Author: SMITH (Robert):
Title: Harmonics, or The Philosophy of Musical Sounds. The Second Edition, Much improved and augmented.
Description: London: Printed for T. and J. Merrill...Sold by B. Dod...[et al], 1759. 8vo, pp. [ii], xx, 280 [281 - 293 Index, 294 blank], 29 folding engraved plates (slightly chafed at edges and folds). BOUND WITH: SMITH (Robert): A Postscript to Dr. Smith's Harmonics, upon The changeable harpsichord: Which being supplied with all the useful flat and sharp sounds and tuned in the best manner, is made as harmonious as possible: and yet the execution of music upon this perfect instrument is the same as upon the common harpsichord. London: Printed for T. and J. Merrill and by B. Dod: Sold also by J. Whiston and B. White...; R. and A. Foulis in Glasgow; and A. Kincaid, and A. Donaldson, in Edinburgh, 1762. 8vo, pp. 12. 2 volumes in 1, bound in contemporary calf, later reback with old spine laid down, gilt rules across spine; lacks label, top and base of spine chipped. Ex-library with "Yale College Library" in gilt on front cover and Yale University Library bookplate stamped "DUPLICATE" on front paste-down end-paper; bookplate of Herbert A Erf on front free end-paper. First published in 1749 with only 25 plates, this revised and expanded second edition adds four plates and the separately-printed postscript. Smith (1689 - 1768) trained as a mathematician and was Plumian Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge for forty-four years (1716 - 1760). Although his work on harmonics has a mathematical basis, he approaches the problems of tuning keyboard instruments as a musician would. He made a significant contribution to equal harmony. Commenting on the book some thirty-five years later, another commentator on the aesthetics of music, Thomas Robertson (d. 1799), author of An Inquiry into the Fine Arts, called it a "work of ingenuity, as well as of great labour"; but, damning with faint praise, he added, "but who ventures to peruse it? The accomplished mathematician, in the first page almost, takes leave of his reader; and, plunging at once into the recesses of abstraction, may be said never to have been heard of since; so few of the learned themselves pretending to have followed him."

Keywords: music mathematics prose


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