TANS'UR, William.

A New Musical Grammar: or, the Harmonical Spectator. Containing All the useful Theoretical, Practical, and Technical Parts of Musick. Being a New and Correct Introduction to All the Rudiments, Terms, and Characters, and Composition in all its Branches. With Several Scales for Musical Instruments; and Philosophical Demonstrations, on the Natures of Sound ...

London, printed for the Author, and sold by him, and by Jacob Robinson, 1746. 12mo, pp. [2], iv, [2], 156, with 14 pp. of music examples, the versos blank; pp. 77/78 misbound between 74 and 75, one or two lower inner corners a little creased; a very good copy in English contemporary calf, slightly scuffed, joints repaired; in a cloth box. First edition of William Tans’ur’s New Musical Grammar. It went through several editions and was popular well into the nineteenth-century. ‘Beneath its rather grandiose manner it is a sound treatise of a conservative type, based on the medieval gamut and deriving much from John Playford’s Brief Introduction, but well designed for the aspiring country church musician’ (New Grove).Tans’ur taught psalmody in various places in the south-east of England, before moving to St Neot’s where he worked as a bookseller and music teacher, and spent the last 40 years of his life. He published several collections of psalmody, including hymns, psalms and anthems, mainly of his own composition, and was very successful with his hymn tunes which gained a lasting influence in both Britain and America; three tunes (‘Bangor’, ‘Colchester’ and ‘St Andrew’) have survived to present use and four of the fifteen most often printed items in America before 1810 were his tunes, ‘St Martin’s’ outdoing any hymn tune by an American composer.Previous ownership signature of Richard Aldworth of Wootton, Berkshire on both endpapers and early stamp of William Bicknell (?1749–1825) at foot of title.

• GBP 1,000.00 > autres monnaies
• Commande nro.: F1148.1

• libraire: Bernard Quaritch Ltd. (GREAT BRITAIN)