A General History of Music
From the Earliest Ages to the Present Period

Burney's most famous work, based on research during two European tours, providing valuable insight into musical tastes of the time.

Charles Burney (Author)

9781108016391, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 31 October 2010

564 pages, 1 b/w illus.
29.7 x 21 x 3 cm, 1.3 kg

Charles Burney (1726–1814), was the foremost music historian of his day. The General History, his most famous work, was published in four volumes between 1776 and 1789 and is still of great value today. Burney wanted to write something which would appeal to and inform the musician and the general reader. Research for the History was undertaken during two European tours, in 1770 and 1772, consulting original sources and meeting the great musicians of the time. The resultant work is engaging and elegantly written, offering the reader a fascinating view not only of Burney's own musical preferences and enthusiasms, but also a reflection of contemporary fashionable taste. All four volumes contain generous musical examples, quotations from original sources and an index. Volume 1, originally published in 1776 (of which this is the revised edition of 1789) is devoted to the music of the ancient civilisations, in particular of Greece.

Dedication
Preface
Dissertation: 1. Of the notation or tablature of ancient music
2. Of the three genera, Diatonic, Chromatic, and Enharmonic
3. Of the modes
4. Of mutations
5. Of melopoeia
6. Of rhythm
7. Of the practice of melopoeia, with examples
8. Whether the ancients had counterpoint, or music in parts?
9. Of dramatic music
10. Of the effects attributed to the music of the ancients
History: Of Egyptian music
Of Hebrew music
Of Greek music
1. Of music in Greece during the residence of pagan divinities of the first order upon Earth
2. Of the terrestrial, or demi-gods
3. Concerning the music of heroes and heroic times
4. Of the music of Greece from the time of Homer, till that country was subdued by the romans
5. Of ancient musical sects, and theories of sound
6. Of the scolia, or songs, of the ancient Greeks
Of the music of the Romans
Reflections upon the construction and use of some particular musical instruments of antiquity
A list and description of the plates
Index.

Subject Areas: Music [AV]