ROUSSEAU (Jean Jacques):

Dictionnaire de Musique. Collections Complete des Oeuvres de J. J. Rousseau, ave Figures en taille-douce. Nouvelle Edition, Soigneusement revue & corrigée. Tome Dixieme [&] Onzieme.

A Neuchatel, De l'Imprierie de Samuel Fauche..., 1774. 2 volumes. 8vo, pp. xvi, 508; [iv], 372 [373 - 376 contents], 13 folding engraved plates of music at the end of volume 2 [onzieme], contemporary mottled calf, spines ornately gilt in compartments, morocco labels; spine a little rubbed and chipped at tops, corners and edges worn. Rousseau finished this work in 1764, the date at the end of the Preface, and it was first published in Paris in 1768. The title of the work actually appears as half-title with a general title-page in each volume for an edition of Rousseau's works. As with most continental printings of Rousseau's works, the volumes on music were often issued separately, retaining, however, the general title-pages for the volumes, a problem which Ralph Leigh discusses in Unsolved Problems in the Bibliography of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1990).

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Book number: 5491

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music aesthetics prose

ROUSSEAU (Jean Jacques):

Dictionnaire de Musique.

A Paris, Chez la Veuve Duchesne..., 1768. FIRST EDITION. 4to, 251 x 194 mms., pp. ix [x - xii Avertissement and Errata], 548 [but 556] [557 - 558 Approbation, 559 - 560 blank], 13 folding engraved plates, contemporary mottled calf, spine ornately gilt in compartments, red leather label; base of spine wormed, top of spine chipped, slight wear to joints, but a good copy with the autograph and date (15 October 1822) of the German composer and musician Louis Kindscher (1800 - 1875) on the lower margin of the recto of the front free end-paper. Kindscher has annotated the work copiously Thomas Hunt described Rousseau's Dictionnaire as "a vital force in determining musical thought in the second half of the [eighteenth] century." Rousseau's compendium is widely considered the first modern music dictionary. Conceived partly as a corrective to his articles on music for the Encyclopédie by Diderot and d'Alembert, which were completed in haste and contained factual errors, its influence on subsequent works of its kind was profound. According to New Grove, Rousseau's long essays contained "its most valuable material." Kindscher (aka Heinrich Karl Ludwig Kindscher) bought and presumably annotated the book when he was only 22 and studying with Johann Gottfried Schicht (1753 - 1823), shortly before Schicht's death. This was possibly one of his textbooks, as the end-papers and the engraved music leaves are full of annotations; other annotations are loosely inserted on separate sheets of paper. Little seems to be know about him, though he wrote interesting and useful essays for the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung. He also seems to have been something of a collector of books and manuscripts: an 18th century theorist and composer called Friedrich Suppig (about whom even less is known) drafted an essay entitled "Labyrinthus musicus," which contains a short preface and a musical composition entitled Fantasia, which uses all 24 keys and is intended for an enharmonic keyboard with 31 notes per octave and pure major thirds. In 1863, the document was in the possession of Louis Kindscher of Köthen who mentioned the work in the periodical Euterpe (22, 1863). Tchemerzine-Scheler V, 553.

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Book number: 9030

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music association copy

RUSH (James):

The Philosophy of the Human Voice: Embracing its Physiological History; together with a System of Principles by which Criticism in the Art of Elocution may be rendered inteligible, and instruction, definite and comprehensive. To which is added a Brief Analysis of Song and Recitative. Seventh Edition, Revised.

Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1879. Large 8vo, pp. 634, illustrations in text, original cloth. Rush's eccentric orthography - e. g., omitting double consonants with such spellings as "asumed" and "sylables" - did not prevent his work from being successful. It was first published in 1827 and there were further editions after this seventh edition.

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Book number: 2465

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music

SAINSBURY (John S.):

A Dictionary of Musicians, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time. Comprising the most Important Biographical Contents of the works of Gerber, Choron, and Fayolle, Count Orloff, Dr. Burney, Sir John Hawkins, &c. &c. Together with upwards of a Hundred Original Memoirs of the most Eminent Living Musicians; and a Summary of the History of Music. Second Edition.

London: Printed for Sainsbury and Co....and sold by Longman..., 1827. 2 volumes. 8vo, 204 x 130 mms., pp. lxxii, 401 [402 blank, 403 printer's imprint, 404 blank]; [iv], 561 [562 text, 563 printer's imprint, 564 blank], original boards, uncut, paper labels on spines; lacks half-titles, top of spine volume 1 defective, top and base of spine volume 2 defective, with joints snagged as well, corners worn, a fairish copy only. With the autograph "J. T. Sims" on the front paste-down end-paper of each volume, and the inscription "Everald Simpson, from her loving/ mother Jane H. Simpson/ October 31, 1889" on the top margin of each title-page. John Sainsbury was a London bookseller and publisher. He compiled and published this work anonymously first in 1824, reissued it in 1825, then revised and expanded it for this second edition. New Grove notes that his "avowed intention was to publicize the merits of British musicians, whom he considered to have been unjustly neglected in the recent foreign dictionaries of Charon, Fayolle, and Gerber." He has relied on these works, but he began corresponding in 1823 with living musicians for details of their life and works and incorporates some of the results in this work. (Some of their replies can be seen in the Euling Library at the University of Glasgow.) While many of the factual elements of the work have to be juxtaposed with more recent scholarship, Sainsbury often provides insights into early 19th century perceptions of musical works that would seem absurd today: of Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte, he says "would have flourished better in the hands of Cimarosa; Mozart never succeeded when the triflings of love were to be depicted, that passion having been with him, throughout his life, either a blessing or misfortune."

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Book number: 6697

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music prose

SAINSBURY (John S.):

A Dictionary of Musicians, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time. Comprising the most Important Biographical Contents of the works of Gerber, Choron, and Fayolle, Count Orloff, Dr. Burney, Sir John Hawkins, &c. &c. Together with upwards of a Hundred Original Memoirs of the most Eminent Living Musicians; and a Summary of the History of Music. Second Edition.

London: Printed for Sainsbury and Co....and sold by Longman..., 1827. 2 volumes. 8vo, 200 x 130 mms., pp. lxxii, 401 [402 blank, 403 printer's imprint, 404 blank]; [iv], 561 [562 text, 563 printer's imprint, 564 blank], including half-titles, contemporary cloth, with marbled cloth pasted over spines, paper labels; hinges cracked, but a reasonably good copy. John Sainsbury was a London bookseller and publisher. He compiled and published this work anonymously first in 1824, reissued it in 1825, then revised and expanded it for this second edition. New Grove notes that his "avowed intention was to publicize the merits of British musicians, whom he considered to have been unjustly neglected in the recent foreign dictionaries of Charon, Fayolle, and Gerber." He has relied on these works, but he began corresponding in 1823 with living musicians for details of their life and works and incorporates some of the results in this work. (Some of their replies can be seen in the Euling Library at the University of Glasgow.) While many of the factual elements of the work have to be juxtaposed with more recent scholarship, Sainsbury often provides insights into early 19th century perceptions of musical works that would seem absurd today: of Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte, he says "would have flourished better in the hands of Cimarosa; Mozart never succeeded when the triflings of love were to be depicted, that passion having been with him, throughout his life, either a blessing or misfortune."

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Book number: 8174

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music biography prose

SIME (D.), editor:

The Edinburgh Musical Miscellany: A Collection of the most approved Scotch, English, and Irish Songs, Set to Music.

Edinburgh: Printed for W. Gordon, T. Brown, N. R. Cheyne, & Silvester Doig, Edinburgh; W. Coke, Leith; J. Gillies, Glasgow; & G. Milln & W. Brown, Dundee, 1792. FIRST EDITION. 12mo (in 6s), 175 x 105 mms., pp. [ii], x [xi - xii blank], 359 [360 adverts], engraved frontispiece and engraved vignette on title-page, engraved music throughout text, stout library buckram; ex-library with library stamp in blind on title-page, autograph "J. Johnston" on top margin of title-page. The first song in this volume is "To Anacreon in Heaven," to which the American national anthem owes some musical debt. "Rule, Britannia" appears somewhat later. An American theme returns with "The Celebrated Death-Song of the Cherokee Indian, An Original Indian Air." A second volume was published in 1793.

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Book number: 6513

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music ballads literature Scottish Enlightenment

SMITH (Robert):

Harmonics, or The Philosophy of Musical Sounds. The Second Edition, Much improved and augmented.

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."

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Book number: 3230

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music mathematics prose

SMITH (Robert):

Harmonics, or The Philosophy of Musical Sounds.

Cambridge, Printed by J. Bentham...and Sold...by W. Thurlbourn..., 1749. FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. xv [xvi contents], 292 [293 - 303 Index, 304 Corrections & Additions, 305 advert, 306 blank], 25 folding engraved plates, additional printed tables inserted between pp. 174 - 15, 182 - 183 (folding), and 238 - 239, recently rebound in quarter straight-grain morocco, gilt spine, morocco labels. A very good copy. 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. 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." Geoffrey Canton in the new Oxford DNB is a bit more appreciative: "Music was both Smith's pastime and his other main scientific interest. He was an accomplished performer on several instruments, particularly the violoncello, and possessed a 'correct ear'. In his Harmonics he advocated the mean-tone temperament or method of tuning keyboard instruments. In the same work he contributed to the mathematical theory of music with an extended discussion of equal harmonic intervals."

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Book number: 5643

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music mathematics prose

SONGS. CHANSONS.

Chansons Choisies, avec les airs notés.

A Geneve [no publisher] 1782 - 1787 4 volumes. 12mo, 118 x 59 mms., pp. [ii], xvi, 220, xxxiii [being engraved plates of music with xxxiv blank]; [iv], 236, xxxii [engraved plates of music]; [iv], 240, xxiv [engraved plates of music]; 339 [sic, for 239, 240 blank], xxvi [engraved plates of music], including half-titles, engraved frontispiece in volume 1, contemporary calf, gilt spines (rubbed), volumes 2 and 4 with red morocco labels, lacking on other volumes, all edges gilt; some water-staining of half-titles and end-papers, tops and base of spines chipped, spine volume 4 creased, corners worn. The first volume has a note by the editors explaining the choices that have been made; it contains, among other songs, and "Chansons Érotiques et Anacréontiques": "Les pensées en doivent être fines, les sentimens délicats, les images douces, le style léger, les vers faciles." Volumes 2, 3, and 4 are given over to pastorals, village songs, poissardes, chansons libres et joyeuses, etc. This appears to correspond to OCLC 557980736, where the language is given as English, with locations in BL (2) and Bodleian, while Copac, adding a copy at the Royal College of Music, gives the language correctly as French, but gives the title as Nouveau recueil de chansons choisies: avec les airs notés. Copies at Utrecht University Library and at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Library give the publisher as Cazin in Paris.

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Book number: 8525

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music songs

STAFFORD (William C.):

A History of Music.

Edinburgh: Printed for Constable and Co. and Hurst, Chance, and Co., London, 1830. FIRST EDITION. Small 8vo, pp. viii, 387 [388 blank], engraved title, 3 leaves adverts preceding title-page, additional paper label for spine tipped in before adverts, uncut and unopened, contemporary cloth, paper label (rubbed) on spine; small tear at top of title-page from careless opening of leaf, edges a little soiled. Volume 52 of Constable's Miscellany; Stafford manages two pages on American music, mentioning the songs of American Indians; in New York, the author heard "some very pleasing airs, composed by native Americans, whose names have escaped our memory."

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Book number: 4095

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music history prose

STAFFORD (William C.):

History of Music.

Edinburgh: Printed for Constable and Co. and Hurst, Chance, and Co., London, 1830. 12mo (in 6s), pp. viii, 387 [388 blank], engraved general title-page (by Thomas Dick after P. Mignard, volume 52 of Constable's Miscellany), original cloth, paper label (soiled and chipped) on spine; cloth a little worn. This was issued as volume 52 of Constable's Miscellany of Original and Selected Publications in the various departments of Literature, Science, & the Arts. Unlike some of his predecessors and contemporaries, Stafford did not merely rehearse or summarize the histories of Burney and Hawkins but actually undertook some original research, particularly in the areas of ancient and esoteric contemporary music. It is thus a useful document for ethnomusicology. Just for the record, I actually read the chapter on "Italian Opera in England," which is well-written, informative, almost gossipy, and generally very entertaining.

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Book number: 6054

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music ethnic prose

SYMPSON [SIMPSON] (Christopher):

A Compendium: Or Introduction to Practical Musick In Five Parts. Teaching, by a New, and Easie Method, 1. The Rudiments of Song. 2. The Principles of Composition. 3. The Use of Discords. 4. The Form of Figurate Descant. 5. The Contrivance of Cannon. The Eighth Edition with Additions: Much more Correct than any former, the Examples being put in the most useful Cliffs.

London: Printed by W. Pearson, for Arthur Bettesworth and Charles Hitch...[et al], 1732. Small 8vo, 172 x 99 mms., pp. [xiv], 144, engraved portrait of Simpson as frontispiece, music illustrations throughout text; contemporary name on title-page scribbled out, purchase note for August 1909 with initials H T F on recto of front free end-paper, 19th century library binding of quarter red sheepskin (defective), pebbled boards, library bookplate of Wigan Free Public Library on front paste-down end-paper; ex-library and except for the binding a useful copy. Simpson (1605 - 1669) published this work in 1665, and it was frequently revised and reprinted. New Grove declares him to be "the most important English writer on music of his time," and no less a figure than John Locke praised this work as a "new, plain and rational; omitting nothing necessary, nor adding any thing superfluous." Probably a reissue of the fourth edition with cancel titlepage and second preliminary leaf.

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Book number: 8434

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music songs prose

TAYLOR (John):

The Music Speech at the Public Commencement in Cambridge, July 6, MDCCXXX. To which is added, An Ode designed to have been set to Music on that Occasion.

London: Printed by William Bowyer, Jun., Sometime Student of the same College; And sold by W. Thurlbourn in Cambridge, R. Clements in Oxford, and the Booksellers olf London and Westminster. 1730 FIRST EDITION. 8vo (in 4s), 195 x 115 mms., pp [5] 6 - 26 [27 advert, 28 blank], including half-title, recently recased and very closely trimmed at fore-edge in quarter morocco, red leather spine, marbled boards; and the book label of Richard Luckett on the front paste-down end-paper. Luckett (1945 - 2020) was formerly Pepys Librarian and University Lecturer in Seventeenth-Century Literature at Cambridge. ESTC notes, "Bowyer's records are internally contradictory, but the most detailed entries indicate three printings (not two, as Foxon suggests) in close succession, of 1000, 2000, and 500 copies respectively. Signatures: [A]4 B-C4 D². Signatures from Maslen & Lancaster, and Foxon. Foxon T103. See also, Muriel Silbulrn, "Eighteenth Century Music Speeches,2 in Music & Letters Vol. 1, No. 4 (Oct., 1920), pp. 348-352.

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Book number: 10272

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music scholarship literature

TEVO (Zaccaria):

Il Musico Testore del P. Bac. Zaccaria Tevo M.C. Raccomandato alla benigna et Auttoreuole Protetione dell'Illmo. Eccmo. Sigr. il Sigr. Andrea Statio Veneto Patritio.

Venezia Appresso Antonio Bortoli Con licenza de Sup. e Priv., 1706. Small folio, 237 x 163 mms., pp. [x], 366 [367 - 368 errata], engraved title-page, engraved portrait of author before main body of text, musical notations through, bound in 19th century half calf, darkly marbled boards, neatly rebacked in matching calf, with black morocco labels. A very good and attractive copy. This appears to be the sole publication by Fra. Zaccaria Tevo (1651 - c. 1709), who was also a composer. "Whereas most theoretical writings propound an individual theorist's view on a specific aspect of music, occasionally there appeared a work which summarized a large body of information with no pretensions of originality. Zaccaria Tevo's Musico testore (1706) borrows profusely from authors both ancient and modern and provides, in under four hundred pages, and provides a rich compendium of the ideas and techniques which formed the basis for early eighteenth-century theory. GALILEI, MERSENNE, and KIRCHER are among the more recent authorities cited, while Boethius, GLAREAN, and especially the seventeenth century humanist Gregor Reisch are likewise called upon. Topics ranging from basic aspect of notation and intervals to the complex art of counterpoint mingle between the covers of this useful but now neglected volume" (David Damschroder, David Russell William iner alia: Music Theory from Zarlino to Schenker: A Bibliography and Guide [1990]). This seems to echo a comment in William Bingley's Musical Biography ; or Memoirs of the Lives and Writings of the most eminent musical composer and writer...during the last three centuries (1834): "Zaccarua Tevo, a native of Sacca, in Sicily, a Franciscan monk, a professor or master of music in Venice, published in the year 1706, a work entitled 'Il Musico Testore.' This contains, in substance, the whole of what has been written on the subject by Boëtius, Franchinus, Galilei, Mersennus, Kircher, and several other writers. The author is so liberal in his quotations from the 'Margarita Philosophica' of Gregorius Reischius, that nearly the whole of that tract is contained in the prsent work." The work is sometimes recommended as an essential text in graduate courses in musical theory. OCLC locates copies at Biblioteca Casanantense (Italy), Nederlands Muziek Institut, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma Bibllioteca Nacional de Espana. Uncommon.

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Book number: 8209

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music scholarship prose

TRASTOUR DE VARANO (Eugene):

Rudiments of Music for the use of Teachers and their Pupils, and especially intended for Class Teaching. See Testimonials from S. B. Mills and L. M. Gottschalk on following pages. Eleventh Revised Edition.

New York: Published by S. T. Gordon and Son..., [1865] Large 12mo, 185 x 120 mms., pp. 132, original cloth, title blocked in gilt on front cover; front hinge strained, slight general wear, but a good copy. The first six pages comprise enthusiastic endorsement of Trastour's work from jounalists, musician, scholars, etc. "Eleventh Revised Edition" suggests that copious copies of various editions should be found in libraries, booksellers' stock, collections, etc. OCLC has two listings for this item, for a total of eight copies. WorldCat notes that an edition was published in 1870, held by three libraries worldwide. What happened to all the copies alluded to and praised in teh six pages of recommendations?

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Book number: 9231

Catalogue: Music

Keywords: music juvenile prose