Quintet Quotes

“Well, what do you think? Avanti?"
"Avanti," cries everyone, and, after a few quick re-tunings of our instruments, and re-initialisings of our hearts, we enter the slow theme-and-variations movement.
How good it is to pay this quintet, to play it, not to work at it - to play for our own joy, with no need to convey anything to anyone outside our ring of recreation, with no expectation of a future stage, of the too-immediate sop of applause. The quintet exists without us yet cannot exist without us. It sings to us, we sing into it, and somehow, through these little black and white insects clustering along five thin lines, the man who deafly transfigured what he so many years earlier had hearingly composed speaks into us across land and water and ten generations, and fills us here with sadness, here with amazed delight.”
― Vikram Seth, An Equal Music

“Suddenly, an ethereal haze formed above their heads, and images of the words they sang began to dance in the sky. The gods all tilted back in their seats, expressions of awe and delight illuminating their already glowing faces.
Ree nearly lost track of the lyrics when she glanced over and noticed that same glow radiating from Thalia. Then Mel. Then Calli. Then Clio. She looked down at her own body and marveled at the incandescent sheen covering her skin. She and her sisters all shone like the gods of Olympus.”
― Farrah Rochon, Bemused

“The five of you are never more powerful than when you lift your voices together.
How many times had her mother spoken those words? Ree now realized that they were not just words; they were a prophecy. There had always been something special about the connection she felt with her sisters when they sang together.”
― Farrah Rochon, Bemused