Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 23, 2025
On a fine afternoon it is said that it was no uncommon sight to see the chevalier, all togged up in his bravest court costume, sword and all, sitting at his harpsichord, playing ravishing music. This was out in the pretty little park back of the château, and the duchess would sit at Gluck's side and pour out champagne for him.
To finish our example with the preceding articles we must at length suppose, that our fair performer falls asleep over her harpsichord; and thus by the suspension of volition, and the exclusion of external stimuli, she dissevers the trains and circles of her musical exertions.
In a music room, which is really the living room of a house, with viols hanging on the walls, a chamber-organ in one corner, a harpsichord in another, a clavichord laid across the arms of a chair, this music seems to carry one out of the world, and shut one in upon a house of dreams, full of intimate and ghostly voices.
He would like to have a harpsichord; even if he did not play on it much, it would be a beautiful, characteristic piece of furniture.... And it would be a good idea to ask Mr. Innes to bring all his queer instruments to Berkeley Square, and give a concert to-morrow night after his dinner-party.
Soon afterward the king allowed Handel to appear before him to play the harpsichord accompaniments to some sonatas executed by Geminiani, a celebrated Italian violinist, and finally peace was made between them, Handel being appointed music-master to the royal children, and receiving an additional pension of £200.
He was just concluding an air of Stradella's, in which the melody and instrumentation alike were perfect, and in which a simple yet stately grandeur alternated with the most touching plaintiveness, when he became aware that some one near to him was sobbing violently. It was not Marguerite, that was certain, though a tear did just then drop on the hand that touched the harpsichord so charmingly.
"And you, my dear, are to play Polly." "So Mr. Gay says, but I don't know for certain." "Have you read the play?" "No, I've only learned my songs." "And the duet with me?" "I'm bubbled." "No. I know nothing about that." "It's terribly hard, but there's plenty of time to get it by heart. I'm dreadfully nervous though. We have to sing it without any instruments, not even a harpsichord.
So the Schola devoted itself more and more as was moreover its right and duty to the French music of the past, and filled its concert programmes with French works of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with Marc Antoine Charpentier, Du Mont, Leclair, Clérambault, Couperin, and the French primitive composers for the organ, the harpsichord, and the violin; and with the works of dramatic composers, especially of the great Rameau, who, after a period of complete oblivion, suddenly benefited by this excessive reaction, to the detriment of Gluck, whom the young critics, following M. Debussy's example, severely abused.
The composer had died some months earlier, but his minute stage directions were accurately observed. Behind the scenes was placed an orchestra comprising a double lyre, a harpsichord, a large guitar and two flutes, to which was added a violin for the leading part in the ritornels, that is, instrumental preludes and interludes.
But now it was not near nine, and Caterina must sit down to the harpsichord and sing Sir Christopher's favourite airs from Gluck's 'Orfeo', an opera which, for the happiness of that generation, was then to be heard on the London stage.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking