Author: FORKEL (Johann Niklaus):
Title: Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik.
Description: 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...."

Keywords: music history prose


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