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MUSIC
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[ Also see Art Ballads Composers Harmony Musicians Noise Opera Poetry Singing Songs Sound Voice ]

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
  Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
    Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night
      Become the touches of sweet harmony.
        Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
          Is thick inlaid with patens of bright gold.
            There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
              But in his motion like an angel sings,
                Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
                  Such harmony is in immortal souls,
                    But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
                      Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
      - William Shakespeare,
        The Merchant of Venice (Lorenzo at V, i)

The man that hath no music in himself,
  Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
    Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
      The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
        And his affections dark as Erebus.
      - William Shakespeare,
        The Merchant of Venice (Lorenzo at V, i)

Therefore the poet
  Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;
    Since naught so stockish, hard, and full of rage
      But music for the time doth change his nature.
      - William Shakespeare,
        The Merchant of Venice (Lorenzo at V, i)

Preposterous ass, that never read so far
  To know the cause why music was ordained!
    Was it not to refresh the mind of man
      After his studies or his usual pain?
      - William Shakespeare,
        The Taming of the Shrew
         (Lucentio at III, i)

Wilt thou have music? Hark, Apollo plays,
  And twenty caged nightingales do sing.
      - William Shakespeare,
        The Taming of the Shrew
         (Lord at induction, ii)

Sitting on a bank,
  Weeping again the King my father's wrack,
    This music crept by me upon the waters,
      Allaying both their fury and my passion
        With its sweet air.
      - William Shakespeare, The Tempest
         (Ferdinand at I, ii)

Music do I hear?
  Ha--ha--keep time! How sour sweet music is
    When time is broke and no proportion kept!
      - William Shakespeare,
        The Tragedy of King Richard the Second
         (King Richard at V, v)

If music be the food of love, play on,
  Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
    The appetite may sicken, and so die.
      That strain again. It had a dying fall;
        O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound
          That breaths upon a bank of violets,
            Stealing and giving odor.
      - William Shakespeare,
        Twelfth Night, or, What You Will
         (Duke at I, i)

Nothing soothes me more after a long and maddening course of pianoforte recitals than to sit and have my teeth drilled.
      - George Bernard Shaw

Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned.
      - George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

Music, where soft voices die,
  Vibrates in the memory.
      - Percy Bysshe Shelley

The lines of poetry, the periods of prose, and even the texts of Scripture most frequently recollected and quoted, are those which are felt to be pre-eminently, musical.
      - William Shenstone

Song like a rose should be;
  Each rhyme a petal sweet;
    For fragrance, melody,
      That when her lips repeat
        The words, her heart may know
          What secret makes them so.
            Love, only Love.
      - Frank Dempster Sherman,
        Song, in Lyrics for a Lute

It is a bird-flight of the soul, when the heart declares itself in song. The affections that clothe themselves with wings are passions that have been subdued to virtues.
      - William Gilmore Simms

Musick! soft charm of heav'n and earth,
  When didst thou borrow thy auspicious birth?
    Or art thou of eternal date,
      Sir to thyself, thyself as old as Fate.
      - Edmund Neale Smith,
        Ode in Praise of Musick

All musical people seem to be happy. It is the engrossing pursuit,--almost the only innocent and unpunished passion.
      - Sydney Smith

See to their desks Apollo's sons repair,
  Swift rides the rosin o'er the horse's hair!
    In unison their various tones to tune,
      Murmurs the hautboy, growls the hoarse bassoon;
        In soft vibration sighs the whispering lute,
          Tang goes the harpischord, too-too flute,
            Brays the loud trumpet, squeaks the fiddle sharp,
              Winds the French-horn, and twangs the tingling harp;
                Till, like great Jove, the leader, figuring in,
                  Attunes to order the chaotic din.
      - Horace Smith and James Smith,
        Rejected Addresses--The Theatre (l. 20)

So dischord ofte in musick makes the sweeter lay.
      - Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene
         (bk. III, canto II, st. 15)

Music revives the recollections it would appease.
      - Madame de Stael (Baronne Anne Louise Germaine de Stael-Holstein),
        Corinne (bk. IX, ch. II)

Music waves eternal wands,--
  Enchantress of the souls of mortals!
      - Edmund Clarence Stedman

In part of Lord Kames' Elements of Criticism, he says that "music improves the relish of a banquet." That I deny,--any more than painting might do. They may both be additional pleasures, as well as conversation is, but are perfectly distinct notices; and cannot, with the least propriety, be said to mix or blend with the repast, as none of them serve to raise the flavor of the wine, the sauce, the meat, or help to quicken appetite. But music and painting both add a spirit to devotion, and elevate the ardor.
      - Laurence Sterne

The gauger walked with willing foot,
  And aye the gauger played the flute;
    And what should Master Gauger play
      But "Over the Hills and Far Away".
      - Robert Louis Stevenson, Underwoods,
        "A Song of the Road"

Where, painting is weakest,--namely, in the expression of the highest moral and spiritual ideas,--there music is sublimely strong.
      - Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe

Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.
      - Igor Stravinsky

I am terrified at the thought that so much hideous and bad music will be put on records forever.
      - Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan


Displaying page 11 of 13 for this topic:   << Prev  Next >>  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 [11] 12 13

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Last Revised: 2018 December 9




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