Omnibus hoc vitium est cantoribus, inter amicos / Ut nunquam inducant animum cantare rogati, / Injussi nunquam desistant=--This is a general fault of all singers, that among their friends they never make up their minds to sing, however pressed; but when no one asks them, they will never leave off.
Let the singing singers With vocal voices, most vociferous, In sweet vociferation out-vociferize Even sound itself.
She was tall and stout with a firm jaw and a glossy platinum braid sitting on each shoulder. She was wearing denim overalls, a blue T-shirt, and lots of rings and gold bangle bracelets. I imagined her with one of those horned helmets that cartoon opera singers always wear. Nona’s very own Warrior Princess.
All I can think of is a platter of organic PRUNE CRISPS being trampled by an army of swarthy, Italian LOUNGE SINGERS ...
Q: What do you call a principal female opera singer whose high C is lower than those of other principal female opera singers? A: A deep C diva.
How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers.
Well, we're big rock singers, we've got golden fingers, And we're loved everywhere we go. We sing about beauty, and we sing about truth, At ten thousand dollars a show. We take all kind of pills to give us all kind of thrills, But the thrill we've never known, Is the thrill that'll get'cha, when you get your picture, On the cover of the Rolling Stone. I got a freaky old lady, name of Cole King Katie, Who embroiders on my jeans. I got my poor old gray-haired daddy, Drivin' my limousine. Now it's all designed, to blow our minds, But our minds won't be really be blown; Like the blow that'll get'cha, when you get your picture, On the cover of the Rolling Stone. We got a lot of little, teen-aged, blue-eyed groupies, Who'll do anything we say. We got a genuine Indian guru, that's teachin' us a better way. We got all the friends that money can buy, So we never have to be alone. And we keep gettin' richer, but we can't get our picture, On the cover of the Rolling Stone. -- Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show [As a note, they eventually DID make the cover of RS. Ed.]
If *I* had a hammer, there'd be no more folk singers.
50:20. And the singers lifted up their voices, and in the great house the sound of sweet melody was increased.
On the morning of the twenty-fifth Pierre was leaving Mozhaysk. At the descent of the high steep hill, down which a winding road led out of the town past the cathedral on the right, where a service was being held and the bells were ringing, Pierre got out of his vehicle and proceeded on foot. Behind him a cavalry regiment was coming down the hill preceded by its singers. Coming up toward him was a train of carts carrying men who had been wounded in the engagement the day before. The peasant drivers, shouting and lashing their horses, kept crossing from side to side. The carts, in each of which three or four wounded soldiers were lying or sitting, jolted over the stones that had been thrown on the steep incline to make it something like a road. The wounded, bandaged with rags, with pale cheeks, compressed lips, and knitted brows, held on to the sides of the carts as they were jolted against one another. Almost all of them stared with naive, childlike curiosity at Pierre's white hat and green swallow-tail coat.
29:28. And all the multitude adored, and the singers, and the trumpeters, were in their office till the holocaust was finished.
10:12. And the king made of the thyine trees the rails of the house of the Lord, and of the king's house: and citterns and harps for singers: there were no such thyine trees as these brought nor seen unto this day.)
At the very instant he did this and uttered those words, Pierre felt that the question of his wife's guilt which had been tormenting him the whole day was finally and indubitably answered in the affirmative. He hated her and was forever sundered from her. Despite Denisov's request that he would take no part in the matter, Rostov agreed to be Dolokhov's second, and after dinner he discussed the arrangements for the duel with Nesvitski, Bezukhov's second. Pierre went home, but Rostov with Dolokhov and Denisov stayed on at the club till late, listening to the gypsies and other singers.
He duly summoned me to his presence in the evening. I had prepared an occupation for him; for I was determined not to spend the whole time in a _tete-a-tete_ conversation. I remembered his fine voice; I knew he liked to sing--good singers generally do. I was no vocalist myself, and, in his fastidious judgment, no musician, either; but I delighted in listening when the performance was good. No sooner had twilight, that hour of romance, began to lower her blue and starry banner over the lattice, than I rose, opened the piano, and entreated him, for the love of heaven, to give me a song. He said I was a capricious witch, and that he would rather sing another time; but I averred that no time was like the present.
Owing to the very judicious plan of dividing the two acts of the opera with a ballet, the pauses between the performances are very short, the singers in the opera having time to repose themselves and change their costume, when necessary, while the dancers are executing their pirouettes and exhibiting their graceful steps. The overture to the second act began; and, at the first sound of the leader's bow across his violin, Franz observed the sleeper slowly arise and approach the Greek girl, who turned around to say a few words to him, and then, leaning forward again on the railing of her box, she became as absorbed as before in what was going on. The countenance of the person who had addressed her remained so completely in the shade, that, though Franz tried his utmost, he could not distinguish a single feature. The curtain rose, and the attention of Franz was attracted by the actors; and his eyes turned from the box containing the Greek girl and her strange companion to watch the business of the stage.
The militiamen, both those who had been in the village and those who had been at work on the battery, threw down their spades and ran to meet the church procession. Following the battalion that marched along the dusty road came priests in their vestments--one little old man in a hood with attendants and singers. Behind them soldiers and officers bore a large, dark-faced icon with an embossed metal cover. This was the icon that had been brought from Smolensk and had since accompanied the army. Behind, before, and on both sides, crowds of militiamen with bared heads walked, ran, and bowed to the ground.
11:14. She saw the king standing upon a tribunal, as the manner was, and the singers, and the trumpets near him, and all the people of the land rejoicing, and sounding the trumpets: and she rent her garments, and cried: A conspiracy, a conspiracy.
23:5. Moreover four thousand were porters: and as many singers singing to the Lord with the instruments, which he had made to sing with.
5:14. The ancients have ceased from the gates: the young men from the choir of the singers.
'I'd rather finish my tea,' said the Hatter, with an anxious look at the Queen, who was reading the list of singers.
All this time the Queen had never left off staring at the Hatter, and, just as the Dormouse crossed the court, she said to one of the officers of the court, 'Bring me the list of the singers in the last concert!' on which the wretched Hatter trembled so, that he shook both his shoes off.
15:27. And David was clothed with a robe of fine linen, and all the Levites that carried the ark, and the singing men, and Chonenias the ruler of the prophecy among the singers: and David also had on him an ephod of linen.
47:11. And he set singers before the altar, and by their voices he made sweet melody.
7:24. We give you also to understand concerning all the priests, and the Levites, and the singers, and the porters, and the Nathinites, and ministers of the house of this God, that you have no authority to impose toll or tribute, or custom upon them.
The right thing now was, if not to retire from the service, at any rate to go home on leave. Why he had to go he did not know; but after his after-dinner nap he gave orders to saddle Mars, an extremely vicious gray stallion that had not been ridden for a long time, and when he returned with the horse all in a lather, he informed Lavrushka (Denisov's servant who had remained with him) and his comrades who turned up in the evening that he was applying for leave and was going home. Difficult and strange as it was for him to reflect that he would go away without having heard from the staff--and this interested him extremely--whether he was promoted to a captaincy or would receive the Order of St. Anne for the last maneuvers; strange as it was to think that he would go away without having sold his three roans to the Polish Count Golukhovski, who was bargaining for the horses Rostov had betted he would sell for two thousand rubles; incomprehensible as it seemed that the ball the hussars were giving in honor of the Polish Mademoiselle Przazdziecka (out of rivalry to the uhlans who had given one in honor of their Polish Mademoiselle Borzozowska) would take place without him--he knew he must go away from this good, bright world to somewhere where everything was stupid and confused. A week later he obtained his leave. His hussar comrades--not only those of his own regiment, but the whole brigade--gave Rostov a dinner to which the subscription was fifteen rubles a head, and at which there were two bands and two choirs of singers. Rostov danced the Trepak with Major Basov; the tipsy officers tossed, embraced, and dropped Rostov; the soldiers of the third squadron tossed him too, and shouted "hurrah!" and then they put him in his sleigh and escorted him as far as the first post station.
"They've put two regiments as outposts, and they're having such a spree there, it's awful! Two bands and three sets of singers!"
Having jerked out these last words as soldiers do and waved his arms as if flinging something to the ground, the drummer--a lean, handsome soldier of forty--looked sternly at the singers and screwed up his eyes. Then having satisfied himself that all eyes were fixed on him, he raised both arms as if carefully lifting some invisible but precious object above his head and, holding it there for some seconds, suddenly flung it down and began:
12:45. For in the days of David and Asaph from the beginning there were chief singers appointed, to praise with canticles, and give thanks to God.
"Why, you know, my dear fellow, when one has been accustomed to Malibran and Sontag, such singers as these don't make the same impression on you they perhaps do on others."
15:19. Now the singers, Heman, Asaph, and Ethan, sounded with cymbals of brass.
"In the meadows... in the meadows!" he heard, accompanied by whistling and the sound of a torban, drowned every now and then by shouts. These sounds made his spirits rise, but at the same time he was afraid that he would be blamed for not having executed sooner the important order entrusted to him. It was already past eight o'clock. He dismounted and went up into the porch of a large country house which had remained intact between the Russian and French forces. In the refreshment room and the hall, footmen were bustling about with wine and viands. Groups of singers stood outside the windows. The officer was admitted and immediately saw all the chief generals of the army together, and among them Ermolov's big imposing figure. They all had their coats unbuttoned and were standing in a semicircle with flushed and animated faces, laughing loudly. In the middle of the room a short handsome general with a red face was dancing the trepak with much spirit and agility.
He said; they, opening, gave the litter way. Arrived within the royal house, they stretch'd The breathless Hector on a sumptuous bed, And singers placed beside him, who should chant The strain funereal; they with many a groan The dirge began, and still, at every close, The female train with many a groan replied. Then, in the midst, Andromache white-arm'd Between her palms the dreadful Hector's head Pressing, her lamentation thus began. My hero! thou hast fallen in prime of life, Me leaving here desolate, and the fruit Of our ill-fated loves, a helpless child, Whom grown to manhood I despair to see. For ere that day arrive, down from her height Precipitated shall this city fall, Since thou hast perish'd once her sure defence, Faithful protector of her spotless wives, And all their little ones. Those wives shall soon In Grecian barks capacious hence be borne, And I among the rest. But thee, my child! Either thy fate shall with thy mother send Captive into a land where thou shalt serve In sordid drudgery some cruel lord, Or haply some Achaian here, thy hand Seizing, shall hurl thee from a turret-top To a sad death, avenging brother, son, Or father by the hands of Hector slain; For he made many a Grecian bite the ground. Thy father, boy, bore never into fight A milky mind, and for that self-same cause Is now bewail'd in every house of Troy. Sorrow unutterable thou hast caused Thy parents, Hector! but to me hast left Largest bequest of misery, to whom, Dying, thou neither didst thy arms extend Forth from thy bed, nor gavest me precious word To be remember'd day and night with tears.
35:15. And the singers the sons of Asaph stood in their order, according to the commandment of David, and Asaph, and Heman, and Idithun, the prophets of the king: and the porters kept guard at every gate, so as not to depart one moment from their service, and therefore their brethren the Levites prepared meats for them.
67:26. Princes went before joined with singers, in the midst of young damsels playing on timbrels.
"Ah, my boy, my head's in a whirl!" said the old man with a smile, as if he felt a little confused before his son. "Now, if you would only help a bit! I must have singers too. I shall have my own orchestra, but shouldn't we get the gypsy singers as well? You military men like that sort of thing."
The soldier with the swollen cheek looked angrily at the cavalry singers.
And from the different ranks some twenty men ran to the front. A drummer, their leader, turned round facing the singers, and flourishing his arm, began a long-drawn-out soldiers' song, commencing with the words: "Morning dawned, the sun was rising," and concluding: "On then, brothers, on to glory, led by Father Kamenski." This song had been composed in the Turkish campaign and now being sung in Austria, the only change being that the words "Father Kamenski" were replaced by "Father Kutuzov."
12:41. And Maasia, and Semeia, and Eleazar, and Azzi, and Johanan, and Melchia, and Elam, and Ezer. And the singers sung loud, and Jezraia was their overseer:
32:18. But he answered: It is not the cry of men encouraging to fight, nor the shout of men compelling to flee: but I hear the voice of singers.
Pierre's coachman shouted angrily at the convoy of wounded to keep to one side of the road. The cavalry regiment, as it descended the hill with its singers, surrounded Pierre's carriage and blocked the road. Pierre stopped, being pressed against the side of the cutting in which the road ran. The sunshine from behind the hill did not penetrate into the cutting and there it was cold and damp, but above Pierre's head was the bright August sunshine and the bells sounded merrily. One of the carts with wounded stopped by the side of the road close to Pierre. The driver in his bast shoes ran panting up to it, placed a stone under one of its tireless hind wheels, and began arranging the breech-band on his little horse.
Pierre was so deep in thought that he did not hear the question. He was looking now at the cavalry regiment that had met the convoy of wounded, now at the cart by which he was standing, in which two wounded men were sitting and one was lying. One of those sitting up in the cart had probably been wounded in the cheek. His whole head was wrapped in rags and one cheek was swollen to the size of a baby's head. His nose and mouth were twisted to one side. This soldier was looking at the cathedral and crossing himself. Another, a young lad, a fair-haired recruit as white as though there was no blood in his thin face, looked at Pierre kindly, with a fixed smile. The third lay prone so that his face was not visible. The cavalry singers were passing close by:
15:16. And David spoke to the chiefs of the Levites, to appoint some of their brethren to be singers with musical instruments, to wit, on psalteries, and harps, and cymbals, that the joyful noise might resound on high.
Echternach is famous, however, in particular for the dancing procession held on Whit-Tuesday every year. The origin of this festival is uncertain, but it dates at least from the 13th century and was probably instituted during an outbreak of cholera. Nowadays it is an occasion of pilgrimage, among Germans and Belgians as well as Luxemburgers, for all sick persons, but especially for the epileptic and those suffering from St Vitus' dance. The ceremony is interesting, and the Roman Catholic Church lends all its ritual to make it more imposing. The archbishop of Trier attends to represent Germany, and the bishop of Luxemburg figures for the grand duchy. There is a religious ceremony on the Prussian side of the bridge over the Sûre, and when it is over the congregation cross into the duchy to join the procession, partly religious, partly popular, through the streets of the town. The religious procession, carrying cross and banners and attended by three hundred singers, comes first, chanting St Willibrord's hymn. Next comes a band of miscellaneous instruments playing as a rule the old German air "Adam had seven sons," and then follow the dancers. Many of these are young and full of life and health and dance for amusement, but many others are old or feeble and dance in the hope of recovery or of escaping from some trouble, but on all alike the conditions of the dance are incumbent. There are three steps forward and two back; five steps are thus taken to make one in advance. This becomes especially trying at the flight of steps mounting to the little church where the procession ends in front of the shrine of the great saint. There are sixty steps, but it takes three hundred to reach the top for the final time. It is said that those who fall from age or weariness have to be dragged out of the way by onlookers or they would be trampled to death by the succeeding waves of dancers. The procession, although it covers a distance of less than a mile, is said to take as much as five hours in its accomplishment. In olden days the abbey was the goal of the procession, and King William I. of the Netherlands--great-grandfather of Queen Wilhelmina--changed the day from Tuesday to Sunday so that a working day should not be lost. This reform did not answer, and the ancient order was restored. Some critics see in the dancing procession of Echternach merely the survival of the spring dance of the heathen races, but at any rate it invests the little town with an interest and importance that would otherwise be lacking. Entry: ECHTERNACH
HEZEKIAH (Heb. for "[my] strength is [of] Yah"), in the Bible son of Ahaz, one of the greatest of the kings of Judah. He flourished at the end of the 8th and beginning of the 7th century B.C., when Palestine passed through one of the most eventful periods of its history. There is much that is uncertain in his reign, and with the exception of the great crisis of 701 B.C. its chronology has not been unanimously fixed. Whether he came to the throne before or after the fall of Samaria (722-721 B.C.) is disputed,[1] nor is it clear what share Judah took in the Assyrian conflicts down to 701.[2] Shortly before this date the whole of western Asia was in a ferment; Sargon had died and Sennacherib had come to the throne (in 705); vassal kings plotted to recover their independence and Assyrian puppets were removed by their opponents. Judah was in touch with a general rising in S.W. Palestine, in which Ekron, Lachish, Ascalon (Ashkelon) and other towns of the Philistines were supported by the kings of Musri and Meluhha.[3] Sennacherib completely routed them at Eltekeh (a Danite city), and thence turned against Hezekiah, who had been in league with Ekron and had imprisoned its king Padi, an Assyrian vassal. In this invasion of Judah the Assyrian claims entire success; 46 towns of Judah were captured, 200,150 men and many herds of cattle were carried off among the spoil, and Jerusalem itself was closely invested. Hezekiah was imprisoned "like a bird in a cage"[4]--to quote Sennacherib, and the Urbi (Arabian?) troops in Jerusalem laid down their arms. Thirty talents of gold, eight hundred of silver, precious stones, couches and seats of ivory--"all kinds of valuable treasure",--the ladies of the court, male and female attendants (perhaps "singers") were carried away to Nineveh. Here the Assyrian record ends somewhat abruptly, for, in the meanwhile, Babylonia had again revolted (700 B.C.) and Sennacherib's presence was urgently needed nearer home. Entry: HEZEKIAH
ARCADELT, or ARCHADELT, JACOB (c. 1514-c. 1556), a Netherlands composer, of the early part of the Golden Age. In 1539 he left a position at Florence to teach the choristers of St Peter's, Rome, and became one of the papal singers in 1540. He was a prolific church composer, but the works published in his Italian time consist entirely of madrigals, five books of which, published at Venice, probably gave a great stimulus to the beginnings of the Venetian school of composition. In 1555 he left Italy and entered the service of Cardinal Charles of Lorraine, duke of Guise, and after this published three volumes of masses, besides contributing motets to various collections. The _Ave Maria_, ascribed to him and transcribed as a pianoforte piece by Liszt, does not seem to be traced to an earlier source than its edition by Sir Henry Bishop, which has possibly the same kind of origin in Arcadelt as the hymn tune "Palestrina" has in the delicate and subtle _Gloria_ of Palestrina's _Magnificat Quinti Toni_, the fifth in his first _Book of Magnificats_. Entry: ARCADELT
Meanwhile the political side of the "Young German" movement, which the German Bund aimed at stamping out, gained rapidly in importance under the influence of the unsettled political conditions between the revolutions of 1830 and 1848. The early 'forties were in German literature marked by an extraordinary outburst of political poetry, which may be aptly compared with the national and patriotic lyric evoked by the year 1813. The principles which triumphed in France at the revolution of 1848 were, to a great extent, fought out by the German singers of 1841 and 1842. Begun by mediocre talents like N. Becker (1809-1845) and R.E. Prutz (1816-1872), the movement found a vigorous champion in Georg Herwegh (1817-1875), who in his turn succeeded in winning Ferdinand Freiligrath (1810-1876) for the revolutionary cause. Others joined in the cry for freedom--F. Dingelstedt (1814-1881), A.H. Hoffmann von Fallersleben (1798-1874), and a number of Austrians, who had even more reason for rebellion and discontent than the north Germans. But the best Austrian political poetry, the _Spaziergänge eines Wiener Poeten_, 1831, by "Anastasius Grün" (Graf A.A. von Auersperg, 1806-1876), belonged to a decade earlier. The political lyric culminated in and ended with the year 1848; the revolutionists of the 'forties were, if not appeased, at least silenced by the revolution which in their eyes had effected so little. If Freiligrath be excepted, the chief lyric poets of this epoch stood aside from the revolutionary movement; even E. Geibel (1815-1884), the representative poet of the succeeding age, was only temporarily interested in the political movement, and his best work is of a purely lyric character. M. von Strachwitz's (1822-1847) promising talent did not flourish in the political atmosphere; Annette von Droste-Hülshoff (1797-1848), and the Austrian, Nikolaus Lenau (1802-1850), both stand far removed from the world of politics; they are imbued with that pessimistic resignation which is, more or less, characteristic of all German literature between 1850 and 1870. Entry: VI