3033: 1 vol. Descartes Rene. Excellent Compendium Start Price USD 750.00 Current Price USD 1,000.00 Time Left - Bid Count 4 Buy It Now Price - Reserve Price - Start Time Sunday, October 19, 2008 End Time Sunday, October 19, 2008 Location Philadelphia, PA See more about '3033: 1 vol. Descartes Rene. Excellent Compendium' Description Current Lot 1 vol. Descartes Rene. Excellent Compendium 1 vol. Descartes, Rene. Excellent Compendium of Musick with Necessary and Judicious Animadversions Thereupon. London: Thomas Harper for Humphrey Moseley & Thomas Heath, 1653. First English edition. 2 parts in 1 vol. Sm. 4to, 20th-Century 1/2 tan calf & marbled bds., olive morocco spine label. Scattered, generally light, foxing. Title page & first few signatures moderately browned & occasionally dusty, trimmed - no loss of ptg. The translator's name, "Lord Brouncker," supplied in ink on title page. Diagrams and musical examples throughout. "The Compendium [first published in 1650] is both a treatise on music and a study in methodology... The work is noteworthy as an early experiment in the application of an empirical, deductive, scientific approach to the study of sensory perception...[it is] among the earliest attempts to define the dual relationship between the physical and psychological phenomena in music" (New Grove, 5: 387). The Animadversions, Lord Brouncker's work, first published above, include a commentary and criticism of the compendium and a suggestion for a New Musical Temperament (New Grove, 3: 339) as well as an illustration of a lute. Wing R-1129 Place a Bid!