J. Playford. A Brief Introduction to the Skill of Musick. In Two Books...The Fourth Edition much Enlarged, 1664

Playford, John

A Brief Introduction to the Skill of Musick. In Two Books. The First containes the General Grounds and Rules of Musick. The Second, Instructions for the Viol...To which is added The Art of Descant...By Dr. Thomas Campion. With Annotations thereon by Mr. Chr. Simpson...The Fourth Edition much Enlarged, London: William Godbid for John Playford, 1664

9 leaves, 109, [3], 45, [1] pages, 8vo (16.1 x 10.5cm), two engraved tables, one engraved plate of music ("An Ayre after the Italian Manner"), two engraved illustrations (of a viol and a treble violin, the latter with contemporary manuscript annotations), some type-set music and musical examples, some woodcut diagrams and musical examples (including in tablature), advertisement on final page, a few modern pencil annotations, bookplate of Henry Parr to front pastedown, Dolmetsch Library stamp and pencil shelfmark ("II B 39") to verso of title-pages, ownership stamp of William Bicknell to first title, conservator's label to endpaper (dated 5 November 2002), black morocco label gilt to foot of spine with Dolmetsch Library shelfmark, contemporary calf gilt, rebacked, lacking frontispiece portrait and last leaf of second part, worming, some repaired, light browning

RARE. We have no record of this edition at auction during the last fifty years. ESTC records only 7 copies in the British Isles and 4 in North America.

Playford's Brief Introduction to the Skill of Musick was one of the most influential English manuals of musical instruction ever published: eighteen editions in all appeared (the first in 1654, the last in 1730). As Charles Burney put it: the book 'contained no late discoveries, no new doctrines, either in the theory or practice of the art; yet the form, price, and style, were so suited to every kind of musical readers, that it seems to have been more generally purchased and read, than any elementary musical tract that ever appeared in this or any other country'.

LITERATURE:

RISM Écrits p.658; not in Gregory & Bartlett; ESTC R31905; Charles Burney, A General History of Music (London, 1782-1789), pp.329-330