Author: BROWN (John):
Title: A Dissertation on the Rise, Union, and Power, The Progressions, Separations, and Corruptions, of Poetry and Music. To which is prefixed, The Cure of Saul. A Sacred Ode.
Description: London, Printed for L. Davis and C. Reymers..., 1763. FIRST EDITION. 4to, 264 x 208 mms., pp. 248 [249 - 250 adverts], title-page in red and black, contemporary half calf, marbled boards (worn). Brown's argument is an elegant example of cultural primitivism: the simplicity and power to move of music has been corrupted by modern refinement and impositions: "The Poet's and Musician's Office cannot probably be again united in their full and general Power. For in their present refined State, either of their Arts separately considered, is of such Extent, that although they may incidentally meet in one Person, they cannot often be found together." Jaime Croy Cassler, in the entry on John Brown in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, claims that Brown's Dissertation "is remarkable for being one of the earliest systematic, self-contained treatises in English on the general history of music. In it Brown isolated 36 stages in musical history, from the early united of melody, dance and song and its perfection in Greek society to the separation and degeneration of those arts in the 18th century." Eddy 76.

Keywords: aesthetics music prose


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