EDWARDS (H. Sutherland):

The Prima Donna Her History and Surroundings from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century.

London Remington and Co Publishers..., 1888. FIRST EDITION. 2 volumes. Large 8vo, 220 x 132 mms., pp. [viii], 320; [viii], 302, original cloth, spine blocked in gilt; slightly shaken in casing, spines a bit darkened, but a very good set. The journalist and author Henry Sutherland Edwards (1828 - 1906) began his career writing for Pasquin a rival to Punch and later produced a drama, Mephistopheles, or, An Ambassador from Below. Having been educated in France, he was fluent in French, and later added Russian to his languages when he married in Moscow the daughter of a Scottish engineer working in Russia. He also wrote music history and criticism. A History of Opera (2 vols.) appeared in 1862; The Lyrical Drama and Rossini and his School, both in 1881; together with lives of Rossini (1869) and and of the tenor Sims Reeves (1881). The present book is a page-turner for those interested in the anecdotal lives of famous sopranos.

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Book number: 7825

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music singers prose women

ERSKINE (Thomas Alexander) Earl of Kelly (or Kellie):

Minuets &c. Composed by The Right Honourable Thomas Earl of Kelly.

Edinburgh [no publisher], 1836. FIRST EDITION. Folio, 280 x 225 mms., pp. [iv], viii, 32 pp. of engraved music on recto only, engraved plate between the music on pp. 21 and 22, engraved portrait of Kelly [sic], engraved title-page, contemporary annotation on p. v, contemporary quarter morocco, plain boards (soiled); corners worn. With the small bookseller's sticker of Kenneth Mummery, Bournemouth in the lower corner of the front paste-down end-paper, and a note in a 20th century hand, "only 60 copies printed." Thomas Alexander Erskine, sixth Earl of Kellie or Kelly (1731 - 1781) was born in Fife and studied music in Edinburgh, where he was a member of the Edinburgh Musical Society in 1750, and he became its director in 1757. New Grove describes him as "arguably Scotland's greatest composer." Charles Burney said of him that he "'possessed more musical science than any dilettante with whom I was ever acquainted." This edition of his minuets was prepared by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe and is dedicated to Mrs. Sharpe of Hoddam, his mother, who died earlier in 1836. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the hand-written limitation notice, but the only copies of this work that I have been able to locate are in the British Library, Glasgow University Library, NLS; Yale, Harvard, New England Conservatory of Music.

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Book number: 5374

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music Scottish prose Scottish

[ESTEVE (Pierre)]:

L'Esprit des Beaux Arts.

A Paris, Quay des Augustins, Chez C. J. Baptiste Bauche Fils..., 1753. FIRST EDITION. 2 volumes. 8vo, 180 104 mms., pp. [iv], 252 [253 - 254 contents, 255 errata, 256 blank]; [iv], 229 [230 - 232 contents and errata, 233 - 235 approbation and privilege, 1 - 17 adverts], including half-title in each volume. engraved vignettes on title-pages, with the engraver, Pierre-Alexandre Aveline (1710-1760), identified on the vignette of volume 2, leaves uncut, bound in contemporary limp boards, crudely repaired and slightly soiled. The brief notice in New Grove (1980) of Pierre Estève (1720 - c. 1780) records that he "was involved in the Querelle des Bouffons through a polemic against Rousseau (Justification), and wrote on the aesthetics of music, particularly as it relates to general aesthetics. His ideas only had currency during his lifetime." More recently, Blake Stevens in his long article, "Monologue Conflicts: The Terms of Operatic Criticism in Pierre Estève and Jean Jacques Rousseau (2010)," claims that the core of Estève's theory "is the recognition of a plurality of discourses, such that a careful parsing of vocal idioms is essential to understanding French opera and the shaping of dramatic utterance in the monologue. He emphasized the form's 'brilliance'; his definition, with its focus on passion and movement, links the solitary scene to passionate discourse, as classical poetic theory had done." He is unlikely to be confused with his 20th/21st century namesake, the Frenchman Pierre Estève (born February 11, 1961 in Cahors), an eclectic singer-songwriter and composer with a wide range of styles, a musician, a contemporary artist acclaimed for his digital installations and sound sculptures, as well as a researcher and a journalist writing for the French musical press. See also, Downing A. Thomas, Aesthetics of Opera in the Ancien Régime (2009).

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Book number: 9580

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music aesthetics prose

FORKEL (Johann Niklaus):

Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik.

Leipsig, im Schwickertschen Verlage, 1788, 1801. FIRST EDITION. 2 volumes. 4to, pp. xxxvi, 504; xviii, 776, 5 folding engraved plates at end of volume 1, 5 folding engraved plates at end of volume 2, 19th century blue polished boards, hand-written paper labels on spines; front joints cracked, volume 1 tender, corners a little worn, ex-library. Forkel (1749 - 1818), the biographer of Bach, is often regarded as the founder of modern musicology. New Grove says of this work that it was "the first German attempt to cover its subject on the scale achieved by the English historians Burney and Hawkins.... Although the work was incomplete (its coverage did not extend beyond the 16th century), it bears the mark of disciplined scholarship and reveals the effort of its author to formulate and adhere to a philosophy of music history.... [Forkel] was profoundly influenced by the school of 'universal historians' that developed in Göttingen during the latter half of he 18th century...."

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Book number: 4058

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music history prose

GERVASONI (Carlo):

Nuova Teoria di Musica Ricavata dall' Odierna Pratica, ossia Metodo Sicuro e Facile in Pratica per ben Apprendere la Mousica, a cui si fanno precedere varie Notizie storico-musicali.

Parma Dalla Stamperia Blanchon, 1812 FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. Large 8vo, 215 x 140 mms., pp. 455 [456 author's note, 457 - 458 Index], engraved portrait of Gervasoni as frontispiece, contemporary quarter calf, gilt spine marbled boards; a very good copy with a contemporary bookseller's stamp on the recto of the first two leaves. Gervasoni's new theory of music is based on the musical practice of the day, and he adds advice on learning music, and gives accounts of a number of the main figures in the contemporary music scene. Much of the work is indeed given over to short biographies of living or recently deceased composers and performers, most notably Paganini, on whom this book is a key source. The Italian music theorist, historian, organist and teacher Carlo Gervasoni (1762-1819) is best known for La Scuola della Musica (1800), which, as Grove notes, is "a basic instructional manual containing much informative material on theory and performing practices." Of the present work, Grove records that it "provides an interesting picture of the musical scene in Italy during the late 18th century and the early 19th, as well as a useful biographical dictionary of musicians, mostly Italian, of the same period." Grove also singles out Gervasoni's Nuova Teoria di Musica as an informative source on "women musicians (especially singers)". This useful work is rare in the English-speaking world, with Library Hub, for instance, finding only one library that holds it beyond BL and Oxbridge: the library of the University of Glasgow. Notably, there is no copy in the libraries of such great musical institutions as Juilliard, New York, and the Royal College of Music, London.

John Price Antiquarian BooksProfessional seller

Book number: 10128

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music biography prose

GLUCK (Christoph Willibald) and GUILLARD (Nicolas-François ):

Iphiginie en Tauride.

1779. Folio, 357 x 255 mms., full score, in a contemporary hand, in ink, on staved paper, pp. 200,uncut contemporary boards (worn and holding on for dear life), paper label on front cover, no end-papers, the autograph "A. Joseph Sartoris/ Rushton Hall/ Rushton" on the front paste-down end-paper, the bookseller's ticket of the 19th century Parisian bookseller, "A. Aubry, libraire, 16, rue Dauphine Pais. Redaction de Catalogues. Ventes de Livres aux encheres." loosely inserted. The spine is quite worn, and the joints are tender. Inscribed on top margin of first page: "Iphigenie en Tauride, Tragedie en quatre Actes, par Mr Guillard, mise en musique & dediee par Mr Le CHer Gluck, Representee pour la premiere fois par L'Academie Royale de Musique le Mardy 18 May 1779, Prix 24." Iphiginie en Tauridei was Gluck's fifth opera, first performed on 18 May 1779 by the Paris Opéra at the second Salle du Palais-Royal. It was a great success.

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Book number: 8922

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music OPERA prose

GRASSINEAU (James):

A Musical Dictionary; Being a Collections of Terms and Characters, As well Ancient as Modern; Including the Historical, Theoretical, and Practical Parts of Music: As also, an Explanation of some Parts of the Doctrine of the Antients; Interspersed with Remarks on their Method and Practice, and curious Observations on the Phaenomena of Sound Mathematically considered, As it's Relations and Proportions constitute Intervals, And those again Concords and Discords. The whole carefully abstracted from the best Authors in the Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and English Languages.

London: Printed [by C. Jephson] for J. Wilcox..., 1740. FIRST EDITION. 8vo (in 4s), pp. v [vi blank], ix - x, ix - xii, 347 [348 adverts], music illustrations in text, 4 folding engraved plates, Z2 in cancelled state, contemporary calf; joints slightly cracked (but firm), lacks label. With the autograph of Thomas Inskip on the first page of text, and his surname on the front paste-down end-paper, and T Inskip on the title-page. Much of the material in this work derives from the work of the French musicologist, Sebastien de Brossard, as well as other contemporary sources. "While Grassineau's Dictionary awaits serious studies in textual criticism, it can be said to be the most important dictionary of music published in Britain until the translation of Rousseau's. In 1769, after Grassineau's death [in 1767], it was reissued with a separate appendix containing articles from Rousseau's dictionary; the editor is unknown" (New Grove). ESTC on-line lists two separate entries for a 1740 printing, but does not distinguish between them in any noticeable way, except for locations.

John Price Antiquarian BooksProfessional seller

Book number: 6138

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music dictionary prose

GRASSINEAU (James):

A Musical Dictionary; Being a Collections of Terms and Characters, As well Ancient as Modern; Including the Historical, Theoretical, and Practical Parts of Music: As also, an Explanation of some Parts of the Doctrine of the Antients; Interspersed with Remarks on their Method and Practice, and curious Observations on the Phaenomena of Sound Mathematically considered, As it's Relations and Proportions constitute Intervals, And those again Concords and Discords. The whole carefully abstracted from the best Authors in the Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and English Languages.

London: Printed [by C. Jephson] for J. Wilcox..., 1740. FIRST EDITION. 8vo (in 4s), pp. v [vi blank], ix - x, ix - xii, 347 [348 adverts], music illustrations in text, 4 engraved plates (2 folding), Z2.3 in uncancelled state, contemporary calf (dried and worn); three tears to inner margin of title-page, front cover detached. A poor copy Much of the material in this work derives from the work of the French musicologist, Sebastien de Brossard, as well as other contemporary sources. "While Grassineau's Dictionary awaits serious studies in textual criticism, it can be said to be the most important dictionary of music published in Britain until the translation of Rousseau's. In 1769, after Grassineau's death [in 1767], it was reissued with a separate appendix containing articles from Rousseau's dictionary; the editor is unknown" (New Grove). ESTC on-line lists two separate entries for a 1740 printing, but does not distinguish between them in any noticeable way, except for locations.

John Price Antiquarian BooksProfessional seller

Book number: 10137

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music prose

HANDEL (George Frderic):

The Beauties of Handel In Three Volumes. Consisting of upwards of One Hundred & fifty of his most favorite Songs, Duetts & Trios. Selected from the Various Works of this great Master, arranged with a separate Accompaniment for the Piano Forte, and figured from the m. S. Scores of the Author by Jos. Corfe.

London: Printed & Sold by Preston..., [1815.] 3 volumes. Oblong folio, 343 x 244 mms., pp. [vi], 134; [iv], 127 [128 blank]; [iv], 143 [144 blank], engraved portrait of Handel as frontispiece in volume 2, engraved throughout, contemporary hard-grain green morocco, marbled boards; spines a little defective, with top and base panels chipped or missing. With the inscription "Agnes Maria Smith/ from her loving Husban Feb. 15 1855." The singer and organist Joseph Corfe (1740 - 1820) made several arrangements of songs and chamber music, which were great drawing-room favourites in the 19th century. Probably his most important work was not his compositions or arrangements, but two books, A Treatise on Singing (1799) and his manual Thorough Bass Simplified (1805).

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Book number: 7417

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music songs literature

HANDEL. [MAINWARING (John)]:

Memoirs of the Life of the late George Frederic Handel. To which is added, A Catalogue of his Works, and Observations upon them.

London: Printed for R. and J. Dodsley..., 1760. FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 210 x 122 mms., pp. [iv], 208, including half-title, engraved portrait of Handel at the age of 56 by T. Chambers as frontispiece, contemporary calf, neatly rebacked, with title blocked in gilt on spine. A very good copy with the book label of Richard Luckett on the front paste-down end-paper and on the top margin of the recto of the front free end-paper, "Alfred C. Every/ 35 Royal Street Kensington/ 23rd Oct. 1857." Mainwaring (1724 - 1807) studied at St. John's College, Cambridge, and was ordained in 1748. He had several collaborators for this work; some of the factual information is from John Christopher Smith, some of it was written by Robert Price, and the list of compositions is by James Harris. It was reviewed and quoted extensively in various contemporary periodicals and is a useful source of information about Handel's life and activities. There is a footnote in the "Observations" to James Harris's Hermes, citing Harris' discussion "with great judgment and accuracy" the "imitative power in Music...." As for the accuracy of Mainwaring's accounts, I quote a distinguished conductor: "While these memoirs are always riveting and deeply touching, they must to an extent be read with a raised eyebrow, especially with regard to Handel's early years. Generalational hearsay dissolves fable into fact, and historians have learned to question the unreiability of Mainwaring's memory. We cannot know, for example, if Handel's father's disapproval of the boy's passion for music was really as stern as Mainwaring implied.... Nor should the faintly preposterous story of young George having 'a little clavichord privately convey'd to a room at the top of the house...be taken to literally: he was not yet seven years old when this is supposed to have happened" (Dame Jane Glover: Handel in London: The Making of a Genius (2018). Peter Kivey, "Mainwaring's Handel: Its Relation to English Aesthetics" (Journal of the American Musicological Society Vol. 17, No. 2 (Summer, 1964), pp. 170-178.

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Book number: 10277

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music biography prose

HAWKINS (Sir John):

A General History of the Science and Practice of Music.

London: Printed for T. Payne and Son..., 1776. FIRST EDITION. 5 volumes bound in 10. 4to (235 x 195 mms.), pp. [x], lxxxiv, 259, 251 - 465 [466 blank]; [ii], 250, 251 - 544; [ii], 234, 235 - 535 [536 blank]; [ii], 254, 255 - 548; [ii], 258, 259 - 483 [483 - 511 Index, 512 Errata], engraved frontispiece (off-setting onto title-page), engraved portrait of Hawkins and 5 other engraved plates in volume 1, numerous musical illustrations and engravings as part of registration throughout all 5 volumes, contemporary half calf, spines richly gilt, red and black morocco labels, marbled boards (slightly rubbed); some slight wear to bindings, but generally a very good and attractive set, somewhat curiously bound and with less than generous margins (a large-paper copy is 280 x 255 mms.). From the Easton Neston Library, with library label for shelf mark and the armorial bookplate of Sir Thomas Hesketh, Bart., Rufford Hall Lancashire on the front paste-down end-paper. Sir John Hawkins (1719 - 1789) was famously dubbed, according to Fanny Burney as a "most unclubbable man"; in the same conversation Johnson said that he believed Hawkins to be "an honest man at the bottom; but to be sure he is penurious, and he is mean, and it must be owned he has a degree of brutality, and a tendency to savageness, that cannot easily be defended...." Nevertheless, he admired Hawkins' history of music, though Johnson himself seems to have had cloth ears. Much of the research for this work was done in the British Museum, and Hawkins had an extensive collection of manuscripts as well. The work attracted very favourable reviews when it was published. Charles Burney was rather less admiring and managed to get his journalist friends to carry out attacks on the work. But, as New Grove records, the two works are "complementary rather than conflicting. Hawkins's contains valuable information about early 18th-century musical society in London, largely collected from survivors of the period, and emphasizes the achievement of the 16th- and 17th-century composers, who were treated condescendingly by Burney." Hawkins' work was, however, reprinted in 1853 and 1875, while Burney's was never reprinted.

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Book number: 5396

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music history prose

HIGGINS (W. Mullinger):

The Philosophy of Sound, and History of Music.

London: Wm. S. Orr and Co...., 1838. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. 8vo, pp. viii, 256, including half-title, additional engraved title-page and coloured frontispiece, steel-engraved illustrations in text, original embossed cloth, spine block in gilt; joints snagged, slight wear to spine, but a good copy with the autograph "Ellen Bassano Deacon/ January 1842" on the upper margin of the half-title. Higgins makes no mention of earlier works on the philosophy of sound, such as those by Turner, Sound Anatomiz'd, in a Philosophical Essay on Musick (1724) or Robert Smith's Harmonics, or The Philosophy of Musical Sounds (1749). He begins with an exposition of the way in which sound is produced, to an examination of our hearing of sounds and the various physical phenomena associated with the production of sound, and concludes with a short history of music.

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Book number: 6227

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music sound prose

HOGARTH (George):

Memoirs of the Musical Drama.

London: Richard Bentley..., 1838. FIRST EDITION. 2 Volumes. 8vo, 228 x 132 mms., pp. xii [xiii List of Portraits, xiv blank], 465 [466 colophon, 467 - 468 adverts]; viii, 464, including half-titles, engraved frontispiece in each volume, one further engraved plate in volume 1 and 5 further engraved plates in volume 2, contemporary embossed cloth, spines blocked in gilt; portraits in volume 1 water-stained, a little shaken in binding, but a good set with the bookseller's ticket of Kenneth Mummery, Bournemouth, in volume 1. The music critic George Hogarth (1783–1870) moved back to London in 1834 and began writing articles on music and politics for the Morning Chronicle, where he met Charles Dickens, who later married, in 1836, Hogarth's daughter Catherine. He was appointed music critic for the Daily News in 1846. Reviewing this work in 1838, The Monthly Review judges the books to be successful and elegant, concluding that "his candour, his freedom from the prejudices of schools and sects, and the entire absence of every thing like affectation, are recommendations that are not more agreeable than they are rare on the part of historians and critics."

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Book number: 8171

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music drama prose

HOLDER (William):

A Treatise of the Natural Grounds, and Principles, of Harmony. To which is Added, by way of Appendix: Rules for Playing a Thorow-Bass; with Variety of Proper Lessons, Fuges, and Examples to Explain the said Rules. Also Directions for Tuning an Harpsichord or Spinnet. By the late Mr. Godfrey Keller. With several new Examples, which before were wanting, the better to explain some Passages in the former Impressions. The whole being Revis'd, and Corrected from many gross Mistakes committed in the first Publication of these Rules.

London: Printed by W. Pearson...for J. Wilcox...and T. Osborne..., 1731. 8vo, pp. [vi], 156, 159 - 174, 179 - 203, 42 - 43, 206, with penultimate leaf signed R and paginated 203/42 and final leaf signed G2 and paginated 43/296, folding engraved plate of scales opposite p. 118, music illustrations in text, neatly rebound in quarter calf, morocco label, marbled boards; inner margin of title-page repaired, very faded library stamp in lower margin of verso of title-page, but a very good copy. William Holder (1616 - 1696) exhibited remarkable skills as mathematician and musician at an early age; he also expressed an interest in speech and speech therapy, and his first book was The Elements of Speech (1669). The above work was first published in 1693 (date on title-page is 1694), and, according to New Grove, "praised by Burney and Hawkins for its clarity..," adding that "its preoccupation with the physical basis of music is typical of the growing spirit of scientific inquiry of the period and of the Age of Reason that brought the arts as well as the sciences within the scope of such inquiry." Holder added further lustre to his reputation with his publication in 1694 with the publication of his A Discourse concerning Time. Godfrey (or Gottfried) Keller (d. 1704) was preparing his Compleat Method for Attaining to Play Thorough Bass just before his death, and it was published posthumously in 1705 and reprinted in 1706 and 1717. This is the first appearance of Holder's work and Keller's work in the same volume, and it is the second revised edition of Keller's work. The pagination and signing of the last two leaves of text are different from another copy in my stock, though the musical text appears to be the same; I leave it to those with more energy and more bibliographic skills than I possess to explain what has happened.

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Book number: 3393

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music prose

HOLMES (Edward):

The Life of Mozart, Including his Correspondence.

London: Chapman and Hall, 1845. FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 196 x 122, pp. 364, original embossed burgundy cloth; newspaper clippings pasted to end-paper, slightly shaken in casing, front hinge slightly cracked, top and base of spine worn, spine faded.

John Price Antiquarian BooksProfessional seller

Book number: 6716

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music biography prose