Roger North's The musicall grammarian and theory of sounds: Digests of the manuscripts

Abstract

<p>The musical essays of Roger North are amongst the most important writings of the eighteenth century on music. To date they have been ill-served by editors, who have been misleadingly selective in presenting his ideas to the modern reader. Edward Rimbault, who first published <i>Memoires of Musik</i>(London: Bell, 1846) from the manuscript in Hereford Cathedral Library, omitted completely the <i>Musicall Grammarian</i>, which occupies folios 1-102 of the same manuscript" Hilda Andrews, in her edition of The Musicali Gramarian [sic] (London: Oxford University Press, 1925) also omitted the text of The <i>Musicall Grammarian</i>, and published only the Notes of <i>Comparison between</i> the Elder and Later Musick, and somewhat Historicall of Both, which had been incorporated into the text of the first draft of The <i>Musicall Grammarian</i> in 1726, and separated in the final version of 1728 as a separate essay. The best known edition of North's works, <i>Roger North on Music</i>, edited by John Wilson, (London, Novello, 1959) reproduces more of North's works than either Rimbault or Andrews had done, but is still highly selective. The editions of North's essays by Mary Chan and Jamie Kassler are certainly welcome corrections to the previous misleading publications.</p>