. He and Signor Rossi, a favorite basso, and his inseparable companion, had a suite on the seventh floor and were awakened by the terrific shaking of the building. The shock nearly threw Caruso out of bed. ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... to become the bride, then, of the Count of Campo-basso, the unworthy favourite of Charles?" said Quentin, who had been told the reason why refuge ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... line east of the eastern trough. The eastern depression, known as the East African trough or rift-valley, contains much smaller lakes, many of them brackish and without outlet, the only one comparable to those of the western trough being Lake Rudolf or Basso Norok. At no great distance east of this rift-valley are Kilimanjaro—with its two peaks Kibo and Mawenzi, the former 19,321 ft., and the culminating point of the whole continent—and Kenya (17,007 ft.). Hardly less important is the Ruwenzori range (over 16,600 ft.), which lies east of the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... an innings, and tells some of his stage stories. He tells them very funnily, and imitates Macready and many other actors in their vocal mannerisms. And he mimics operatic singers capitally, with sonorous words in mock Italian basso recitative. Among his tales is one of a half-tipsy actor playing in the 'Corsican Brothers' and explaining their fraternal peculiarity—'My brother in Paris is now feeling—hic—precishly shame senshations—hic—as myshelf!' ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... church Corinne pointed out to Nelville Ovid's Metamorphoses, which were represented on the gates in basso-relievo. "We are not scandalised in Rome," said she to him, "with the images of Paganism when they have been consecrated by the fine arts. The wonders of genius always make a religious impression on the soul, and we make an offering to the Christian ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... some earnestness displayed at first by the ladies of the choir; but Mr. Little, the bass, proved a hopeless case, and John, wholly against his intentions, and his inclinations as well, had eventually to take over the basso's duty altogether, as being the easiest way—in fact, the only way—to save his efforts from ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... that the shades of dead monks seem to rise and pass before the hearer in solemn and gloomy funereal pomp." The work needs no programme. Its serene beginning, lugubrious interlude, with the dominant pedal never ceasing, a basso ostinato, gives color to Kleczynski's contention that the prelude in B minor is a mere sketch of the idea fully elaborated in No. 15. "The foundation of the picture is the drops of rain falling at regular intervals"—the echo principle again—"which by their continual patter bring the mind to a ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... semicircular-shaped stone, which we often find in the tympanum at the back of the head of the arch, is generally covered with rude sculpture in basso relievo, sometimes representing a scriptural subject, as the temptation of our first parents on the tympanum of a Norman doorway at Thurley Church, Bedfordshire; sometimes a legend, as a curious and very early sculpture over the south door of Fordington Church, Dorsetshire, representing a scene ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... undeveloped skulls. But the curious external resemblance, I take it the Germans were not the first men to perceive. A foreign friend once pointed it out to me, in the skeleton of a foe he had slain, and with the vertebrae of which he was inlaying, in a sort of basso-relievo, the beaked prow of his canoe. Now, I consider that the phrenologists have omitted an important thing in not pushing their investigations from the cerebellum through the spinal canal. For I believe that much of a man's character will ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... music of fairy bands and the whirr of fairy machinery were the incessant voices of frogs. Especially if it had rained or were going to rain, the little frogs in trees and ponds sang their love songs in chorus, silenced, at times, by the deep basso of a bull frog. And often, as our heads ached and throbbed with fever at night, we felt a very lively sympathy for the French noblesse of the eighteenth century, who are said to have kept their peasants up at night beating the ponds with sticks ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... jester, and every evening at sundown they repair to these balakhanas, and for the space of an hour dispense the most unearthly music imaginable. tubes of brass about five feet long, which respond to the efforts of a strong-winded person, with a diabolical basso-profundo shriek that puts a Newfoundland fog-horn entirely in the shade. When a dozen of these instruments are in full blast, without any attempt at harmony, it seems to shed a depressing shadow of barbarism over the whole city. This sunset music is, I think, a relic of very old ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... names of Angevins and Guelfs in abhorrence, and of the intolerable burdens imposed upon it by the near neighborhood of the royal farms. This city, afterward surnamed the Valiant, boldly following the example of the capital, sent William Basso, William Corto, and Giugliono de Miraldo as orators to Palermo, to propose terms of alliance and fraternity between the two cities; mutual assistance in arms, forces, and money; reciprocal privileges of citizenship, and enfranchisement ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... descendant, possibly, of Thomas Ravenscroft, published at Rome, sonatas for "violini, e violine, o arciliuto, col basso per l'organo" Opera prima, but they were mere imitations of Corelli.[109] In 1728 a certain John Humphries published by subscription "Twelve Sonatas for two violins and a bass"; and Hawkins, in his History, excites curiosity by declaring that they are "of a very ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... various corrections in pencil. Two of these appear to be by Beethoven, but unluckily the pencil marks are so much effaced that it is difficult to decide as to the writing. In the scene "By the Rivulet," where the 12/8 time begins (in B flat major), these words are written, "Violoncelli tutti con Basso." The B especially recalls his mode of writing. Moreover the tempo at the beginning of "The Shepherd's Song," (in F, 6/8 time,) allegretto, is qualified by the same hand in pencil thus, Quasi allegro. No direct proof exists of this being ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... its heels. Since then piquancy has been the cry; the piquant contemplation of adultery, seduction, and murder amid the reek and stench of the Italian barnyard. Think of Cilea's 'Tilda,' Giordano's 'Mala Vita,' Spinelli's 'A Basso Porto,' and ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... from the country, consisting of a somewhat more than middle-aged female, with a parchment forehead and a dry little "frisette" shingling it, a sallow neck with a necklace of gold beads, a black dress too rusty for recent grief, and contours in basso-rilievo, left the table prematurely, and was reported to have been very virulent about what I said. So I went to my good old minister, and repeated the remarks, as nearly as I could remember them, to him. He laughed good-naturedly, and said there was considerable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... bite—had considerably improved in condition. There were three different species of flies which sought shelter in my tent, which, unitedly, kept up a continual chorus of sounds—one performed the basso profondo, another a tenor, and the third a weak contralto. The first emanated from a voracious and fierce fly, an inch long, having a ventral capacity for blood ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... Hushed "Academie" sighed in silent awe; The fiddlers trembled as he looked around, For fear of some false note's detected flaw; The "Prima Donna's" tuneful heart would bound, Dreading the deep damnation of his "Bah!" Soprano, Basso, even the Contra-Alto, Wished him five fathom under ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... and presently on all sides the fierce music of the long Chinese trumpets blared out uproariously—blare, blare, sobbing on a high note tremulously, and then, boom, boom, suddenly dropping to a thrilling basso profondissimo. Even the children know that sound now. Louder and louder the trumpet-calls rang out to one another in answering voice, imperatively calling off the attacking forces. Impelled to retire by this constant clamour, all the Chinese soldiery must have retreated, except a few straggling ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... prepare me a good ladder for to-night; after which you will go and wait for me in my boat, where you will find Numa and Bonaroux. They have my orders. I shall not want you in scaling the fortress; I have my Campo Basso dagger." ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... him leaning over her while she was playing the accordion,—indeed, I undertook to join them in a song, and got as far as "Come rest in this boo-oo," when, my voice getting tremulous, I turned off, as one steps out of a procession, and left the basso and soprano to finish it. I see no reason why this young woman should not be a very proper match for a man that laughs about Boston State-house. He ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... dell' altro polo Vedea la notte, e il nostro tanto basso Che non sorgeva fuor del ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... l'ho desiderato Un damo aver che fosse sonatore! Eccolo qua che Dio me l'ha mandato Tutto coperto di rose e viole; Eccolo qua che vien pianin pianino, A capo basso, e suona il violino." ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... another named Maccaferri, and a fresh, universally admired baritone, Gassier; and there is our old buffo friend, Rocco, and many more. Besides whom are two famous announcements, yet to come from Europe: the French tenor, Roger, and the German basso, Formes. The orchestra and chorus are, we suppose, as usual; the conductor better; he is Herr Anschtz, who has had experience in London, and who subdues his orchestra to sympathetic support of the singers. With Max it is the other way; he loves to ride ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... column of Arcadius, which represents in basso relievo his victories, or those of his father Theodosius, is still extant at Constantinople. It is described and measured, Gyllius, (Topograph. iv. 7,) Banduri, (ad l. i. Antiquit. C. P. p. 507, &c.,) and Tournefort, (Voyage du Levant, tom. ii. lettre xii. p. 231.) (Compare ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... flattery meant. The Romanys call the soprano "the heaven voice," the tenor "the sky voice," the contralto "the earth voice," and the basso "the sea voice." Dora had a really wonderful earth voice, almost as wonderful as Marda's heaven voice, which would have been remarkable even among opera singers, and the two were known everywhere for their improvisations. In answer to the remark of ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... panto. No one, according to him, had a more abysmal knowledge of principal boys with adequate legs, principal (if that is still the word) girls with sufficient voices, contralto fairy queens with abundant bosoms, basso demon kings, Prince Dandinis, Widow Twankays, Ugly Sisters, and all the other personages of this strange grease-paint mythology of ours. Listening to him, I learned—as those who are humble in spirit may learn of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... great basso of the Opera, accompanied at the piano by one of the unclassified ladies, was just finishing Mephistopheles' drinking song out of Faust ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... psychical elements of the personality, account for that distinctive physiognomy of the voice called timbre, which is only another name for individuality as exhibited in each person. The same general elements enter into the composition of all voices, from the basso profundo ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... honour of Constantine, this arch commemorates the victories of Trajan, some of the basso-relievos, &c. having been pilfered from one of the arches of Trajan. This accounts for the Dacian captives, whose heads Lorenzo de Medicis broke off and conveyed to Florence, but the theft might not ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 345, December 6, 1828 • Various
... Hail-mist—Torre del Greco—bright amid darkness—the mountains above it flashing here and there from their snows; but Vesuvius, it had not thinned as I have seen at Keswick, but the air so consolidated with the massy cloud curtain, that it appeared like a mountain in basso relievo, in an interminable wall ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... even for me if I begin to think I'm boring you. Couldn't we do something desperate—dine at a Latin Quarter restaurant for instance? What was that place you were telling me of, where the waiter has a wonderful voice and makes the orders he shouts down the tube sound like the recitative of the basso at ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... admission would be proportionately lowered, and the numbers admitted, in all probability, would be trebled, on which hypothesis a calculation may be based. What an exercise it would be for the imagination of the audience, were the Statue Scene from Don Giovanni to be given with the Basso Profondo in evening dress, who represents the Stony Commendatore, seated astride a plank resting on tressels placed on a table which would have been substituted for the stone pedestal, while the Don or Leporello (it doesn't much matter which) sings his asides to the audience! Here is novelty, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 11, 1893 • Various
... orchestre and played for them; first the tunes she had practiced and afterward, as she gained new confidence in their appreciation, "Santa Lucia" and "Funiculi, funicula," to which Cleofonte, who had a soul for concord, roared a fine basso. It was a night for vagabonds, carefree, a night of laughter, of mirth and of song. What did it matter what happened on the morrow? Here were meat, drink and good company. Could any mortal ask ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... them alone together a full hour before even she intruded, and little by little, as the days went by and Mrs. Maynard realized that it was really her Fred who was whistling about, the cottage or booming trooper songs in his great basso profundo, and glorying in his regiment and the cavalry life he had led, a wonderful content and joy shone in her handsome face. It was not until the colonel announced that it was about time for them to think of going back to Sibley that the cloud came. ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... been utterly hollow and false, but who, having been overwhelmed with flattery for her voice and her singing, was deluded into a belief that she was destined to shine as a star on the operatic stage. She consulted the famous basso, Karl Formes, who good-naturedly had her sing for him. He perceived at once that she possessed neither striking ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... Mi prese del costui piacer si forte, Che, come vedi, ancor non mi abbandona. Amor condusse noi ad una morte: 10 Caino attende chi vita ci spense.' Queste parole da lor ci fur porte. Da che io intesi quelle anime offense Chinai 'l viso, e tanto il tenni basso, Finche il Poeta mi disse: 'Che pense?' Quando risposi, cominciai: 'O lasso! Quanti dolci pensier, quanto disio Meno costoro al doloroso passo!' Poi mi rivolsi a loro, e parla' io, E cominciai: 'Francesca, i tuoi martiri 20 A lagrimar mi fanno tristo e pio. Ma dimmi: al tempo ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... back together full of friendship and enjoyment. He had one or two commissions for Charles Grammont from his sisters, and asked me to help in finding him. When I learned that the young Englishman was living in the Basso Porto I was amazed, and when Clyde saw the place he ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... monument about 18 feet. Flaxman thus described his design:—"Britannia is directing the young seamen's attention to their great example, Lord Nelson. On the die of the pedestal which supports the hero's statue are figures in basso-relievo, representing the Frozen Ocean, the German Ocean, the Nile, and the Mediterranean. On the cornice and in the frieze of laurel wreaths are the words, Copenhagen, Nile, Trafalgar. The British Lion sits on the plinth, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... Mead is leading basso of the singing society heretofore mentioned, and of Olivet-Church choir. Mr. Mead renders his music with correct and very pleasing expression. He has been favorably mentioned, in connection with others with whom he has performed, ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... different kinds. Basso profundo is the lowest bass; basso cantante is a flexible bass usually unable to sing quite as low as basso profundo; baritone is the highest bass—a voice midway between bass and tenor and partaking somewhat of the quality of both. The bass compass parallels ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... the drapery and forms are but one remove from the cold formal Etruscan style, which in its turn is but one remove from the yet more tasteless Egyptian. I think it was at the Villa Albani, I saw the singular Etruscan basso-relievo which I was able to compare mentally with what I saw to-day; and the resemblance in manner struck me immediately. Thorwaldson is now restoring these marbles in the most admirable style for the King of Bavaria, to whom ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... with amazement and joy; "Basso-Narok! That in our language means, great and black water. The ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... guttural salutation. It was Captain Hegermann, the commander of the ship, a big florid Saxon with great bushy golden whiskers and a basso voice like Edouard de Reszke. He was imposing in his smart uniform and gold braid and his manner had the self-reliant, authoritative air usual in men who have great responsibilities and are accustomed to command. He was taking his afternoon stroll and had stopped to chat with ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... with his immortal baton, and to warble in black and white such melodies as I could evolve from my contemplations of the gentler aspect of English life, while Keene, with his magnificent, highly trained basso, sang the ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier
... are bending over a basso-relievo with a Greek inscription, when the king enters; he is accompanied by a gentleman, who has on either arm a fair young girl in the spring of her youth and beauty. The king invites M. von Humboldt to explain the inscription, and ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... The ladies doted on him. A few gentlemen, possibly, were slightly jealous of his social prowess, and yet none pooh-poohed him openly, for only a short time before he had broken a sword in a street duel with a brother musician, and once had thrown a basso profundo, who sang off key, through a closed window—all this to the advantage of a passing glazier, who, being called in, was paid his fee three times over for repairing the sash. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... stillness with an idle word!" O mariner, I love thee, for thy thought Strides even with my own, nay, flies before. Thou art a brother to the wind and wave; Have they not music for thine ear as mine, When the wild tempest makes thy ship his lyre, Smiting a cavernous basso from the shrouds And climbing up his gamut through the stays, Through buntlines, bowlines, ratlines, till it shrills An alto keener than the locust sings, And all the great Aeolian orchestra Storms out its mad sonata in the gale? Is not the scene ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... golden campus years T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., had gayly pursued the even tenor (or basso, since he possessed a foghorn, subterranean voice) of his Bannister career. He absolutely refused to take life seriously, and he was forever arousing the wrath—mostly pretended, for no one could be ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... of 1477 with considerable forces, especially Italian and Swiss mercenaries, gave battle to Charles within sight of Nancy, whose soldier citizens sallied forth to his help. Despite their assistance, Rene might have lost the fight had it not been for Campo Basso, an Italian condettieri in the service of Charles the Bold, who, having some grudge against the latter and being bribed by the other side, went over to the Lorrainers at ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... echoed the audience in a loud discordant roar. Cookie over his dishpan flinging it back in a tremendous basso. Cookie was the noble youth's only musical rival, and when he had finished his work we would invite him to join us at the fire and regale us with plantation melodies and camp-meeting hymns. The negro's melodious thunder mingled ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... very fast; for all the boys are running;—the pattering of bare feet upon the pavement sounds like a heavy shower.... Then the chanting grows fainter in distance; the Devil's immense basso becomes inaudible;—one only distinguishes at regular intervals the crescendo of the burden,— a wild swelling of many hundred boy-voices all rising together,— a retreating storm of rhythmic song, wafted to the ear in ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... Squintelle, Prima Donna Soprano, from Grand Opera House, Paris. Signor Bombastani, Basso Buffo, from Royal Italian Opera. Carl Schneiderine, First Baritone, of His ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage |
