"Recitative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... soon as the recitative duet began in which Gilbert lays bare his abominable machinations to his master Ashton, Charles, seeing the false troth-ring that is to deceive Lucie, thought it was a love-gift sent by Edgar. He confessed, moreover, that he did not understand the story because of the music, which interfered ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... artists who draw those cozy little pictures of a brooding mother bird, with the male perched but a yard away in full song, do not copy from nature. The thrasher's nest I found was thirty or forty rods from the point where the male was wont to indulge in his brilliant recitative. It was in an open field under a low ground-juniper. My dog disturbed the sitting bird as I was passing near. The nest could be seen only by lifting up and parting away the branches. All the arts of concealment had been ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... kinds of scenes are under the same conditions as in Plautus. We have (1) scenes provided with music, probably represented in MSS. by C (Canticum). (2) Scenes sung as recitative, with musical accompaniment, in MSS. denoted by M.M.C. (perhaps for 'Modi Mutati Cantici'). (3) Scenes in senarii, without music, in MSS. denoted by DV (Diverbium). The division into scenes is very ancient; but ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... cantata. The latter work is the more worthy of remark, not because of its music, but because of the fulsomely obsequious manner in which it celebrates the graces and virtues of Nicolaus the Magnificent. The cantata is made up of choruses and duets, a recitative and two arias. Parts of it were afterwards employed in church services. The Te Deum is in C major, and is for four voices with orchestra. It is interesting as an early work, especially if we compare it with the greater ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... chant, sweet and sorrowful, she repeated the story which each had told her, running them into a continuous recitative. The old woman rose from the floor, and joining in the chant in a quavering croon, sprinkled salt at the thresholds of the doors and at the feet of every person, ending by throwing a large handful up the chimney. It fell back and sputtered and cracked in the fire. ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... number of semi-detached solos, duets or choruses to which tunes were set. These pieces were joined up by any jumble of notes sung by the characters on the stage, usually with no artistic meaning whatsoever, known as the recitative. In a word, the opera was a mere ballad concert. The recitative was so utterly foolish and meaningless, as a rule, that men like Beethoven and Weber, when they composed music-dramas, abolished it altogether, ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... she talked rapidly on current musical topics. She knew the latest operas, and loved the spirit of unrest, the unsettled minor chords of the new school of music; preferred the leit motif to the aria, music drama to opera, and was altogether exceedingly modern in her tastes. She did not like recitative in music, and preferred Wagner and Tschaikowsky to Bach and Verdi. She loved to be stirred up, she said. She liked Beethoven, yes, but he was too mathematical. As for Handel, he was uninteresting in the extreme; and so she went on ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... to go to bed, a proceeding in which she was always much the earlier, Dorothea, who was seated on a low stool, unable to occupy herself except in meditation, said, with the musical intonation which in moments of deep but quiet feeling made her speech like a fine bit of recitative— ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... as they see lights and hear a commotion in the palace. Donna Anna comes back to the garden, bringing her affianced lover, Don Ottavio, whom she had called to the help of her father. She finds the Commandant dead, and breaks into agonizing cries and tears. Only an accompanied recitative, but every ejaculation a cry of nature! Gounod is wrought up to an ecstasy by Mozart's declamation and harmonies. He suspends his analysis ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Roast Beef(779) from between the acts at both theatres, with a man with one note in his voice, and a girl without ever an one; and so they sing, and make brave hallelujahs; and the good company encore the recitative, if it happens to have any cadence like what they call a tune. I was much diverted the other night at the opera; two gentlewoman sat before my sister, and not knowing her, discoursed at their ease. Says one, "Lord! how fine Mr. W. is!" "Yes," replied ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... I do, for anything that may appear too polemical in this chapter. But the circumstances of the case made it almost as impossible, as it would have been uninteresting, to be merely recitative and colourless; and Mr Arnold's own example gives ample licence. In particular, any one who has had actual and close knowledge of the actual progress of politics for many years may be pardoned for speaking with some decision on the practice of sitting at ease in Zion, and raying out curious observations ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... affectation, And for the bass, the beast can only bellow; In fact, he had no singing education, An ignorant, noteless, timeless, tuneless fellow; But being the prima donna's near relation, Who swore his voice was very rich and mellow, They hired him, though to hear him you 'd believe An ass was practising recitative. ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... have an original music, dealing in harmony rather than in tune, and there are motives, of course all in the minor key, which might be utilized by advanced peoples; these sons of nature would especially supply material for that recitative which Verdi first made something better than a vehicle for dialogue. Hence the old missioners are divided in opinion; whilst some find the sound of the "little guitar," with strings of palm-thread and played with the thumbs of both hands, "very low, but not ungrateful," others speak ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... to London?" she warbled in a sort of improvised recitative. "Will I take two or two and a half lessons of Georg Henschel? Will I grace platforms in the English provinces? Will I take my two hundred dollars out of the bank and risk it royally? Perhaps the bystanders will glance in at my windows and observe me giving the landlady ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... pleasure of hearing him frequently, and think the purity of his taste at least equal to the perfection of his voice; rare praise for a singer in these "most brisk and giddy-paced times." He gave us last night the beautiful recitative which introduces ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... The recitative stopped; there was a murmur of mingled voices, and footsteps. A girl parted the curtains which hung between the rooms and came toward him. Her hair was black, fastened by long pins of bone; her face white and resentful; her brows were straight ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... accused of building a second English hoax upon the primitive German hoax. In general I have proceeded as one would in transplanting a foreign opera to our stage: where the author tells the story ill—take it out of his hands, and tell it better: retouch his recitative; bring out and develope his situations: in this place throw in a tender air, in that a passionate chorus. Pretty much in this spirit I have endeavoured to proceed. But it is a most delicate operation to take work out of another man's loom, and put work in: joinings ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... mysteriously charming in effect, and so good in tone, that they really affect one profoundly. They only sing when the mood takes them; never with a view to please others, but always simply to give vent to their emotions. Their love-songs generally open with a sentimental recitative, and then change into actual singing, with frequent modulations from one key into another. The time is irregular, and though certain rhythmical peculiarities recur constantly, yet each performer gives to what he sings so strong a personality of ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... A tenor voice was singing a recitative now, and that exquisite accompaniment, with a sort of joyful solemnity, still continued. Every now and then, shrill, high, and clear, penetrated a chorus of boys' voices. I, outer barbarian that I was, barely knew the name of Bach and his "Matthaus Passion," so in the pauses ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... tergiversation and exoteric intrigue. They fraternized with a phrenological harlequin who was a connoisseur in mezzotint and falconry. The piquant person was heaping contumely and scathing raillery on an amateur in jugular recitative, who held that the Pharaohs of Asia were conversant with his theory that morphine and quinine were exorcists ...
— 1001 Questions and Answers on Orthography and Reading • B. A. Hathaway
... their devotional exercises Halevy says: "From the holy precincts the prayers of the faithful rise aloft to heaven. From midnight on, we hear the clear, rhythmical, melancholy intonation of the precentor, the congregation responding in a monotonous recitative. Praise of the Eternal, salvation of Israel, love of Zion, hope of a happy future for all mankind—these form the burden of their prayers, calling forth sighs and tears, exclamations of hope and joy. Break of day still finds the worshippers assembled, and every evening without ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... which his master conjures up before him. But we others who, in books as in music, desire above all to find substance, and who are scarcely satisfied with the mere representation of a banquet, are much worse off. In plain English, Wagner does not give us enough to masticate. His recitative—very little meat, more bones, and plenty of broth—I christened "alla genovese": I had no intention of flattering the Genoese with this remark, but rather the older recitativo, the recitativo secco. And as to Wagnerian leitmotif, I fear I lack the necessary culinary understanding ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... uncle had hunted up everybody who could fiddle and blow for the rehearsal. He was proud to show what good musicians the town possessed; but everything seemed to go perversely wrong. Lauretta set to work at a fine scene; but very soon in the recitative the orchestra was all at sixes and sevens, not one of them had any idea of accompaniment Lauretta screamed—raved—wept with impatience and anger. The organist was presiding at the piano; she attacked him with the bitterest reproaches. ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... court inquired, in a sort of chant or recitative, whether the prisoner had anything to say why judgment should not be given ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... contributions of the military era to the art of singing was a musical recitative performed by blind men using the four-stringed Chinese lute, the libretto being based on some episode of military history. The performers were known as biwa-bozu, the name "bozu" (Buddhist priest) being derived from the fact that they shaved their heads after the manner of bonzes. These musicians ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... begins another chapter, in which we have a series of recitative-like phrases, the most of which end upon diminished chords and contain or suggest enharmonic modulations of extreme modern type. The recitatives are very expressive, and their proper delivery necessitates a high degree of musical sensitiveness and experience in singing. After ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... of alum and salt. He stood at one end of the fire-bed and poised the wooden tray over his head, and then sprinkled a handful of it on the ground before the glowing bed of coals. At the same time another priest who stood by him chanted a weird recitative of invocation and struck sparks from flint and steel which he held in his hands. This same process was repeated by both the priests at the other end, at the two ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... dinner-music, the concert began. It was opened with a symphony of Mozart; then followed a recitative and air, sung by Simonetti; next a violincello concerto, played by Herr Romberger (Bernhard Romberg); fourthly, a symphony, by Pleyel; fifthly, an air by Righini, sung by Simonette; sixthly, a double concerto for violin and violoncello, played by the two Rombergs; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... squall, still pursuing the hooker, began to roar in thorough bass. This phase of grumbling is a perilous diminution of uproar. Nothing is so terrifying as this monologue of the storm. This gloomy recitative appears to serve as a moment of rest to the mysterious combating forces, and indicates a species of ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... raising the plowshare or driving it into the earth; no man can be a consummate husbandman who does not know how to sing to his oxen, and that is an art that requires taste and especial gifts. To tell the truth, this chant is only a recitative, broken off and taken up at pleasure. Its irregular form and its intonations that violate all the rules of musical art make ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... effects are unknown among us, and therefore unintelligible. Among the early Greeks, for many centuries, the several characters of poet, musician, lawgiver, and philosopher, were combined in the same individual; and it is probable that the music of that period consisted principally of recitative or musical declamation. This species of composition, so utterly neglected and unknown to the English school, possesses great powers of expression, both when in its simple form and when accompanied. A modern example ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... general prominence—as his own singing of the Melodies in good society kept up his sentimental and patriotic prestige, and his personal lionizing, in a remarkable degree. He played on the piano, and sang with taste, though in a style resembling recitative, and not with any great power of voice: in speaking, his voice had a certain tendency to hoarseness, but its quality became flute-like in singing. In 1811 he made another essay in the musical province; writing, at the request of the ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... unlike what is sometimes practised in the comic dances on our European theatres. They formed the triple semicircle, as the preceding dancers had done; and a person, who advanced at the head on one side of the semicircle, began by repeating something in a truly musical recitative, which was delivered with an air so graceful, as might put to the blush our most applauded performers. He was answered in the same manner, by the person at the head of the opposite party. This being repeated several times, the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... different instruments which make the execution difficult, one must add the recitatives which were very much employed and of which at that time a serious study was made. I recall a beautiful example of recitative in the "Iphigenia ...
— On the Execution of Music, and Principally of Ancient Music • Camille Saint-Saens
... was that Leonhard Marten, while passing, heard that recitative of a soprano voice which so amazed him. Dropping quickly into the shade of the trees opposite Loretz's house, he listened to the announcement, "There were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night," and there remained until he saw two men advancing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... dramatic recitative the work ends. The history of seventeenth-century opera, interesting as it is, does not belong to the subject especially treated in this volume. The authorities consulted will be named from time to time in the pages of ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... Creole, "listen to a song of my country; we do not know how to make verses; we muse a simple recitative, without rhyme, and at each pause we improvise a couplet appropriate to the subject; it is very pastoral; it will please you, I am sure, master. This song is called the 'Loving Girl!' it is ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... developing into equally characteristic progressions and cadences, is a striking feature of the Bach fugue. His "Suites" exalted forever the familiar dance tunes of the German people. His wonderful "Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue" ushered the recitative into purely ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... the gayety of such occasions, and in the shadow of the curtains in the box would join in the singing or the recitative of the lovely Italian words with a true ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... kitchen beyond. When he had finished his beautiful theme on "The March of the men of Harlech," he changed the measure again to "Tri chant o' bunnan" (Three hundred pounds), and immediately a most unmusical-looking man began chanting "Pennillion," or a sort of recitative stanzas, which were soon taken up by another, and this amusement lasted so long that Owen grew weary, and was thinking of retreating from his post by the door, when some little bustle was occasioned, on the opposite side of the room, by the entrance of a middle-aged man, and ...
— The Doom of the Griffiths • Elizabeth Gaskell
... of this class to a later period than in the case of the Evangelia, viz. down to the eleventh century. For the most part they are furnished with a kind of musical notation executed in vermilion; evidently intended to guide the reader in that peculiar recitative which is still customary in the ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... masterpiece of contrapuntal writing, and, if performed by a choir of three or four hundred voices, would produce an overpowering effect. The divine call of Simon Peter and his brethren is next described in a tenor recitative; and the acceptance of the glad tidings is expressed in an aria, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me," which, by an original but appropriate conception, is given to the soprano voice. In the next number, the disciples are dramatically ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... "Mit Maedeln sich vertragen;" and another Aria, in the same style, 16 ducats each (furnishing also a pianoforte arrangement if required); also several descriptive songs, with pianoforte accompaniment, 12 ducats each; among these is a little Italian Cantata, with Recitative; there is also a Song with recitative among the German ones. A Song with pianoforte accompaniment, 8 ducats. An Elegy, four voices, with the accompaniment of two violins, viola, and violoncello, 24 ducats. A Dervise Chorus, with full orchestra, ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... all this in one breathless, monotonous recitative, took the thousand francs out of his breast-pocket and held them out timidly towards the foreign gentleman, who motioned them aside and ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... is more freely dispensed than some others, for while there are (or were, for one has taken his Last Degree) eight musical quills, there was but one pair of lips which could claim any special consecration to vocal melody. Not that one that should undervalue the half-recitative of doubtful barytones, or the brilliant escapades of slightly unmanageable falsettos, or the concentrated efforts of the proprietors of two or three effective notes, who may be observed lying in wait ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... down to the cottage by Moraine Lake. The next morning, in addition to the birds already observed in the valley, I listened to the theme-like recitative of a warbling vireo, and also watched a sandpiper teetering about the edge of the water, while a red-shafted flicker dashed across the lake to a pine tree on the opposite side. As I left this attractive valley, the hermit thrushes seemed to ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... is bidden lay out herbs!" sang the gaoler in amateur recitative. "Mistress Maude hath no shepherd's pouch! Mistress Maude is loth to go and ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... though it were a part of the solar system inaugurated by Joshua. Again the white-robed Druids filed past me, again I saw that improbable mistletoe cut from that impossible oak, and again cold chills ran down my back with the first strain of the recitative. The thumping springs essayed to beat time, and the private box-like obscurity of the vehicle lent a cheap enchantment to the view. But it was a vast improvement upon my past experience, and I hugged ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... his famous duet with "Box," reciting their marriage to one and the same lady, and the long recitative in which the printer describes ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... descended from the pi-pi, the procession formed anew, enclosing us in its centre; where I remained part of the time, carried by Kory-Kory, and occasionally relieving him from his burden by limping along with spear. When we moved off in this order, the natives struck up a musical recitative, which with various alternations, they continued until we arrived at the place of ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... comprised. One oratorio after another followed the 'Messiah,' none of them entitled to rank with that great work for either loftiness of subject or grandeur of expression, yet many containing passages of unrivalled beauty. 'Jephtha,' which was the last oratorio he composed, contains the magnificent recitative, 'Deeper and deeper still,' and the beautiful song, 'Waft her, angels.' It was while writing 'Jephtha' that Handel became blind, but, though greatly affected by this loss, it did not daunt his courage or lessen ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... the most monotonous manner possible—using only high throat and head tones, occasionally lowering or raising the voice on a word, to express emotion. This monotonous, and to European ears, strangely nonchalant, nasal recitative, is being continually interrupted by gong pounding and the shrill, high sound of discordant reed instruments. When one or more of the characters commits suicide (which as we know is an honoured custom in China) he sings—or rather whines—a long chant before he dies, just as his western ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... sick room in a mechanical recitative, as if accustomed to recount every particular ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... poet, but against the vexed question, which has been argued for centuries and never solved, of the union of poetry and music. His talks with Francoise had brought him back to his idea, sketched out long ago with Corinne, of a form of musical drama, somewhere between recitative opera and the spoken drama,—the art of the free word united with free music,—an art of which hardly any artist of to-day has a glimmering, an art also which the routine critics, imbued with the Wagnerian tradition, deny, as they deny ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... serve as a general explanation of their purport. The second, twelfth and fourteenth rhapsodies are admirable examples of the series. In general these "Hungarian Rhapsodies" open with a few brief bars suggestive of tragic recitative, which leads into a broad yet strongly marked and searching rhythm, upon which is built a slow, stately yet mournful melody, broken in upon here and there by strange weird runs and rapid passages. These latter serve a double purpose. They imitate the curious aeolian ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... rude brief recitative, Of ships sailing the seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal, Of unnamed heroes in the ships—of waves spreading and spreading far as the eye can reach, Of dashing spray, and the winds piping ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... themselves, with their music, from the main work, and lingered in choral or solo service in places where the sacred operetta was presented, both in America and England. One of these is an effective solo in deep contralto, with a suggestion of recitative and chant— ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... miscellaneous Musical Interlude, commencing with The Lamentations of Jerom-iah! In nasal recitative. To be followed by The favourite Cackling Quartette, by Two Hen-birds who are ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... music is by no means a modern mania. From Pepys's Diary we learn that the first company of Italian singers came here in the reign of Charles II.: they were brought by Killigrew from Venice, about 1688; but they did not perform whole operas, only detached scenes in recitative, and not in any public theatre, but in the houses of the nobility. Thus, Italian music was loved and cultivated very early in England, and London was the next capital, after Vienna, which established and supported an Italian Opera. But, as we never do things by halves, we had soon afterwards, two ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 330, September 6, 1828 • Various
... confounded with our peculiarly English alliteration). But this is wilfully to misstate the matter. Let me repeat my conviction (Terminal Essay, 144-145) that The Nights, in its present condition, was intended as a text or handbook for the Rawi or professional story-teller, who would declaim the recitative in quasi-conversational tones, would intone the Saj'a and would chant the metrical portions to the twanging of the Rababah or one-stringed viol. The Reviewer declares that the original has many such passages; but why does he not tell the reader that almost the whole Koran, and indeed ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... will be better to write a recitative under which the instruments can do some good work; for in this scene, which is to be the best in the whole opera, there will be so much noise and confusion on the stage that an aria would cut but a sorry figure. Moreover there will be a thunder-storm which is not likely ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... more animated, and at the same time more expressive of the thought conveyed in the verse than the following chorus?—the introduction to which is a sort of recitative ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... one of their feast-dances. The performers consisted of about fifteen old, and as many young persons, whom they arranged in close order. The young girls laid aside a part of their dress to exhibit their forms to more advantage, and they commenced a kind of recitative, accompanied by all manner of gesticulations, with a sort of guttural husk for a chorus. It was not necessary to understand their language to comprehend their meaning; and it is unnecessary to add, that their tastes ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... Sabbath, at the usual hour Ned went to Church, and selected for his morning service one of those Churches in which the pews are free, and in which the hymn is given out and sung by the congregation, a half recitative. ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... passage sounds all at once as an outburst or crash of harps in the still air of autumn. The verses seem as if played to the ear upon some unseen instrument. And the poet's manner of reciting verse is similar. It is not rhetorical, but musical: so very near recitative, that for any one else to attempt it would be ridiculous; and yet it is perfectly miraculous with what exquisite searching he elicits and makes sensible every particle of the meaning, not leaving a shadow of a shade of the feeling, the mood, the degree, untouched. We doubt if a finer rhapsode ever ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... him sounding the depths and cadences of the Living Temple, "bearing on its front this doleful inscription, 'Here God once dwelt,'" was like listening to the recitative of Handel. But Isaiah was his masterpiece; and I remember quite well his startling us all when reading at family worship, "His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God," by a peremptory, explosive sharpness, as of thunder ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... alone, in its different states, they have above twenty names; as many for the taro root; and about ten for the cocoa-nut. Add to this, that, besides the common dialect, they often expostulate, in a kind of stanza or recitative, which is answered in the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... most inauspicious, and apparently impossible either to wit or rhyme,—yet with an effect that delighted a party, and might have borne the test of criticism the most severe. These verses he usually sang in a sort of recitative to some tune with which all were familiar,—and if a piano were at hand, he accompanied himself with a gentle ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... her Swedish exercises in alt, and makes a very pretty lady of high degree for a pantomime marquis, who is no other than Miss MADGE TITHERADGE stepping down from the "legitimate" and bringing an air and an elocution unusual and admirable. She made her excellent speaking voice do duty in recitative for song, and the innovation is not unpleasing. If it be fair in frivolous public places to dig down to those thoughts that better lie too deep for tears, Mr. ALFRED NOYES' A Song of England, clear spoken by her with tenderness and spirit, is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various
... agreeable effect, as the notes of different birds concur in the harmony of the grove, and please more than if they were all exactly alike. I could name some gentlemen of Ireland, to whom a slight proportion of the accent and recitative of that country is an advantage. The same observation will apply to the gentlemen of Scotland. I do not mean that we should speak as broad as a certain prosperous member of Parliament from that country[473]; though it has been well observed, that 'it has been of no small use to him; as it ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... by Miss Kemble, in spite of the subject and the music. Such, indeed, is the power of this lady's genius—which is shed like a halo over the whole opera—that nobody laughs at the broad Irish in which Flavius delivers himself and his recitative; few are risibly affected by the apathetic, and often out-of-tune, roarings of Pollio:—than which stronger testimony could not be cited of the triumph of Miss Kemble; for solely by her influence do those who go to Covent-Garden to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the door at the bottom of the stage, between the moment when Valentine goes to him and that when she conceals herself in the chamber at the side, a quarter of an hour does not elapse; while formerly, according to the traditions of the Quiquendone theatre, this recitative of thirty-seven bars was wont ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... not seem to be sung at the end of a fixed number of lines, but rather at the termination of certain parts of the recitative. There is also no fixed limit to the number of singers in either band: these may be very many or very few. I think that the curious Izumo way of singing the burden—so that the vowel sounds in the word iya uttered by one band, and in the word sorei uttered by the other, are made to blend ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... the subject of endless wrangling; and even the point whether it was "singing" or "recitation" has been argued. In a wider and calmer view these things become of very small interest. Singing and recitation—as the very word recitative should be enough to remind any one—pass into each other by degrees imperceptible to any but a technical ear; and the instruments, if any, which accompanied the performance of the chansons, the extent of that accompaniment, ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... of Schumann and Franz. That is to say, they are written with a high poetical feeling inspired by the verses they sing, and, while melodious enough to justify them as lyrics, yet are near enough to impassioned recitative to do justice to the words on which they are built. Nevin is also an enthusiastic devotee of the position these masters, after Schubert, took on the question of the accompaniment. This is no longer a slavish thumping ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... H. Pearse from Mary Clancy of Moycullen, who keened it with great horror in her voice, in a low sobbing recitative. ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... poetical sensitiveness. His work is even more poetical than musical. The suppression of the lyrical element, and therefore of melody, is with him a systematic parti pris. No more duos or trios; monologue and the aria are alike done away with. There remains only declamation, the recitative, and the choruses. In order to avoid the conventional in singing, Wagner falls into another convention—that of not singing at all. He subordinates the voice to articulate speech, and for fear lest the muse should take flight he clips ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Griffith Gaunt's case. The Rev. William Wentworth published, in the usual recitative, the banns of marriage between Thomas Leicester, of the parish of Marylebone in London, and Mercy Vint, spinster, of this parish; and creation, present ex hypothesi mediaevale, but absent in fact, assented, by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... one such Adagio as that in the second concerto!" The beautiful deep-toned, love-laden cantilena, which is profusely and exquisitely ornamented in Chopin's characteristic style, is interrupted by a very impressive recitative of some length, after which the cantilena is heard again. But criticism had better be silent, and listen here attentively. And how shall I describe the last movement (Allegro vivace F minor, 3-4)—its feminine softness ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... at St. John's eve, and at one or two other holidays which happen about that time of the year—the end of June. In some of the sports the Portuguese element is visible, in others the Indian, but it must be recollected that masquerading, recitative singing, and so forth, are common originally to both peoples. A large number of men and boys disguise themselves to represent different grotesque figures, animals, or persons. Two or three dress themselves up as giants, with the help of a tall framework. One enacts the part of the Caypor, a ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... Chamber, or private, Musick; where the Multitude is not courted for Applause, but only the true Judges; and consists chiefly in Cantata's, Duetto's, &c. In the Recitative of Cantata's, our Author excelled in a singular Manner for the pathetick ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... alternate pauses of Sorrow and respite from sorrow long drawn out, the sharp ache of Sin, the glimpses of unhallowed Joy, the strain of upward Endeavor, the serene peace of Faith and Love, crowned by the blessed Vision of the Grail. 'Tis past. The prelude melts into the opening recitative. ...
— Parsifal - Story and Analysis of Wagner's Great Opera • H. R. Haweis
... national music of every land is welcome. We have been learning to like Italian opera at an insane cost; we have kindly winked at the follies of opera-bouffe; probably nowhere in the world are the intellectual depths of a German symphony and the passionate declamation of an Italian recitative more thoroughly appreciated. This is the natural musical exposition of our complex and various life. This wondrous variety, which indicates possibilities not yet revealed, pleases us without being always clear to our feelings and intellect. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... moment he wrote rapidly, at another he hummed a melody; again, half declaiming, half singing, he read off a recitative; and then bent over and wrote with all his might. The light began to smoke, and the wax dropped over his music, but he saw none of it; neither saw he the daylight that had replaced his candles. He was so absorbed ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... the judicious Metastasio (as to whose exquisite taste there can be no hesitation, whatever doubts may be entertained as to his poetic genius) uniformly placed the aria at the end of the scene, at the same time that he almost always raises and impassions the style of the recitative immediately preceding. Even in real life, the difference is great and evident between words used as the arbitrary marks of thought, our smooth market-coin of intercourse, with the image and superscription worn out by currency; and those which convey pictures either ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... published as one volume with an index and illustrations. The volume closes with a doggerel translation of one of several Gospel ballads which Carey had written in Bengali in 1798. He had thus early brought into the service of Christ the Hindoo love of musical recitative, which was recently re-discovered—as it were—and now forms an important mode of evangelistic work when accompanied by native musical instruments. The original has a curious interest and value in the history of the Bengali language, as formed by Carey. As to the music he ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... crater of a volcano after a destructive eruption. Mrs. Almayer's thoughts, after these scenes, were usually turned into a channel of childhood reminiscences, and she gave them utterance in a kind of monotonous recitative—slightly disconnected, but generally describing the glories of the Sultan of Sulu, his great splendour, his power, his great prowess; the fear which benumbed the hearts of white men at the sight of his swift piratical praus. And these ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... his brother tunes his violin to accompany him, and he begins to rehearse in recitative, with wonderful fluency and precision. Thus he will, at a minute's warning, recite two or three hundred verses, well turned, and well adapted, and generally mingled with an elegant compliment to the company. The Italians are so fond of poetry, that many of ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... the performers all chanted well together, the effect was delightful; at the same time the practice unduly lengthens the progress of the songs, some of which go on for hours in a dull, monotonous recitative. ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... dramatic art, and is founded upon and contains the greatest and deepest truths of the Christian life. As regards the actual music forms employed, we find, indeed, similar ones in the operas, such as the various forms of recitative, the aria, the duet, and the chorus, and even the scena; but in the sacred works, who are the heroes and heroines? Are they not the instruments of the Divine power, the messengers of the good tidings? And what are the subjects? Are they not the struggles, the trials, ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... obtained by our equal bars and unequal notes the only rhythm was that produced by the quantity of the syllables and was of necessity comparatively monotonous. And further, it may be observed that the chant thus resulting, being like recitative, was much less clearly differentiated from ordinary speech than is our ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... during the rehearsals of his great opera, I have seldom heard any thing finer than her rendering of the difficult music of the part of Reiza, from beginning to end, and especially the scene of the shipwreck, with its magnificent opening recitative, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... of sad expressive recitative that heralded the plaint and the love-scene. There is here the full charm of fugue: a rhythmic quality of single theme, the choir of concerted dirge in independent and interdependent paths, and with every note of integral melody. There is the beauty ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... He is the fallen Adam with a soured temper. We are Adam and Eve unfallen, in Paradise. Now, then,—the recitative, for the sake of the moral. You will sing the whole duty of woman,—'And from obedience grows my ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... addressed to Mr. Peters. He ought not to withhold from the audience your admirable version of the Recitative in the Adagio of the F minor Concerto for Piano Solo, and should add these few ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... about six inches, and through them, accompanied by Robin, the Inspector clove his way to the encampment, where Dicky, who seemed to be rapidly losing his head, was delivering a sort of recitative to every one in general, accompanied by ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... necessary to make you thoroughly miserable in order to excite your charity. He will leave his monkey grinding away on a door-step, and follow you with a grinning face for a hundred yards or more, singing in a kind of recitative: 'Date qualche cosa, signer! per amor di Dio, eccellenza, date qualche cosa!' If you comply with his request, his voluble thanks are too rapid for your comprehension; and if you refuse, he laughs merrily in your face as he ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... following the example of the rich broken rhythms of the English Bible, the example of Ossian, Blake, and many another European experimenter during the Romantic epoch, Whitman really succeeded in elaborating a mode of poetical expression, nearer for the most part to recitative than to aria, yet neither pure declamation nor pure song: a unique embodiment of passionate feeling, a veritable "neutral zone," which refuses to let itself be annexed to either "prose" or "verse" as those terms are ordinarily understood, but for which "free verse" is precisely the right ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... sound more than sense, not very easy,) the warbling of sacred phrases, and variations on the summoning trumpet, and imitated angelic praise, and the unfelt expressions of musical repentance, and unfearing despondency of guilt in recitative, are any thing but congenial to a mind properly attuned. I hope I am neither prudish, nor squeamish, nor splenetic, but speak only what many feel, and few care to express. Now, the cure in future for all this would be very simple: Why not have ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... gesticulated is almost universally accepted as an exceptional instance, prompted by the failing of Livius' voice through age[103]. We are now fairly well informed of the tripartite diversion of the dialogue into canticum or song proper, recitative, and diverbium or spoken utterance[104], with the incidental accompaniment of the tibia. Though there may be some dispute as to the apportionment of the various classes, the general truth is established.[105] ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... to impart a gloomy solemnity to his monotonous song, dreamy and sad. "How can I sing for you, friends, when my heart is broken?" began the recitative; and then, in the midst of a general silence, came a strident trill, like the long continued lament of ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... moment he put his handkerchief hastily to his nose, and wriggled his way out, with a rush and a crawl, strangely combined, at the very moment when the singer delivered her first commanding note of recitative. ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... if not, no matter. It is as really the thing as all the rest: as the chorus of peasants and soldiers, of men and women who impartially accompany the orchestra in the differing sentiments of the occasion; as the rivals who vie with one another in recitative and aria; as the heroine who holds them both in a passion of suspense while she weaves the enchantment of her trills and runs about them; as the whole circumstance of the divinely impossible thing which defies ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... refugies en Angleterre, was to see us yesterday in the evening, and to invite Mie Mie and me to come sometimes to hear her daughter-in-law play upon the harp. I did not expect melody in their heaviness, but I shall certainly go, as the recitative part will be in French, and that you know is always some ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... priest turned back to the corridor, his quick ear was suddenly startled by the unhallowed and inconsistent sounds of a guitar. A monotonous voice also—the Comandante's evidently—was raised in a thin, high recitative. ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... (to reward me for my abstemiousness, Weinlich induced them to publish this poor composition). From that moment he gave me a free hand. To begin with I was allowed to compose a Fantasia for the pianoforte (in F sharp minor) which I wrote in a quite informal style by treating the melody in recitative form; this gave me intense satisfaction because it won me praise ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... them was it so richly freighted with memories of wonderful sermons and solemn sacraments that were foretastes of heaven. Coming with a party of gentlemanly fellows slowly rowing up the Thames and humming some passionate recitative from an opera, he alone could recall the charmful stillness of a Scotch Sabbath, the worshiping crowds, and the evening psalm ascending from ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... to gather his straying wits to him. With a sharp effort that seemed to send a tremor through his whole long body he forced his faculties back into their grooves. With a muttered word of encouragement from the Bishop, he began hoarsely that precise, recitative form of confession that the good priests of Lower Canada have been drilling into the children for ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... Margaret. And as he sat before the piano, demipatient and wholly joyful, his fingers twinkled the yellowed and black keys into fits of merriment, or, after an abrupt pause, built heap upon heap of bass chords. Then the mood would change and, to a whanging accompaniment, he would chant, recitative fashion, the three poems ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... events of the ancient world, he depicts, under the name of Alexander, Titus, Dido, Regulus, Caesar, and Cleopatra, ideal beings having about as much resemblance to real mortals as the nymphs of the ballet have to ordinary women, or the recitative of Mozart to the natural human voice. But still they are very charming. If they are not a feature of this world, they are a vision of something above it; of a scene in which the littlenesses and selfishness of mortality are forgotten; in which virtue is generally in the end triumphant; in which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... we have the charming recitative of Herr Tuden Links, to the infant, which is really one of the most charming gems ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... be told that few of our native artists can speak the Italian language, or sing Italian music, and more especially recitative. My answer is, let them once know that the mere circumstance of their being English born does not shut the stage-door of the King's Theatre against them, all will look up to its boards as the goal of their ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various
... recitative, the style, moreover, least subject to precise laws, that Delsarte used this license; and it was in this style ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... don't you remember sweet Alers Ben Bolt?" began Susy, in the same breath and the wrong key. "Sweet Alers, with hair so brown, who wept with delight when you giv'd her a smile, and—" with knitted brows and appealing recitative, "what's er rest of ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... shaped my course in the direction of the negro houses, guided by a loud drumming, which, as I came nearer, every now and then sunk into a low murmuring roll, when a strong bass voice would burst forth into a wild recitative; to which succeeded a loud piercing chorus of female voices, during which the drums were beaten with great vehemence; this was succeeded by another solo, and so on. There was no moon, and I had to thread my way along one of the winding footpaths by starlight. When I arrived within a stone—cast ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... a burst of laughter rang out. The girl spoke in too recitative a way, having repeated her story so many times already that she knew it by heart. The doctor's remark was sure to produce an effect, and she herself laughed at it in advance, certain as she was that the others would ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... of her going and coming in those simple household errands, across the sunlit floor, that moved him as some mountain air sung on an alp by a girl driving her cows to pasture may move a listener who indifferent has heard the swell of the organ of La Hague, or the recitative of a great ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... part of the drama, and adopted the Pindaric ode. Many poets followed in the same path; more action was given to the dramatic parts, and greater variety to the music, in which the airs were agreeably blended with the recitative duets; other harmonized pieces were also added, and after the lapse of a century Apostolo Zeno (1669-1750) still further improved the melodrama. But it was the spirit of Metastasio that breathed a soul of fire into this ingenious and ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... of metrical form lying behind them. For convenience they may be distinguished, according as verse or prose predominates, as (1) irregular unrimed metre, (2) very free blank verse, (3) unusual mingling of metre and prose, a kind of recitative, and (4) mere prose printed as verse, or what may be called free-verse par excellence. A few illustrations will help ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... represents his Sorrows of Napoleon Opera, in an all-too stupendous style; with music of cannon-volleys, and murder-shrieks of a world; his stage-lights are the fires of Conflagration; his rhyme and recitative are the tramp of embattled Hosts and the sound of falling Cities.—Happier is he who, like our Clothes-Philosopher, can write such matter, since it must be written, on the insensible Earth, with his shoe-soles only; and also survive the ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... two or three notes of a Gregorian chant introducing the recitative note; usually sung without the organ, by one of the Clergy or choir who is called the ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller
... pot pourri, by a romantic practitioner—audience waken up; ballad, 'When Hearts are torn by manly Vows,' by an English tenor—great delight, and encouragement of native talent; glee, 'Glorious Apollo,' or, 'The Red-cross Knight'—very well received; recitative and aria, from Lucia di Lammermoor—very lachrymose; violin solo, by Signor Rosinini, who throws the audience into a paroxysm of delight by imitating a saw and a grindstone; 'The Bay of Biscay,' ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... sentiment and plot, which is preserved to us in the written text, but raised by the accompanying appeal to the sense, made as it must have been made by such artists as the Greeks, by the grouping of forms and colours, the recitative, the dance and the song, to such a greatness and height of aesthetic significance as can hardly have been realised by any other form of ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... as soon as I could get my breath from this extraordinary shower bath; "what's all this?" My wife came running towards the cow yard, as I stood with the milk streaming from my hair, filling my eyes, and dropping from the tip of my nose; and she and Biddy performed a recitative lamentation over me in alternate strophes, like the chorus in a Greek tragedy. Such was our first morning's experience; but as we had announced our bargain with some considerable flourish of trumpets among our neighbors and friends, we concluded to hush the matter ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... continuous sound, and knew that the stream which intersected the park on its way to the river had been freed from ice by the January thaw, and was pouring its swollen waters over the dam. The note was deep and full, like a solemn recitative, as if Nature's diurnal harmonies had sunk to this one transitional key. Above all, the mildness of the air, full of the alluring witchery of a false spring, affected the imagination like a delicate, ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... orchestra; concerted piece [Fr.], potpourri, capriccio. vocal music, vocalism^; chaunt, chant; psalm, psalmody; hymn; song &c (poem) 597; canticle, canzonet^, cantata, bravura, lay, ballad, ditty, carol, pastoral, recitative, recitativo^, solfeggio^. Lydian measures; slow music, slow movement; adagio &c adv.; minuet; siren strains, soft music, lullaby; dump; dirge &c (lament) 839; pibroch^; martial music, march; dance music; waltz &c (dance) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... only a single example of the difficulty of the German words, with the everlasting consonant endings to the syllables, take the recitative at ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... sort of painting, sculpture, or engraving; thus the fine arts cannot exist among them. They have no music but vocal; and know of no accompaniment except a bass of one note like that of the bagpipe. Their singing is in a great measure recitative, with little variation of note. They have scarcely any notion of medicine or surgery; and they do not allow of anatomy. As to science, the telescope, the microscope, the electric battery, are unknown, except as playthings. The compass ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... long been popular at country festivals. At a harvest-home feast at Selborne, in Hampshire, in 1836, we heard it recited by two countrymen, who gave it with considerable humour, and dramatic effect. It was delivered in a sort of chant, or recitative. Davies Gilbert published a very similar copy in his Ancient Christmas Carols. In the modern printed editions, which are almost identical with ours, the term 'servantman' has been substituted ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... had known him all his life, looked at him curiously for a moment, and then, in a far-away, sort of voice, made recitative: ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Abner Power began in a sardonic recitative: 'I am a traveller, and it takes a good deal to astonish me. So I neither swooned nor screamed when I learnt a few hours ago what I had suspected for a week, that you are of the house and lineage of Jacob.' He flung a nod towards the canopied tombs ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... The recitative is an affront to common sense, and if there be any spectacle more than another opposed to the genius of the English character and unsuited to its taste it is the ballet of the opera house. Its eternal dumbshow, with its fantastic appeals ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... tear—"speed, Hugh," she said, "speed, speed, husband of my heart—the arms of God are they not open for you, and why do you stay?" These sentiments, we should have informed our readers, were uttered, or rather chaunted in a recitative of sorrow, in Irish; Irish being the language in which the peasantry who happen to speak both it and English, always express themselves when more than usually excited. "The sacred oil of salvation is upon you—the sacrament of peace and forgiveness has lightened your soul—the ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... hard-wood, slightly hollowed and adjusted in length, are laid across the shins of the operator, who beats upon them with two sticks. But the finest songs are sung without accompaniment and are of the nature of dramatic recitals in the manner of a somewhat monotonous and melancholy recitative. To hear a wild Punan, standing in the midst of a solemn circle lit only by a few torches which hardly seem to avail to keep back the vast darkness of the sleeping jungle, recite with dramatic gesture the adventures of a departing soul on its way to the land ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... First, Angele. She may be twenty-five, but is more probably fifteen. She acts as Adjutant to Madame, and rivals her mother as deliverer of sustained and rapid recitative. She milks the cows, feeds the pigs, and dragoons her young brothers and sisters. But though she works from morning till night, she has always time for a smiling salutation to all ranks. She also speaks English quite creditably—a fact of which Madame is justly proud. ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... were given in Madame Deshoulieres' inimitable recitative, the party had come close to the rustic pair. "People may well say," muttered Madeleine, "that the pictures of Nature are always best at a distance. Can it be possible that this is a shepherdess—a shepherdess of Lignon?" The shepherdess was in reality a poor little peasant girl, unkempt, unshorn, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... rain. A number of men and boys assemble about 9 p.m., in the street and sing chants set to music by some poet of Gujarat or Hindustan. The chants are really prayers to God for rain, for forgiveness of sins and for absolution from ingratitude for former bounties. One with a strong voice sings the recitative, and then the chorus breaks in with the words "Order, O Lord, the rain-cloud of thy mercy!" Thus chanting the company wanders from street to street till midnight and continues the practice ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... with a view to a livelihood, or at any rate not directly so, this branch of it was not regarded by public opinion with such disfavour as writing for the stage: towards the end of this epoch one or two Romans of quality had publicly come forward in this manner as poets.(51) Recitative poetry however was chiefly cultivated by those poets who occupied themselves with writing for the stage, and the former held a subordinate place as compared with the latter; in fact, a public to which read poetry might address itself can ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... and friendly, with many common flowers, that seem to have planted themselves, and the domestic honey-suckle carefully trained over the little window. Around are all the common farm-house sounds,—the poultry making a pleasant recitative between the carols of singing birds; even geese and turkeys are not inharmonious when modulated by the diapasons of the beach. The orchard of very old apple-trees, whose twisted forms tell of the glorious ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... who sings thinks not of evil." Tomaseo thought their folk-songs richer than those of any other nation, ranging as they do over all manner of subjects. They are generally heroical or amorous in character, divided into short verses and sung in two parts; the bass delivers a kind of recitative, and the baritone joins in, the long final note with which each finishes dying away in a full chord. It is extraordinary how serious the men are over it, even when singing over their wine, in which they sometimes exceed. At Trau one Sunday afternoon we saw a party of eight or ten sitting round ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... amused. The scenery, the music, the attitudes, the gesticulations, all unite to fix attention and amuse; but the eloquence, so called, of the theatre, is all factitious, and is no more adapted to the real occasions of life than would be the recitative in singing, and it pleases on the same principle ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... supersede the old negro melodies. Then she wandered back to them, with fingers that idly drifted over the keys, and ended with "Stop dat knockin'," in which Hoskins joined with his powerful bass in the recitative "Let me in," and Elmore himself had half a mind to attempt a part. The sculptor rose as she struck the keys with a final crash, but lingered, as his fashion was when he had something to propose: if he felt pretty sure that the thing would be liked, he brought it ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... FIRST PROPHET. RECITATIVE. YE captive tribes, that hourly work and weep Where flows Euphrates murmuring to the deep, Suspend awhile the task, the tear suspend, And turn to God, your Father and your Friend. Insulted, chain'd, and all the world a foe, 5 Our God alone is all we ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... with my hand over my heart and listened. It was Billy singing right under my window, and I've never heard him do it before in all his five years. It was the dearest old-fashioned tune ever written and Billy sang the words as distinctly as if he had been a boy chorister doing a difficult recitative. My heart beat so it shook the lace on my breast like a breeze from heaven as he took the high note and then let it go ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... some deep, sad, occult mystery, the singers began in a rapid, sweet recitative: "With Thy blessed saints in glory everlasting, the soul of this Thy servant save, set at rest; preserving her in the blessed life, as Thou ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... imitating each other reciprocally. Between the two a third element exists: an accompaniment of eighths in uniform succession without any significance beyond that of filling out the harmony. This third element is to be kept wholly subordinate. The little, one-voiced introduction in recitative style which precedes the aria reminds one vividly of the beginning of the Ballade ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... and then comes a sudden change in the character of the music. No tempo is marked, but, evidently, it must not be rapid. It is a tone-picture of the deception practised by Laban upon Jacob when he substituted Leah in place of Rachel. At first, it is a free recitative. A quotation of a few bars will give a good idea of the extraordinary harmonies and ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... gesticulations. "Frenchy's" brother spoke in his own tongue a piece that was suitable to the occasion; much to his amazement, it elicited peals of laughter. When he sat down, the program wound on its tedious, recitative way until the tree was again supplied with candles by the neighbor woman's son, and the little girl arose to deliver a welcome to that same Santa Claus from whom ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... as to interrupt, and totally annul, this ravishing entertainment; so that they were fain to have recourse again to the glass, which made such innovation upon the brain of the physician, that he sang divers odes of Anacreon to a tune of his own composing, and held forth upon the music and recitative of the ancients with great erudition; while Pallet, having found means to make the Italian acquainted with the nature of his profession, harangued upon painting with wonderful volubility, in a language which (it was well for his own credit) the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... Mandalay! Allons, Camerados, Desperadoes, Amontillados! Hear my Recitative, my Romanza, ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... but, as if its soul had passed from the instrument into his, the musician himself took up the strain, and in a mellow tenor voice, with a mingling of air and recitative, and an expression which to Mary was entrancing, sang the words, "And ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... volume on "Lyric Declamation: Recitative, Song and Ballad Singing," will be discussed the practical application of these basic principles of Style to the vocal music of the German, French, Italian and other ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... casements wide open on the now solitary piazza, while I wrote and my companion was drawing. So employed, a strain of distant music stole on the ear in the stillness of the night, one of those plaintive melodies common among the Sardes, a sort of recitative by a tenor voice, with ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... but straight across the top of his head and began an appalling, and as it seemed to Sabre, an endless recitative. "The Colonel's killed. Bruce ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... for?" asked Dodd in an undertone. "I don't know," was the reply; "keep quiet and you'll see." The regular throbs of the drum continued throughout the distribution of the willow sticks and at its close the drummer began to sing a low, musical recitative, which increased gradually in volume and energy until it swelled into a wild, barbarous chant, timed by the regular beats of the heavy drum. A slight commotion followed, the front curtains of all the pologs were thrown up, the women stationed themselves in detachments ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... their complacent gurglings and sleepy murmurs. One—and the most Infantile of all—not of the Family, has a distinctive note, a copyright tone which none imitates, and which becomes at times a sonorous swelling boom, a lofty recitative, for even an island has its ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... night to Grisi and Mario, Alboni and Lablache, Viardot and Ronconi, Persiani and Tamburini, - and Jenny Lind too, though she was at the other house. And what an orchestra was Costa's - with Sainton leader, and Lindley and old Dragonetti, who together but alone, accompanied the RECITATIVE with their harmonious chords on 'cello and double-bass. Is singing a lost art? Or is that but a TEMPORIS ACTI question? We who heard those now silent voices fancy there are none to match them nowadays. Certainly there are no dancers ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... this radical inconsistency; and, though he did not learn for many years to develop his musical ideas according to a theory, and never carried that theory to the logical results insisted on by his great after-type, Wagner, he accomplished much in the way of sweeping reform. He elaborated the recitative or declamatory element in opera with great care, and insisted that his singers should make this the object of their most careful efforts. The arias, duos, quartets, etc., as well as the choruses and orchestral ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... cannot now remember) when he criticises the wood thrush for spending too much time in tuning his instrument. But the fault is the critic's, I think; to my ear these preliminaries sound rather like the recitative which goes ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... knighted for his services, escaped to France, and was afterward captured and imprisoned in England for two years—had managed to evade the law against stage plays as early as 1656, by presenting his Siege of Rhodes as an "opera," with instrumental music and dialogue in recitative, after a fashion newly sprung up in Italy. This he brought out again in 1661, with the dialogue recast into riming couplets in the French fashion. Movable painted scenery was now introduced from France, and actresses took ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... tone or tune is as important to us as the spoken word for the expression of anger, sorrow, joy and wonder. Spencer's idea that, through a development of these emotional modulations of voice, man found music, appealed to me. Why should it not do, I thought to myself, to act a drama in a kind of recitative based on this idea. The Kathakas[47] of our country attempt this to some extent, for they frequently break into a chant which, however, stops short of full melodic form. As blank verse is more elastic than rhymed, so ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... a terribly long-winded recitative by Beethoven and an air with a good deal of "Che faro" in it. I do not mind this, and if it had been "Che faro" absolutely I should, I daresay, have liked it better. I never want to hear it again and my orchestra should ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... same boat," resumed the Doctor in the deep tones which somehow sounded like bass recitative; "the Rector, Colonel Russell, and I—not to say Carey himself. We all wished to increase our incomes with as little trouble and risk as possible—so it seemed then, but if the bank comes to smash, all the old Redcross gentle-folks, ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler |
