The Art of Enjoying Music [VINTAGE 1933] Spaeth, Sigmund [Very Good] [Hardcover]

Description

Very good condition maroon cloth boards with gold front cover lettering and decoration and gold spine lettering. Includes Preface by Sigmund Spaeth; Acknowledgments; Appendix I. How to Read Notes; Appendix II. Transposition and Tonality; Biographical List of Composers; Glossary of Common Musical Terms; Questions; and Index. The front cover lettering and spine lettering are somewhat faded (see photographs). The blank first free front endpaper has a neatly scripted former owner name and city/state and a small address label affixed to the upper right page corner, a neatly trimmed vintage newspaper article affixed to the inner front board entitled: Mozart Was Composer at Age of Five, Genius, Known as Wolfgang, Played to European Royalty, and a neatly trimmed vintage newspaper article affixed to the inner rear board entitled: The Human Side by Edwin C. Hill. The newspaper articles have somewhat darkened their respective facing blank endpapers. Some light foxing to the pages because of the age of the volume (1933); all pages are unmarked and in otherwise fine condition. The spine/binding is exceedingly tight and square (see photographs). 3rd Printing. ""People will ask why another book on music is needed, when there are so many already. The answer to that is that there does not seem to be any book that tries briefly to cover the whole subject of music in such a way that the totally inexperienced listener can get an immediate conception of it. It is easy enough to rhapsodize about music, to throw exaggerated similes and poetical expressions about in all directions, to read hidden meanings into innocent compostions, and to create epigrams on the improtance of mucis as compared with such necessities as food and sleep. It is even easier to write pages of technical and utterly unintelligible comment that even a trained musician can scarcely follow. But it is a very difficult matter to make music intelligible to the average person, without indulging in technical terms and without descending to mere ""soft-soap."" I have a feeling that most people, and particularly misicians, take music to hard. They put it on such a high pedestal that they never actually get close to it. I resent the reverential, unctuous tones with which radio announcer salute any composition that has been labeled ""classical"" (which means almost any piece that is not a ready seller in the music-stores). I wish they would make some distinction between a really great masterpiece and a pleasing little pot-boiler that has caught the public fancy. I wish that they and many others would realize the vast gulf between talent and genius, or even between talent and the ordinary ability to put notes on paper, as anyone can put words on paper, and have them make sense. Above all else, I wish people would have the courage to say what they really think about music, and not be so eternally worried over what somebody else may think and say. Whilte this Preface is very personal in tone, I have tried to...