LICHTENTHAL, Pietro 1750-1853

Dizionario e Bibliografia della Musica ... Vol. I [-IV]

Milano: Antonio Fontana, 1826.

Four volumes bound in two. Large octavo. Quarter dark brown morocco with marbled boards, raised bands on spine with titling gilt, patterned endpapers.

Vol. I. 1f. (recto title, verso blank), [iii]-viii, 1f., 368 pp.
Vol. II: 1f. (recto half-title, verso blank), 1f. (recto title, verso blank), 300, [xvi] (engraved musical examples), [ii] (errata and corrections to Vols. I and II) pp. + 2 plates
Vol. III: 1f. (recto title, verso blank), [iii]-xviii, 1f. (recto part title, verso blank), 327, [i] (blank) pp.
Vol. IV: 1f. (recto title, verso blank), 1f. (part title, verso blank), [7]-545, [i] (blank), [ii] (errata and corrections to Vols. III and IV) pp.

Binding slightly worn, rubbed, and bumped; edges foxed. Some foxing throughout, heavier to some leaves; lower outer blank corner of p. 149 of Vol. II lacking, with no loss of printed area.

First Edition. Coover 878. Scarce.

Lichtenthal, an Austrian writer on music and composer, "was a close friend of Mozart's son Karl, and an ardent proponent of Mozart's chamber music ... [His] importance lies in his writings, in particular his four-volume Dizionario ..., which, although full of factual errors, and being in significant measure a translation of the dictionaries of Gerber (1790-92), Koch (1802) and Castil-Blaze (1821) and the bibliography of Forkel (1792), is, nevertheless, a landmark in the development from dilettantism to modern, systematic bibliographic method." Alfred Loewenberg in Grove Music Online.

Item #37945

Price: $650.00  other currencies