Tenor (voice)

“ The tenor of the chapter is such as almost to prove an ironical intention in whoever selected it. "Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high. ”

“ 'The tenor's voice is spoilt by affectation, And for the bass, the beast can only bellow; In fact, he had no singing education, An ignorant, noteless, timeless, tuneless fellow; ”

“ The male voice of the highest pitch, called also counter-tenor, i.e. contra, or against the tenor. In the 16th and early part of the 17th centuries the compass of the alto voice was limited to the notes admissible on the stave which has the C clef on its third line ”

“ For them the soprano or tenor is always in demand. Others prefer deep voices and admire altos and basses. I have stood beside a friend at a concert where a first class artist was pouring forth a baritone song with the most delicate and artistic tone and finish, and had my friend turn to me and say: "What on earth do people find in that man's voice to pay money to hear?" ”

“ The several tenors, distributed all round me a little too lavishly perhaps for the nicer harmonies of strict musical taste, being—as I suppose, now, in the light of a larger experience—ambitious and fitful, as is the proverbial wont of tenors, and running jealously ever and anon into a dishonest falsetto, as if with a professional wish to attract attention,—these several tenor-snorers were, I felt sure, what the world might very well suffer a great many ambitious, fitful, and dishonest tenors{83} always to be, namely, among the common rank and file of cooks and waiters. ”

“ It is a common saying that the public speaker who can draw both smiles and tears from his audience is the highest type of orator. The same is true of the reciter. If you would awaken pathetic emotions in the hearts of your hearers, you must have recitations suited to this purpose, tender in sentiment and full of feeling. A charming collection of such pieces is here furnished.
Put yourself fully into the spirit of each selection. Do not deliver a pathetic recitation in a cold, unfeeling manner. Look well to the tones of your voice and facial expression. ”

“ You are of course aware that every Man has two mouths or voices—as well as two eyes—a bass at one and a tenor at the other of his extremities. I should not mention this, but that I have been unable to distinguish your tenor in the course of our conversation. ”

“ The Tenor is the united voices of the poets and philosophers, of the reformers and statesmen—yes, and of all that growing host who have scaled to the peak of some new Sinai, that the people may not forget the Almighty’s will concerning them. ”

“ I got the man an engagement to sing for a week in a Methodist meeting-house, and before the week was out he was decided to be an article used in the service of religion, and was returned to me free of duty, and cursing the head off of every officer in the revenue service. The end of it was that my tenor claimed that I had broken my contract by setting him to sing in a church, and he sued me for damages, and got them too. ”

“ I wondered when the tenor, whom I was longing to hear, would come on the program. He only came once, and that was when he sang a duet with his Majesty, a duet which the King had had arranged from the Jacobite song called "Charlie is my Darling."
The tenor, whose English was not his strong point, sang with great pathos "Cha-r-r-r-r-r-r-lie es my tarling," as if a love-sick maiden were calling her lover. When the King sings he throws his whole soul into the music. ”

“ For the Tenor's manners were as attractive as his appearance, and his ways were not at all mysterious when considered apart from the points already indicated, but, on the contrary, simple in the extreme: the ways of one who is kindly courteous and considerate on all occasions, paying proper respect to every man, and also rigorously exacting from each the respect that was due to himself. ”

“ To an orator what is so necessary as a good voice? Yet nobody who wishes to speak well, shall ever have my advice to be a slave to his voice, like the Greeks and the tragedians, who for many years together declaim in their seats, and every day before they pronounce a word, in their beds gradually raise their voice, and when they have done pleading sit down and shift, and, as it were, make it go through a scale, from the sharpest to the fullest accent. ”

“ Whatever the Church owns—she holds it in Free and perpetual alms, unsubject to One earthly sceptre. LEICESTER. Nay, but hear thy judgment. The King and all his barons— BECKET. Judgment! Barons! Who but the bridegroom dares to judge the bride, Or he the bridegroom may appoint? Not he That is not of the house, but from the street Stain'd with the mire thereof. I had been so true To Henry and mine office that the King Would throne me in the great Archbishoprick: And I, that knew mine own infirmity, For the King's pleasure rather than God's cause Took it upon me—err'd thro' love of him. ”

“ One morning last summer, after the tenor had been playing tricks all Spring on the rest of the choir, the soprano brought a chunk of shoemaker's wax to church. The tenor was arrayed like Solomon, in all his glory, with white pants, and a Seymour coat. The tenor got up to see who the girl was who came in with the old lady, and while he was up the soprano put the shoemakers' wax on the chair, and the tenor sat down on it. They all saw it, and they waited for the result. ”

“ There is no room to move on a pedestal. Now, with you alone of all men, not excepting Diavolo, I almost think I have been on an equal footing; and it has been to me like the free use of his limbs to a prisoner after long confinement with chains." The expression which the Tenor's abrupt question had called into her countenance passed off as she spoke, and with it the impression it had made upon the Tenor. ”

“ They lied not then, who sware, and through their vows
The King prevailing made his realm:--I say,
Swear to me thou wilt love me even when old,
Gray-haired, and past desire, and in despair.'
Then Tristram, pacing moodily up and down,
'Vows! did you keep the vow you made to Mark
More than I mine? Lied, say ye? Nay, but learnt,
The vow that binds too strictly snaps itself--
My knighthood taught me this--ay, being snapt--
We run more counter to the soul thereof
Than had we never sworn. I swear no more. ”

“ He worked in his garden early and late, cultivating the succulent roots which the latter loved, the fruits and the vegetables, and, last, but not least, the flowers, for he never could feed without flowers, be said, and the Tenor ministered to this exaction with the rest. "He is dainty because he is delicate," the Tenor thought, always excusing him. "When he is older and stronger he will grow out of all these epicurean niceties of taste, I must make him dig, too, and fence, and row. ”

“ For he who speaks in such a manner as to please the people, must inevitably receive the approbation of the learned. As to the truth and propriety of what I hear, I am indeed to judge of this for myself, as well as I am able: but the general merit of an Orator must and will be decided by the effects which his eloquence produces. ”

“ Was an oath needed, when we had given ourselves to one another with such a kiss? An oath is a lip-promise which can be, and is, often forgotten. Such a kiss follows you to the grave.
"Whilst our lips clung together, his hand slowly, imperceptibly, unbuttoned my trousers, and stealthily slipped within the aperture, turning every obstacle in its way instinctively aside, then it lay hold of my hard, stiff, and aching phallus which was glowing like a burning coal. ”

“ It is no wonder then that, we hear of chiefs and orators of old haranguing for hours, for, even today, the undivided, keen attention bestowed on an orator, the unflagging interest evinced, the genuine and sympathetic appreciation his more ambitious flights evoke, the liberal applause exhorted by periods, when denunciation, scorn, or other strong mood that may possess the speaker is expressed—periods at which he has been aroused to withering, or flaming invective—all make us vividly realize the powerful oratory of their predecessors. ”

“ But, on the other hand, it is doubtful whether all that electric eloquence by which the hearer is caught up as by a whirlwind and swept onward at the will of the orator, is not now a tradition in the speeches of the orator. The glow of feeling, the rush of rhetoric, the fiery burst of passionate power--the overwhelming impulse which makes senates adjourn and men spring to arms--were they in the orator or in the fascinated youth of those who remember the sermon in Brattle Street, the apostrophe to Lafayette? ”

“ These objects of worship are not always worthy of the adoration they inspire, but this does not matter greatly, since their worshippers seldom find it out. There is something fine in absolute loyalty to an ideal, even if the ideal is far from reality. "The Tenor" is the story of a famous singer and two of his devoted admirers.
[Pg 41]
THE TENOR [1] BY H. C. Bunner
It was a dim, quiet room in an old-fashioned New York house, with windows opening upon a garden that was trim and attractive, even in its wintry days—for the rose-bushes were all bundled up in straw ulsters. ”

“ But an Orator who is expected not only to merit the approbation, but to excite the wonder, the acclamations, and the plaudits of those who hear him, must excel in every part of Eloquence, and be so thoroughly accomplished, that it would be a disgrace to him that any thing should be either seen or heard with greater pleasure than himself. ”

“ But as I am not seeking a pupil to instruct, but an Orator who is to be the model of his profession, he must have the preference who can always discern what is proper and becoming. For Eloquence should, above all, things, have that kind of discretion which makes her a perfect mistress of time and character: because we are not to speak upon every occasion, or before every audience, or against every opponent, or in defence of every client, and to every Judge, in the same invariable manner. ”

“ In a speech to an assembly that acts by discretion, or to an absolute prince who has life and death in his hands, it is the business of the speaker, by flattering insinuations, to steal into the affections of his judges, and, by a hurricane of tropes and impetuous words, to animate their passions in his behalf: But a speech of this sort would be waste language in Westminster-Hall, and the author of it would be thought fit for Moorfields, where the imagination has more scope. ”

“ I managed to say.
"What vows, sir?"
"Such as engage our honour. I want you to wife, Penelope Grant."
"Dear lad! What are you saying? You should travel widely and at leisure before you commit your honour to an unconsidered vow. I desire that you first see great cities, other countries, other women—of your own caste.... And then ... if you return ... and are still of the same mind ... concerning me...."
"But you? There are other men in the world. ”

“ Fourscore, I hope, my lord.
2nd Noble. And fivescore, I.
3rd Noble. But 'tis my hope, my lord, you shall ne'er die.
Lus. Give me thy hand; these others I rebuke:
He that hopes so is fittest for a duke:
Thou shalt sit next me; take your places, lords;
We're ready now for sports; let 'em set on:
You thing! we shall forget you quite anon!
3rd Noble. I hear 'em coming, my lord.
Enter the Masque of revengers: Vendice and Hippolito, with two Lords.
Lus. Ah, 'tis well!
Brothers and bastard, you dance next in hell! ”

“ To be proclaimed an orator, and an ascending orator, in such a sonorous tongue, in the face of a world waiting for orators, stirred one's blood like the herald's trumpet when the lists are thrown open. ”

“ I think I am a tenor, but after taking lessons continuously for six years from sixteen different masters I am still in doubt, and what is more, I am not quite certain whether I want to be. Did not somebody once say that a tenor was not a man but a disease? ”

“ Our people hear some great orators as they witness a play. The delight of taste, even intellectual gratification, caused by what is well said, is one thing. Conviction is quite another. The printing-press and the reporter, the consultation in the jury-room, the reflection in the Judge's chamber, the delay of the election to a day long after the speech, are protections against the mischief of mere oratory, which the ancients did not enjoy.
I heard a debate in the House of Commons in 1860, on the paper duties, in which Lord John Russell, Palmerston, Gladstone, and John Bright took part. ”

“ That's a delicate Latin lay Of Walter Map: the lady holds the cleric Lovelier than any soldier, his poor tonsure A crown of Empire. Will you have it again? (Offering the cross. He dashes it down.) St. Cupid, that is too irreverent. Then mine once more. (Puts it on.) Your cleric hath your lady. Nay, what uncomely faces, could he see you! Foam at the mouth because King Thomas, lord Not only of your vassals but amours, Thro' chastest honour of the Decalogue Hath used the full authority of his Church To put her into Godstow nunnery. HENRY. To put her into Godstow nunnery! ”

“ I am a poor courtier, sir, quoth he,
That am forth of service worn;
And fain I would thy prentice be,
Thy cunning for to learn.
Marry heaven forfend, the tanner replied,
That thou my prentice were:
Thou wouldst spend more good than I should win
By forty shilling a year.
[Pg 111]
Yet one thing would I, said our king,
If thou wilt not seem strange:
Though my horse be better than thy mare,
Yet with thee I fain would change. ”