"Overture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... German in industry, and a great egotist, he began casting about for other models. He soon found one, the greatest of all for his purpose. It was Weber—that same Weber for whose obsequies Wagner wrote some funeral music, not forgetting to use a theme from the Euryanthe overture. Weber was to Wagner a veritable Golconda. From this diamond mine he dug out tons of precious stones; and some of them he used for The Flying Dutchman. We all saw then what a parody on Weber was this pretentious opera, with its patches of purple, its stale choruses, its tiresome ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... carefully that she does not see the group of Pilgrims until she is nearly upon them. There ensues a period of unflagging pantomime. Star-of-Spring, upon seeing the group of dark-clad maidens, starts back, half terrified. Priscilla rises, and as an overture of peace and good-will, takes a few steps towards her. Star-of-Spring retreats still further towards right. ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... at his watch. It was already ten minutes past nine, and although he was standing on the precise spot indicated, there was no one about who in the least resembled the young woman of whom he was in search. The overture to the ballet was being played, a good many people were strolling about, or seated at the small round tables, but they were all of the usual class, the ladies ornate and obvious, and all having the air of habitues. In vain Wrayson ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the pleasures of the festive board, to which it is indeed as indispensable a prelude, as an overture is to an opera: and the host will thus acquire an additional claim to the gratitude of his guests. We urge this point more strongly, because, from want of attention to it, we have seen more than ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... arrived at the gate before the courthouse. Here, too, however, the crowd was densest, having gathered at the spot as if the roar of powder from the camp was an overture to Weir's arrest and appearance. It had proved a prelude to his appearance, at any rate. The crowd perceived him with Madden and it believed him a prisoner even if not handcuffed and marched with a pistol ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... which is under the thumb. Then put he the forefinger of the right hand in the like buckle of the left, but he put it under, and not over, as Panurge did. Then Panurge knocked one hand against another, and blowed in his palm, and put again the forefinger of his right hand into the overture or mouth of the left, pulling it often in and out. Then held he out his chin, most intentively looking upon Thaumast. The people there, which understood nothing in the other signs, knew very well that therein he demanded, without speaking a word to Thaumast, What do you mean by that? In ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... telling interesting stories and novelettes, and with this apparently inexhaustible fund of invention she would amuse him between his periods of work. The description that we have of the composition of the great "Don Giovanni" overture gives a pleasing illustration of this phase of the family life. Owing to rehearsals and other work, the day before the performance arrived with no overture yet written. In the evening, according to his custom, ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... half-closed eyes, watching the smoke curling in snowy wreaths from their pipes, and varying their employment now and then with a pull at the tin pots, which seemed to afford them extreme satisfaction. In this manner we lay till the moon waned; and the owl having finished his overture, we rolled ourselves in our blankets, and watched the twinkling star, till sleep closed ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... production of "Fidelio" was, it did not escape criticism from an eminent source. Cherubini was present at the first performance at the Karnthnerthor Theatre in Vienna, and when asked how he liked the overture (Leonora in C) ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... of another world. The din was from the same sphere. Yet everywhere was hope and geniality and by-your- leave as if weddings were in the wind and not the overture to death. ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... After the overture, a pause. Susan, peeping through a hole in the drop, saw the curtain go up, drew a long breath of terror as the audience was revealed beyond the row of footlights, beyond the big, befrizzled blond head of Violet and the drink-seared face of Pat. From ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... an ominous flash in Dr. Dubbe's eye when he arose to address the class. "We have this week," he began, "a program barbarous enough to suit the lovers of ultra-modern music. There is Saint-Saens' overture, 'Les Barbares,' to begin with. This is as barbaric as a Frenchman can get, and is interesting chiefly as a study of how not to use the trumpets. But for sheer barbarity commend me to Hausegger's 'Barbarossa.' Here we find the apotheosis ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... Dickens visited Vauxhall Gardens by day, where 'a small party of dismal men in cocked hats were "executing" the overture to Tancredi,' but he does not, unfortunately, give us any details about the number or kind of instruments employed. This would be in 1836, when the experiment of day entertainments was given a trial, and a series ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... barren outcome of my sincere endeavors to reach a practicable solution, I felt it my duty to remit the whole question to the Congress. In the message of April 11, 1898, I announced that with this last overture in the direction of immediate peace in Cuba and its disappointing reception by Spain the effort of the Executive was brought to an end. I again reviewed the alternative courses of action which had been proposed, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... vessels which arrived off Aden, hoping to starve the Sultan into submission, by thus at once stopping his provisions, and cutting off his receipt of port dues. The blockade does not seem to have been very effectual: and an overture from the Futhali chief to aid with his tribe in an attack on the Abdallis, was of course ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... pages or so of preface—or perhaps overture would be the better word, since in it a group of literary men, while contributing recondite recipes, flourish trumpets in every key—to his huge volume he says, "I wish to be read by people of the world, and practiced by people of the art" (gens de ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... performed by Mendelssohn, Hiller, Kaliwoda, David, and Eckart. Liszt also made his triumphant entry into Germany at Leipzig, and everybody was full of expectation and excitement. His concert had been advertised long before his arrival. It was to consist of an Overture of Weber's; a Cavatina from Robert le Diable, sung by Madame Schlegel; a Concerto of Weber's, to be played by Liszt, the same which I had shortly before heard played by Madame Pleyel; Beethoven's Overture to Prometheus; Fantasia on La Juive; Schubert's Ave ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... music; all the favourite airs, duets, and trios from the fashionable operas; all the ballads in vogue—the music published by the house which has set the whole thing on foot, of course; all the phenomena of executive brilliance are there, or are momentarily expected to appear. We begin after an overture with, say, an air from the Puritani, by a lovely tenor; another, from the Somnambula, by a charming soprano; a fantasia by a legerdemain pianist, with long hair, and who comes down on the key-board as though it was his enemy; the famous song ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... the regimental band was playing the overture to the Sing-song, for the men had been told that Bobby was out of danger. The clash of the brass and the wail of the horns ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... European power. The first treaty of the United States with Prussia, which was negotiated by that commission, affords a signal illustration of those principles. The act of Congress of March 3rd, 1815, adopted immediately after the return of a general peace, was a new overture to foreign nations to establish our commercial relations with them on the basis of free and equal reciprocity. That principle has pervaded all the acts of Congress and all the negotiations of the Executive ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Monroe • James Monroe
... Upon this overture we ventured to request that he would come in and suffer us to shut the door, which we also locked. Next we produced the official paper nominating his son to a small place in the customs,— not yielding much, it was true, in the way of salary, but ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... which had been studying the exhibits in the distillery got the idea in his head that my foot was the loud pedal on a piano and he started to play the overture from William Tell until ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... the large stage in front, so brightly illuminated with variegated lamps, and pots of burning fat, is 'Richardson's,' where you have a melodrama (with three murders and a ghost), a pantomime, a comic song, an overture, and some incidental music, all ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... writes Lady Morgan,' our music-teacher complained to my father of our idleness as he sat beside us at the piano, and we stumbled through the overture to Artaxerxes. His answer to her complaint was simple and graphic—for, drawing up the sleeve of a handsome surtout, he showed the threadbare sleeve of the black coat beneath, and said, touching the whitened seams, "I should not ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... comfortably. I say to myself: Ah, thou couldst never have done Mahomet, nor the eulogy on Maupeou. So I have always been, and I always shall be, mortified at my own mediocrity. Yes, I tell you I am mediocre, and it provokes me. I never heard the overture to the Indes galantes performed, nor the Profonds abimes de Tenare, Nuit, eternelle nuit, sung without saying to myself: That is what thou wilt never do. So I was jealous of ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... indeed!' cried Pinchas to his garret walls. 'Who ever heard of Ignatz Levitsky? And who wants his music? The tragedy of a thinker needs no caterwauling of violins. Does Goldwater imagine I have written a melodrama? At most will I permit an overture—or the cymbals shall clash as ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... slowly toward the door as the chatter becomes a babel and the practising preliminary to the overture issues in long pious groans ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... mouth, and afterwards in writing, proposed, and insisted, at the assembly of this Quarter, that, at present, and without delay, we should make a point of deliberation, and that we should make upon the table the necessary overture, conceived more at length, in the advice of this ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... virtues and speak them in such terms?" From what we have heard and seen, we entertain little doubt that there are men capable of asking such a question; but we know no way of answering it but by asking in return why an Esquimaux Indian should not compose an overture equal to any of Handel's, or a Dutch boor dance a pas seul as well as Vestris, or a minuet as well as the prince ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... sent both to Grant and to the Secretary of War copies of Johnston's overture and his own answer. He added that he should "be careful not to complicate any points of civil policy;" that he had invited Governor Vance to return to Raleigh with the civil officers of the State, and that ex-Governor Graham, Messrs. Badger, Moore, Holden, ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... crowded from pit to dome—long tiers of changing faces and luminous eyes. There was a prevalent odor of stale tobacco, and orange-peel, and bad gas; and there was bustle, and noise, and laughter, and a harsh collection of stringed instruments grinding out the overture. ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... her. Shall I play to you a little, Mr. Sefton? It is getting too dark to read." Bessie made this overture as a sort of amends to Richard, and the friendly little act ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... chair, pulled forward the velvet drapery so as to shut out the view of the house, and fixed his eyes upon the heads of the musicians in the orchestra. The overture was nearly over. The curtain would very soon go up. Then he observed that Powell still stood near him. The man was strangely officious to-day, he thought. Could that be connected in any way with the fact he had had his hair cut? For a moment ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... have a very mean opinion of the capacity of the Prussian Ministers, or a high notion of his own influence over them, if he was serious in this overture. For my part, I am rather inclined to think that it was merely thrown out to discover whether Frederick William III. had entered into any engagement contrary to the interest of Napoleon the First; ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... writers, and subscribe; (His force set by) y'are conquer'd by this bribe. Though you hold out your selves, he doth commit In this a sacred treason in your wit; Although in poems desperately stout, Give up: this overture must ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... alarmed at his increasing power, sought his friendship. He addressed a kind letter to him, and proposed that he should enter the service of Shah Tamasp, and aid that Prince in expelling the Afghans from Persia. Nadir pretended to listen to this overture, and earnestly desired that the King should grant him a pardon for his past offences. This was easily obtained; and he went to Khelat to receive it. He appears to have always deemed the Governor ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... he, "is founded on a bass, as on a fruitful soil. Mahomet was to have a majestic bass voice, and his wife necessarily had a contralto. Kadijah was quite old—twenty! Attention! This is the overture. It begins with an andante in C major, triple time. Do you hear the sadness of the ambitious man who is not satisfied with love? Then, through his lamentation, by a transition to the key of E flat, allegro, common time, we hear the cries of the epileptic ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... his side, would repeat the desertion of Crepy, and having brought England into the war, would leave her to endure her own losses, or avenge them by her single strength. With this secret meaning on the part of France, an overture for a peace was commenced in the autumn of 1558, through the mediation of the Duchess of Lorraine. An armistice was agreed upon, and the first conference was held at the abbey of Cercamp, where Arundel, Wotton, and Thirlby ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... to be poor. Certainly they were a ragged unpicturesque group. Nielsen and I visited them, taking an armload of canned fruit, and boxes of sweet crackers, which they received with evident joy. Through this overture I got a peep into one of the tents. The simplicity and frugality of the desert Piute or Navajo were here wanting. These children of the open wore white men's apparel and ate white men's food; and they even had a cook stove and a sewing machine in their tent. With all that they were trying ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... tackle a full score, and Jimson was so unconventional. A dedication would be found convincing, I believe. 'Dedicated to' (let me see) 'to William Ewart Gladstone, by his obedient servant the composer.' And now some music: I had better avoid the overture; it seems to present difficulties. Let's give an air for the tenor: key—O, something modern!—seven sharps." And he made a business-like signature across the staves, and then paused and browsed for a while on the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... shall at once take effect. No sooner has his Majesty got upon the little eminence or rising ground, and scanned the Austrian lines for an instant or two, than his cannon-batteries awaken here; give the Austrian horse a good blast, by way of morning salutation and overture to the concert of the day. And Buddenbrock, deploying under cover of that, charges, "first at a trot, then at a gallop," to see what can be done upon them with the white weapon. Old Uuddenbrock, surely, did not himself RIDE ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the overture, up went the curtain. If it was a play, and the play was in German or Russian or Italian, I had but to touch Mary's little finger to understand it all—a true but incomprehensible thing. For well as I might understand, I could not have spoken a word ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... hurriedly. "I assure you that if I had the slightest reason to suspect any one, I would be the first to speak. I—you know I think everything of you, Madeline." He went toward her in a futile way, with outstretched hand, but Madeline's eyes were down, and apparently she did not see the friendly overture. His face looked pale, strained and old as he stood for a moment before her, and the others surveyed ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... told, would open at half-past six. I intended to remain there half an hour, and then drive to the palace, where my friends would meet me to accompany me to the festival. I went to the theatre at six, and anxiously waited half an hour for the commencement of the overture; it was after half-past six, and no signs of the commencement. I looked again at the bill, and saw, to my annoyance, that the opera did not begin till seven. But as I would not leave until I had seen the stage, ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... reason that she could not ride away from the party, after Mrs. Maxwell assailed her with a motive for her conduct, Joanna could not repel his overture. It was incredibly trying to her. He saw how differently she was affected from her sisters. He was aware of another influence. He felt very uncomfortable. Why, the very flesh of his arm, which she ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... or other of the two great states between which it had the misfortune of lying. Hoping to free his country, he sent ambassadors to Uaphris, who were to conclude a treaty and demand the assistance of a powerful contingent, composed of both foot and horse. Uaphris received the overture favorably; and Zedekiah at once revolted from Babylon, and made preparations to defend himself with vigor. It was not long before the Babylonians arrived. Determined to crush the daring state, which, weak as it was, had yet ventured to revolt ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... Simon Petrovitch had struck: with the inspiration smuggled to him by Prince Boris, he had arranged a performance which he felt to be his masterpiece. Anxiety as to its reception kept him sober. The overture had ceased, the spectators were all in their seats, and now the curtain rose. The background was a growth of enormous, sickly toad-stools, supposed to be clouds. On the stage stood a girl of eighteen, (the handsomest in Kinesma), in hoops and ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... study the musical construction of the overture with which the music-drama opens, as it is well known that Wagner in his Preludes prepares the spectator's mind for the impressions that are to follow. Several of the leading motives appear in this Vorspiel ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... breathes, be it man or brute, can hear unmoved,—the long, loud, stinging whirr, as the huge, thick-bodied reptile shook his many-jointed rattle and flung his jaw back for the fatal stroke. His eyes were drawn as with magnets toward the circles of flame. His ears rung as in the overture to the swooning dream of chloroform. Nature was before man with her anesthetics: the cat's first shake stupefies the mouse; the lion's first shake deadens the man's fear and feeling; and the crotalus ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... development of Protestant principles. His own view of the task before him requires that he should separate himself from the consideration of any particular church, and lay aside all partisanship—plausible or not plausible. It is his own overture that warrants us in expecting this. And yet, before we have travelled three measured inches, he is found entangling himself with Church of Englandism. Let me not be misunderstood, as though, borrowing a Bentham word, I were therefore a Jerry Benthamite: ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... walk away from Porchester Terrace some fine day, you will have to congratulate yourself on having made a successful overture towards matrimony." ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... catch-penny effect about the whole thing which added to the fever in his cheek and made him wish he had money to buy up the stock of the vociferous little boys. Suddenly the notes of the organ rolled out into the hall, and he became aware that the overture or prelude had begun. This, too, seemed to him a piece of claptrap, but he didn't wait to think of it; he instantly edged out of his place, which he had chosen near the end of a row, and reached one of the numerous doors. If he had had no definite plan he now ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... given him but a moment's time I make no doubt he would have come instantly at the truth and the little farce would have been turned into a tragedy on the spot. But she gave him no time. The spinet in the ball-room alcove was tinkling out the overture to a minuet, and she laid the tips of her dainty ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... know me so well," answered the marquise, with another effort, as unsuccessful as the former, to free the bridle of her horse, "you should know how a woman like me would receive such an overture; say to yourself what I might say to you, and above all, what I might ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... was no adept in the art of dissimulation, and when she entered the sitting room, Helen was the first to notice her altered countenance. It was fortunate for all present that Alice had seated herself at the piano, at the solicitation of Louis, and commenced a brilliant overture. ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... the welcome of the American Peace Society to the delegation of more than two hundred members of the British Parliament who favor international arbitration. Few events have more profoundly impressed me than the presentation of this peaceful overture to the President of the United States. It seems to me that every true patriot who seeks the best interests of his country and every believer in the gospel of Christ must respond to the admirable address of Sir Lyon Playfair and that of his colleagues who represented the workingmen of England. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... overture to a permanent and disinterested friendship," said Kent, brightening up; and Abe, who was gathering himself up for a spring to catch Fortner's rifle, let his muscles ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... is of opinion that this overture should be attended to without delay, and that the proposal of treating at Madrid, though not what might have been desired, should yet be accepted, and a commission plenipotentiary made ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... overture; she is not much moved during the first act. Miss Neilson is pretty and winsome in her quaint dress, with her round, white arms on her nurse's knee, looking up to her eyes; she is respectful to her stately mother, and she cares for her lover. The lights, ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Charm in exploring resources of instrumentation. Operatic overture. Forge of genius. Dance of obscure origin. Craving for individual expression. Touch of authority by Corelli. Cardinal Ottoboni's palace. Symphony, a sonata for orchestra. Purcell, Scarlatti, Sammartini and the Bachs. Monophonic style. Contrasting movements. German critic on early sonata. ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... Duke admitted him. There was but one idea in his head as to what was coming. His son had taken this way of making some communication to him respecting his political creed. Some overture or some demand was to be preferred through Tregear. If so, it was proof of a certain anxiety as to the matter on his son's part which was not displeasing to him. But he was not left long in this mistake after Tregear had entered the room. "Sir," he said, speaking ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... she had invited the king of Siam to renew the ancient connexion between their respective states, and to unite in a league against the Dutch, by whose encroachments the commerce of her subjects and the extent of her dominions were much circumscribed. It does not appear however that this overture was attended with any effect, nor have the limits of the Achinese jurisdiction since that period extended beyond Pidir on the northern, and Barus on the ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... to pace the room nervously, listening for he knew not what. His mind was filled with vague imaginings; when at last came an overture to the grim test to be imposed ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... first overture of what he considered good-fellowship had been made to an upper-classman, and had been a grievous mistake. Ken had not yet recovered from its reception. He grew careful after that, then shy, and finally began to struggle against ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... modern American phrase, he "sat on the fence" for a while. Probably, if he had seen even then a chance of returning with safety to England, if the impeachments had not been going on, and if any manner of overture had been made to him from London, he would forthwith have dropped the Jacobite cause, and returned to profess his loyalty to the reigning English sovereign. After a while, however, seeing that there was no chance for him at home, he went openly into ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... perfection of style is reached. This band appeared to me to differ from all others I have heard in this,—that it plays music of a higher order; on this occasion, for instance, it gave an arrangement of Mozart's overture to 'Don Juan.'" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... they suddenly stopped to listen, for they heard distant music. "That must be the ending of an overture," said the Dog. "I should judge by the sound we were now about three miles from ...
— A Book of Cheerful Cats and Other Animated Animals • J. G. Francis
... the fraud. At interview both stood A while, but suddenly at head appeerd Satan: And thus was heard Commanding loud. Vangard, to Right and Left the Front unfould; That all may see who hate us, how we seek Peace and composure, and with open brest 560 Stand readie to receive them, if they like Our overture, and turn not back perverse; But that I doubt, however witness Heaven, Heav'n witness thou anon, while we discharge Freely our part: yee who appointed stand Do as you have in charge, and briefly touch What ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... was meself got the whack on me nose," responded Mrs. Connelly quite unexpectedly. She was looking squarely at the window where Mrs. Dunleavy sat behind the screen of blue mosquito netting. They were both conscious that Mrs. Connelly made a definite overture of peace. ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... progress, progression, march, advancement, promotion, preferment, elevation, appreciation, enhancement; overture, tender, proposal, proffer, offer. Antonyms: retreat, retrogression, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... September 10.—It was an overture by Elgar, and the full solemn sonorous music had drawn to its properly majestic close. Beside me sat an artist friend who is a lover of music, and regularly attends these Promenade Concerts. He removed the cigarette from his lips ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... the first-tier box presented to her husband with the accustomed heavy courtesy of the Societe Harmonique. She went early to the hall that she might hear the entire music-making of the evening—Van Kuyp's tone-poem, Sordello, was on the programme between a Weber overture and a Beethoven symphony, an unusual honour for a young American composer. If she had gone late, it would have seemed an affectation, she reasoned. Her husband kept within doors; she could tell him all. And then, was there ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... seen,' she said, 'or else they'll be swarming round directly, you know.' She made him sit down beside her with his back to the house so that the box seemed to be empty. The orchestra played the overture from the Marriage of Figaro. The curtain rose, ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... shelter, and in comparison to the cold veldt the hospital was a haven of comfort. Hundreds of cooing doves, stumbling over the roof of the barn, helped to fill the air with their peaceful murmur. It was a strange overture to a battle, but in time I learned to not listen for any more martial prelude. The Boer does not make a business of war, and when he is not actually fighting he pretends that he is camping out for pleasure. In his laager there are no warlike sounds, no sentries challenge, no bugles call. He has ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... it now, more or less) to the words, "Heil Dir Im Siegel Kranz," and the Swiss to "Rufst Du mein Vaterland." It was sung in Sweden, also, and till 1833 it was in public use in Russia commonly enough to give it a national character. Von Weber introduced it in his "Jubel" overture, and Beethoven, in 1814, copied it in C Major and wrote piano variations on it. It has been ascribed to Henry Purcell (1696), to Lulli, a French composer (1670), to Dr. John Bull (1619), and to Thomas Ravenscroft and an old Scotch carol as old as 1609. ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... pursuance of the wishes of the General Assembly, expressed in the resolutions of the 19th day of January last, repaired in due season to the City of Washington. They there found, on the 4th day of February, the day suggested in the overture of Virginia for a Conference with the other States, Commissioners to meet them from the following States, viz.: Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, North ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... I was best man, and realized what a menstruum is music—what curious trafficking it causes, what opposites it intertwines. And the overture being finished the real curtain arose, as it does on ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... to premise that these objects did not form the only, nor even the principal, motive for my acceptance of the invitation. My first and greatest inducement was to meet in the spirit of kindness and friendship an overture made in that spirit by three sister ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson
... army in the morning, and Kettledrummle in the afternoon; that neither should touch upon any topics of schism or of division, but animate the soldiers to resist to the blood, like brethren in a good cause. This healing overture having been agreed to, the moderate party ventured upon another proposal, confiding that it would have the support of Langcale, who looked extremely blank at the news which they had just received, and might be supposed ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... commenced with Jules Benedict's overture to his opera, The Crusaders, himself conducting the orchestra of 60 instruments. It was an admirably balanced and effective orchestra, and notwithstanding that we had to listen as it were round a corner, we felt ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... beginnings in some articles in the Atlantic a few years ago, answering or trying to answer the question, "Can a machine age have a soul?" Perhaps it is only fair to the present conception, as it stands, to suggest that it is an overture, and that the various phases and implications of machinery—the general bearing of machinery in our modern life, upon democracy, and upon the humanities and the arts, are being considered in a series ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... had far too proper a sense of dignity to allow herself to be entrapped into the acceptance of an obligation by one whom she so deservedly despised. She replied coldly that she had jewels enough, and did not desire to increase the number. But the overture thus made by Madame du Barri could not be kept secret, and more than one of her partisans followed the hint afforded by her example, and showed a desire to make their peace with their future queen. The Duc d'Aiguillon himself was among the foremost of her courtiers, ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... shells, and feathers, was more elaborate than any I had seen in the islands. In his hand he carried a spear tipped with white quartz. His followers were decked in similar fashion. Raising his right arm in token of friendship, an overture to which I responded, the chief then addressed me in the same dialect to that used at Cortes' island, which I had little difficulty in understanding, although some ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... entirely assembled on the stage. The sound of the rapidly-filling house reached us, softened through the thick baize curtain, a dull, continuous droning, as of water pouring into some huge cistern. Suddenly there fell upon our ears a startling crash; the overture had commenced. The stage manager—more suggestive of a sheep-dog than ever, but lacking the calm dignity, the self-possession born of conscious capability distinctive of his prototype; a fussy, argumentative sheep-dog—rushed ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... assured he became that the Marquis had not expected him to obey the summons. It was possible that something might be gained on the other side by his refusal to see the elder brother of his son-in-law. He might, by refusing, leave it open to his enemies to say that he had rejected an overture to peace, and he now regarded as his enemies almost the entire Germain family. His own son-in-law would in future, he thought, be as much opposed to him as the head of the family. The old Marchioness, he knew, sincerely believed in Popenjoy. And ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... not regarded as a matter either of etiquette or of delicacy from which side the proposal of marriage may proceed—the overture is as often made by ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... and so far as one of the parties could do, accepted; that is, the National Society pledged itself to be merged into a Union Association, provided the American would make the same surrender at its first Anniversary. But as this overture for peace was rejected, the mission of the Union Society ended, leaving the National free to reassert itself and go forward with its catholic platform and persistent demands for "National protection for ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... face that Barndale regarded him with amazement. Demetri Agryopoulo, salaried hanger-on to the Persian embassy, was glaring like a roused wild beast at these two shadowy figures in the shadow of the orchestra. The band was crashing away at the overture to 'Tannhaeuser,' the people were laughing and chattering as they circled, and not an eye but Barndale's regarded this drama in the corner. The Greek's hand was in his bosom, where it clutched something ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... the orchestra stalls were Beauchamp and Debray, whose attention was divided between the stage and the arrivals of splendidly attired elegantes in the different loges, during the overture. All the elite of Paris ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... Earl. "For any one with true dramatic instincts, it is only the Overture that is ended! The real treat has yet to begin. You go to a theatre, and pay your ten shillings for a stall, and what do you get for your money? Perhaps it's a dialogue between a couple of farmers—unnatural in their overdone ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... to regard these few words as a further declaration of war, or as an overture to peace; but he lost no time in complying with the summons they conveyed. He started for Paris the next morning, and in the evening, after he had removed the dust of his journey and swallowed a hasty dinner, he rang at Mrs. Vivian's door. This lady and her daughter gave him a welcome which—I ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... remained silent. Watson held on and waited. Patsy, after various vain efforts to inflict damage, made an overture. ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... were male, and he kept the administration in his hands only as his guardian. This he did with the title of Prodicos, which the Lacedaemonians give to the guardians of infant kings. Soon after, the queen made him a private overture, that she would destroy her child, upon condition that he would marry her when king of Sparta. Though he detested her wickedness, he said nothing against the proposal, but pretending to approve it, charged her not to take any drugs ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... 'Water Parted from the Sea', — the song of Arbaces in the opera of 'Artaxerxes, 1762. The minuet in 'Ariadne' was by Handel. It came at the end of the overture, and is said to have been the best ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... a French theatre. The great place was nearly dark as they entered, except for the blaze of light that shone through the curtain. The odour of cigarette-smoke and scent greeted them, with the rustle of dresses and the subdued sound of gay talk. The band struck up. Then, after the rolling overture, the curtain ran swiftly up, and a smart young person tripped on the stage in the limelight and made ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... than other forms of play might be. Rifle practice is, indeed, a not unhealthy pastime, and a feather on the top of the head is a pleasing appendage; but while learning the stops and fingering of the sweet instrument, does no one ever calculate the cost of an overture? What melody does Tityrus meditate on his tenderly spiral pipe? The leaden seed of it, broadcast, true conical "Dents de Lion" seed—needing less allowance for the wind than is usual with that kind of herb—what crop are you likely to have of it? Suppose, instead of this ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... that have provoked Austria and Russia to take the field. Should he continue victorious, and be in a position to dictate another Peace of Luneville, which probably would be followed by another pacific overture to or from England, mankind will again be ready to call out, "Oh, the illustrious warrior! Oh, the profound politician! He foresaw, in his wisdom, that a Continental war was necessary to terrify or to subdue his maritime foe; that a peace with England could be obtained only in Germany; ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... overawed with the authority of her father, and unable to object anything against so advantageous a match, received the proposal with a profound silence, which her father commended in her, as the most decent manner of a virgin's giving her consent to an overture of that kind. The noise of this intended marriage soon reached Theodosius, who, after a long tumult of passions which naturally rise in a lover's heart on such an occasion, wrote the following ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... and what goes with them my poems informing, Of the smell of apples and lemons, of the pairing of birds, Of the wet of woods, of the lapping of waves, Of the mad pushes of waves upon the land, I them chanting, The overture lightly sounding, the strain anticipating, The welcome nearness, the sight of the perfect body, The swimmer swimming naked in the bath, or motionless on his back lying and floating, The female form approaching, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... under a conductor whom I had personally instructed; whereas, at the performances and under the beat of the official Capellmeister, it lasted fully three hours! (according to the report of the "Allgemeine Zeitung"). Wherefore, indeed, did I write "Massig"? To match this I have been informed that the overture to "Tannhauser," which, when I conducted it at Dresden, used to last twelve minutes, now lasts twenty. No doubt I am here alluding to thoroughly incompetent persons who are particularly shy of Alla breve time, and who stick to their ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... for it in the aria "Non piu di Flori"; in Zauberfloete; and in chamber music, viz. short adagio for two basset horns and bassoon, and another for two clarinets and three basset horns (Series 10 of Breitkopf & Haertel's complete edition). Beethoven employed it in his Prometheus overture. Mendelssohn used it in military music, and in two concerted pieces for clarinet and basset horn with pianoforte accompaniment, in F and D min., opp. 113 and 114, dedicated ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... he had been purposely silent while awaiting a sign from her, she had read his heart from the first. His every look and tone for years had been an unconscious act of wooing, and so when she brought matters to a point as she did, 'twas on her part not so much an overture as a consent. As for marriage proposal in general, all men with whom I have discussed it have confessed their own scenes thereof to have been, in the mere words, quite simple and unpoetical, whether enacted in confusion or in confidence; and to have been such as would ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the prologue, the overture. If one might be permitted to speak scientifically, it was only the tuning of the instruments. The opera was to come,—the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the overture of Oberon here," he began. "Madame Byelenitsin was boasting when she said she had all the classical music: in reality she has nothing but polkas and waltzes, but I have already written to Moscow, and within a week you will have the overture. By the way," he went on, "I wrote a new song yesterday, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... Marchioness of Hartletop. In that direction she was not without sufficient wisdom. But then Lord Lufton had not offered to her, nor given any signs that he intended to do so; and to give Griselda Grantly her due, she was not a girl to make a first overture. Neither had Lord Dumbello offered; but he had given signs,—dumb signs, such as birds give to each other, quite as intelligible as verbal signs to a girl who preferred the use of her toes to that of her tongue. "I have not thought about it," said Griselda, ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope |
