A Treatise on the Science of Music. By Daniel M.
G. S. Reeves.
This intelligent and able little work will also be of value to the musical student. Not a mere digest of the rules of the art, it deduces them from scien- tific principles. This we have hitherto found done only in large and elaborate works ; but Mr. Reeves has made the attempt in the compass of a small octavo, and has been very successful. Where the subject has necessarily involved a somewhat abstruse disquisition, he has properly thrown it into an appendix ; and it is in this part of the volume that we find sonic observations on the obscure and ill-understood subject of "Temperament," well calculated to do away several very erroneous but generally received notions : one of which— that temperament is merely a device for correcting the imperfect scale of keyed instruments—he has shown to be utterly mistaken and absurd ; the truth being that what is called "perfect intonation" is a chimera and can- not possibly exist.
Previous page
