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# AS PICTURED # FIRST EDITION, First Printing, 1905. Royal 8vo, blue buckram, Stamped gilt titles to front and spine, ruled blind front and rear, ruled gilt to spine. X + 236 PP. A stamp to ffep indicates that it was withdrawn from Benslow Music Trust (Hitchin). A robustly-produced volume; minor bumping and wear externally, but predominantly bright and presentable. There is mild brown offsetting to the half-title and final page, but otherwise the contents are tight, bright and clean, free from markings or inscriptions, and - mercifully - free from foxing throughout. Irregularly cut leaves, sewn binding. A few corners formerly bent over. Front internal hinge beginning to gap just a little; the rear hinge strengthened with strong paper strip glued in. Wood engraved frontis bright and clean, with lightly toned tissue-guard with corner creases. CONTENTS : (Chapters -) I, EARLY YEARS; ROME, 1679-1684; II, NAPLES, 1684-1702; III, FLORENCE, 1702; ROME, 1703-1706; VENICE, 1707; IV, URBINO, 1707; NAPLES, 1708-1718; V, ROME, 1718-1721; NAPLES 1722-1725. APPENDIX : The Scarlatti Family; Catalogue of the Extant Works of A. Scarlatti; INDEX. Profuse musical examples throughout. Still a standard work; Dent combines scholarly enthusiasm with an engaging style, still highly readable and with a dry humour, as when comparing Scarlatti, a native Sicilian, with Handel and Bach and their secondhand use of 'Siciliana'. Or as in this example : "Handel seems to nail his coloratura to his framework; Scarlatti's often gains a priceless charm by its wayward independence. Handel often reminds us of some prudish nymph of Rubens, clutching her drapery tightly about her, anxious and ungraceful; Scarlatti recalls Tintoretto's Venus, her loose transparent girdle fluttering crisply to the breeze, serving its whole purpose in the delicate contrast that it makes with the pure firm line of her perfectly poised and rounded form." Dent was an extraordinary man; an Eton-educated Yorkshireman born in 1876, eminent musicologist and opera enthusiast with a strong proletarian leaning, he was President of the International Society for Contemporary Music from 1923 to 1938, and for many years Professor of Music at King's College, Cambridge. (see biography by Karen Arrandale : Edward J. Dent, A Life of Words and Music, 2023) RARE AS FIRST EDITION. FREE P&P IN UK. Non-U.K. buyers quoted Shipping charge before purchase. (25% proceeds to the Motor Neurone Disease Association). Seller Inventory # 1438
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