"Virtuoso" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are understood, mechanical means will probably come nearer to perfection than the human hand. Mr. Arthur Whiting, considering the horseless pianoforte some time ago, was also enthusiastic. The h. p. is entirely self-possessed, and has even more platform imperturbability than the applauded virtuoso. "After a few introductory sounds, which have nothing to do with the music, and without relaxing the lines of its inscrutable face, the insensate artist proceeds to show its power. Its security puts all hand playing to shame; it never ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... "indeed all the articles signed A. B. M."? At times, however, the statements are not so vague. For instance,—in the anecdote already referred to, Marx makes the two Rombergs and Franz Ries introduce the "fifteen-year-old virtuoso" to Sterkel,—that is, in 1785 or '86. At that date, (see Schilling,) Andreas Romberg was a boy of eighteen, Bernard a boy of fifteen; moreover, they did not come to Bonn until 1790, when Beethoven ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... in their sum and totality, and the world-decree is that he is an artist, and an admirable one. He plays upon his instrument with all power and grace. But he is no mere virtuoso. There is something in him beyond the executant. Of Malibran, Alfred de Musset says, most beautifully, that she had that "voice of the heart which alone has power to reach the heart." Here, also, behind ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... of code and designs which exhibit both complexity and a virtuoso flair. Has connotations similar to {hairy} but is more positive in tone. Often in the emphatic 'most studly' or as noun-form 'studliness'. "Smail 3.0's configuration parser is ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... emphasised. A striking characteristic of Goethe's writings is the knowledge they display of the whole range of the manual arts, and this knowledge he owed to the circumstances of his home. His father, a virtuoso with the means of gratifying his tastes, freely employed artists of all kinds to execute designs of his own conception; and, as part of his son's education, entrusted him with the superintendence of his commissions. Thus, in ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... described in their 'Murray.' We put up in an excellent hotel kept by M. Arago, the brother of the great French astronomer. The only other travellers in it besides ourselves were the famous dancer Cerito, and her husband the violin virtuoso, St. Leon. Luckily for me our English Minister was Mr. Percy Doyle, whom I had known as ATTACHE at Paris when I was at Larue, and who was a great friend of the De Cubriers. We were thus provided with many advantages for ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... concertizing artist when I met him. He was a very great man, the grandeur of whose tradition lives in the whole 'romantic school' of violin playing. Look at his seven concertos—of course they are written with an eye to effect, from the virtuoso's standpoint, yet how firmly and solidly they are built up! How interesting is their working-out: and the orchestral score is far more than a mere accompaniment. As regards virtuose effect only Paganini's music compares with his, and Paganini, of course, ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... generally tainted with pedantry Deepest learning, without good-breeding, is unwelcome Desirous of pleasing Dictate to them while you seem to be directed by them Dissimulation is only to hide our own cards Do not become a virtuoso of small wares Does not give it you, but he inflicts it upon you Endeavors to please and oblige our fellow-creatures Every man pretends to common sense Every numerous assembly is a mob Eyes and the ears are the only roads to the heart Few ...
— Widger's Quotations from Chesterfield's Letters to his Son • David Widger
... probably inherited his virtuoso's whim from his ancestors. His great-grandfather was certified by Johnson in his life of Addison to be a gentleman 'eminent for curiosity and literature,' and though his grandfather, the Commodore, who lives for ever ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... baronet who talks French and Italian fluently, cannot write a line in his own language without some sin against orthography; the other, who is represented as a most respectable specimen of the young aristocracy, and something of a virtuoso, is described as spelling pretty well for a lord. On the whole, the Earl of Bute might fairly be called a man of cultivated mind. He was also a man of undoubted honor. But his understanding was narrow, and his ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... people were gathered together to be introduced to the virtues of the new instrument—for Carson was not the kind of man to keep to himself the good things which came into his life; he shared all his blessings, while keeping his woes to himself; a well-known virtuoso was retained to set forth the possibilities of the acquisition, and all was going as "merry as a marriage bell" when suddenly there came a wheeze, and the fingers of the well-known virtuoso were powerless to ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... two singers, my mother being gifted musically quite out of the common, and active for many years not only as a dramatic singer, but also as a harp virtuoso, I, with my sister Marie, received a very careful musical education; and later a notable course of instruction in singing from her. From my fifth year on I listened daily to singing lessons; from my ninth year I played accompaniments on the pianoforte, sang ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... rather fat, fairly pretty, she strummed her guitar and sang, rolling her eyes fiercely, like a virtuoso executing feats of difficulty. She lowered her head, stuck her chin into her neck, in order to draw deeper notes from the furthermost recesses of her body; and succeeded in bringing forth a great hoarse voice,—a voice that might have belonged to an aged frog, a ventriloquist's ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... gave him a benefit concert. The money from that helped us to move to Sanford, and father has been writing articles off and on for the magazine ever since then. It's better for all of us to be here. Uncle John isn't quite like other people. When he was a young man he studied to be a virtuoso on the violin. He overworked and had brain fever just before he was to give his first recital. After he got well he never played the same again. He had spent all the money his father left him on his musical education, ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... in life. Into this freshness of Madame Merle's she obtained a considerable insight; she seemed to see it as professional, as slightly mechanical, carried about in its case like the fiddle of the virtuoso, or blanketed and bridled like the "favourite" of the jockey. She liked her as much as ever, but there was a corner of the curtain that never was lifted; it was as if she had remained after all something of a public performer, condemned ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... landscape." It was symptomatic of the change in literary taste that the natural or English school of landscape gardening now began to displace the French and Dutch fashion of clipped hedges, regular parterres, etc., and that Gothic architecture came into repute. Horace Walpole was a virtuoso in Gothic art, and in his castle, at Strawberry Hill, he made a collection of ancient armor, illuminated MSS., and bric-a-brac of all kinds. Gray had been Walpole's traveling companion in France and Italy, and the two had quarreled and separated, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... nowadays among the ladies to run after him." He bowed to the three ladies in turn mockingly, "My friends here tried to get tickets last week in St. Petersburg, but the house was sold out. Bosh—I tell you! I wouldn't cross the street to hear a virtuoso like that!" ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... adventuress of Denmark Street, Soho; who was bound over to keep the peace by Fielding, and knew Cagliostro. The friend of popes and kings and noblemen, and of all the male and female ruffians and vagabonds of Europe, abbe, soldier, charlatan, gamester, financier, diplomatist, viveur, philosopher, virtuoso, "chemist, fiddler, and buffoon," each of these, and all of these was Giacomo Casanova, Chevalier de Seingalt, Knight of the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Dwight, born, in Boston, May 13, 1813, was a virtuoso in music, and an enthusiastic student of the art and science of tonal harmony. He joined a Harvard musical club known as "The Pierian Sodality" while a student at the University, and after his graduation became a prolific writer on musical subjects. Six years of his life were passed in the "Brook ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... a musical atmosphere. A picturesque, old German virtuoso is the reverent possessor of a genuine "Cremona." He consents to take for his pupil a handsome youth who proves to have an aptitude for technique, but not the soul of an artist. The youth has led the happy, careless life of a modern, well-to-do ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... brother, of the same class as "Bill Stumps, his mark." He had an old inscription engraved on an unused bit of pewter—it was well begrimed and well battered, then exposed for sale in a broker's shop, where it was greedily purchased by the credulous virtuoso. The notion, by the way, of the Club button was taken from the Prince Regent, who had his Club and uniform, which he ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... Cincinnati experience, the virtuoso knew when he had enough. Strakosch's later associates were his brothers, Ferdinand and Max. The former was the European agent for the firm, and the latter what might be termed the acting house man in the United States, especially during the later ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... football manager's face. However, everyone there except Morton applauded enthusiastically and hilariously, and Larry Jones, sweeping his offending locks aside with the careless and impatient grace of a violin virtuoso, bowed repeatedly. ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... "Twice-Told Tales." In 1840, also, we find in the journal: "If a man were sure of living forever, he would not care about his offspring." The "Mosses from an Old Manse" supply another link in this train of reflection; for "The Virtuoso's Collection" includes some of the elixir vitae "in an antique sepulchral urn." The narrator there represents himself as refusing to quaff it. "'No; I desire not an earthly immortality,' said I. 'Were man to live ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... lower-case gothic letter, very nearly a quarter of an inch in height. The ornamental or border illuminations have more grace and beauty than the subjects represented; although, to the eye of an antiquarian virtuoso, the representations of the unfortunate monarch will be ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... coldly cruel in the pursuit of goodness, and morbid even in the pursuit of health. I cannot lay my hands on the passage in which he explains his abstinence from tea and coffee, but I am sure I have the meaning correctly. It is this: He thought it bad economy and worthy of no true virtuoso to spoil the natural rapture of the morning with such muddy stimulants; let him but see the sun rise, and he was already sufficiently inspirited for the labours of the day. That may be reason good enough to abstain from tea; but when we go on to find the same man, on the same or similar ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... schools of composition for the voice do not encourage the display of florid execution, a singer would be ill-advised indeed to neglect this factor, on the plea that it has no longer any practical application. No greater error is conceivable. Should an instrumental virtuoso fail to acquire mastery of transcendental difficulties, his performance of any piece would not be perfect: the greater includes the less. A singer would be very short-sighted who did not adopt an analogous line of reasoning. Without ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... and virtuoso is principally known as the founder of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. He studied law, chemistry, and natural philosophy. Besides an edition of the manuscript works of certain English chemists, he wrote Bennevennu,—the description ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... one of Horace Walpole's letters in which that virtuoso expresses his regret, after a visit to the ancestral "hotels" of Paris, whose contents had afforded him such intense gratification, that the nobility of England, like that of France, had not concentrated their treasures of art, etc. in London houses. Had he lived a few years longer he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... to afford all aid and help to the young artist Bocklet from Prague. He is the bearer of this note, and a virtuoso on the violin. We hope that our command will be obeyed, especially as we subscribe ourselves, with the ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... the soil of Rome and its neighborhood are still rich in; seals, gems, small figures of bronze, mediaeval carvings in ivory; things which had been obtained at little cost, yet might have borne no inconsiderable value in the museum of a virtuoso. ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... The violin virtuoso who "fiddled," "called off" and acted as justice of the peace that evening, said that I threw aside all reserve and entered with great zest into the dance, and seemed to enjoy it much better than those ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... Mr. Beard;[4] Manoah, Mr. Savage; Micah, Mrs. Cibber; Delilah, Mrs. Clive. The aria, "Let the bright Seraphim," was sung by Signora Avolio, for whom it was written, and the trumpet obligato was played by Valentine Snow, a virtuoso of that period. The performance of "Samson" was thus announced in the London "Daily Advertiser" of Feb. ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... life a burthen to him. Those old troubles were now, however, long since past and gone; and Signor Fortini lived only for his law and his artistic and antiquarian collections. He was like many of his peers in the provincial cities of the Papal dominions—a great antiquary and virtuoso. Antiquarianism is a "safe" pursuit under a government the nature of which makes and finds very many intellectual occupations unsafe. And this may account for the fact, that very many competent historical antiquaries and collectors are found in the Pope's ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... Savelli, the self-willed, temperamental daughter of an Italian violin virtuoso, furnished much of the interest of the book. The efforts of Grace and her chums to create in this girl a healthy, wholesome enjoyment for High School life, and her repudiation of their friendship, and subsequent attempts to revenge herself ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... Violoncellist violoncxelisto. Viper vipero. Virago (fig.) drakino. Virgin virgulino. Virginal virga. Virginity virgeco. Virgin, The Blessed La Sankta Virgulino, Dipatrino. Virile vira. Virility vireco. Virtue virto. Virtuous virta. Virtuoso virtuozo. Virulent venena, malboniga. Virus veneno. Visage vizagxo. Vis-a-vis kontrauxulo. Viscera internajxo. Viscuous gluanta. Visible videbla. Visibly videble. Vision (sense) vido. Vision ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... Bergen. In 1829 he went to Cassel, on a visit to Spohr, who gave him no encouragement. He now began to study law, but on going to Paris he came under the influence of Paganini, and definitely adopted the career of a violin virtuoso. He made his first appearance in company with Ernst and Chopin at a concert of his own in Paris in 1832. Successful tours in Italy and England followed soon afterwards, and he was not long in obtaining ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... man, or, as I should rather say, this lord and master of mine, has just left me. He has been making me both a compliment, and a present. And what do you think the compliment is? Why, if I please, he will give away to a virtuoso friend, his collection of moths and butterflies: I once, he remembered, rallied him upon them. And by what study, thought I, wilt thou, honest man, supply their place? If thou hast a talent this way, pursue it; since perhaps thou wilt not shine in any other. ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... oil-painting and to seem to prefer his drawings and pastels to his pictures. We have seen that he was a supremely able technician in his pot-boiling days and that the color and handling of his early pictures were greatly admired by so brilliant a virtuoso as Diaz. But this "flowery manner" would not lend itself to the expression of his new aims and he had to invent another. He did so stumblingly at first, and the earliest pictures of his grand style have a certain harshness and ruggedness ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox |
