Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in good condition. Pages in good condition. Pages in excellent condition as it the cover and spine. The dustcover is in poor condition. Hardcover. English. See images for condition.

About the book >.>.> George Bickham junior a member of the well-known eighteenth century family of en-gravers is principally famous for his Musical Entertainer herereproduced in exact facsimile a collection of songs and ballads with music headed and surrounded with exquisitely-en-graved pictorial embellishments illustrative of the song. These were issued in parts (each containing four plates) covering a period from 1736 to 1739. the first collected volume ap-pearing in 1737. The work was the first and probably the most beautiful of its kind to be published in England and led the way to many similar issues. The songs cover many subjects ranging from hunting and drinking songs to operatic arias but the great majority are concerned with the never-failing subject of love. In spite of this and the period concerned so notorious for its general bawdiness there is practically nothing in Bickham’s selection of love songs to which even a maiden aunt could take ex-ception. The book was obviously meant to grace the polite drawing-room rather than the tavern. But its songs are as tuneful as its illustrations are elegant and give an excellent indication of the kind of music popular with the cultured classes in Georgian England. This facsimile of the first edition with a preface by Charles Cudworth M.A. Curator of the Pendlebury Library of Music at Cam-bridge contains 89 songs with settings by Purcell Corelli Handel and others of humbler rank but still well-remembered scored for voice harpsichord and flute or recorder. (MP)