In a fitted box. Green cloth binding with red title plate and gilt lettering on the spine.

It is the intent of F.B.A. to provide an in-depth photographic presentation of this book offered so to almost stimulate your feel and touch on the book. If requested, more traditional book descriptions are immediately available.

 Couched in a powerful, direct, colloquial style, this book is a unique historical document. The sub-title is: Being the journal written by Charles Burney, Mus.D., curing a tour though those countries undertaken to collect material for a general history of music. Constantly attending concerts, visiting churches, museums, libraries & art galleries Burney observed & noted in illuminating detail everything that he saw & did, everyone that he met & conversed with.

 The University of Oxford honoured Burney, on 23 June 1769, with the degrees of Bachelor and Doctor of Music, and his own work was performed. This consisted of an anthem, with an overture, solos, recitatives and choruses, accompanied by instruments, besides a vocal anthem in eight parts, which was not performed. In 1769 he published An essay towards a history of the principal comets that have appeared since 1742. Amidst his various professional avocations, Burney never lost sight of his main project, his History of Music. He decided to travel abroad and collect materials that could not be found in Britain. He left London in June 1770, carrying numerous letters of introduction, and travelled to Paris, Geneva, Turin, Milan, Padua, Venice, Bologna (where he met Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart), Florence, Rome and Naples. The results of his observations were published in a well-received book, The Present State of Music in France and Italy (1771). In July 1772 Burney again visited the continent to do further research, and on his return to London published an account of his tour under the title The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands and United Provinces (1773). In 1773 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society.

In 1776 appeared the first volume (in quarto) of Burney’s long-projected History of Music. In 1782 Burney published his second volume; and in 1789 the third and fourth. The History of Music was generally well received, although criticized by Forkel in Germany and by the Spanish ex-Jesuit, Requeno, who in his Saggj sul Ristabilimento dell’ Arte Armonica de’ Greci e Romani Canton (Parma, 1798) attacked Burney’s account of ancient Greek music and called him lo scompigliato Burney (the confused Burney). The fourth volume covers the birth and development of opera and the musical scene in England in Burney’s time. Burney’s first tour was translated into German by Christoph Daniel Ebeling, and printed at Hamburg in 1772. His second tour, translated into German by Johann Joachim Christoph Bode, was published at Hamburg in 1773. A Dutch translation of his second tour, with notes by J. W. Lustig, organist at Groningen, was published there in 1786. The Dissertation on the Music of the Ancients, in the first volume of Burney’s History, was translated into German by Johann Joachim Eschenburg, and printed at Leipzig, 1781. Burney derived much aid from the first two volumes of Padre Martini’s very learned Storia della Musica (Bologna, 1757–1770).

In 1774 he had written A Plan for a Music School. In 1779 he wrote for the Royal Society an account of the young William Crotch, whose remarkable musical talent excited so much attention at that time. In 1784 he published, with an Italian title page, the music annually performed in the Pope’s chapel at Rome during Passion Week. In 1785 he published, for the benefit of the Musical Fund, an account of the first commemoration of George Friedrich Handel in Westminster Abbey in the preceding year, with a life of Handel. In 1796 he published Memoirs and Letters of Metastasio.

Towards the close of his life Burney was paid £1000 for contributing to Rees’s Cyclopædia all the musical articles not belonging to the department of natural philosophy and mathematics. The latter were written by John Farey, Sr and Jr. Burney’s contribution to Rees included much new material which had not appeared in his earlier writings, particularly about the London music scene then. In 1783, through the treasury influence of his friend Edmund Burke, he was appointed organist to the chapel of Chelsea Hospital. He moved there from St Martin’s Street, Leicester Square and remained there for the rest of his life. In 1810, he was made a member of the Institute of France and nominated a correspondent in the class of the fine arts. From 1806 until his death, he enjoyed a pension of £300 granted by Charles James Fox. He died at Chelsea College on 12 April 1814 and was interred in the burial ground of the college. A tablet was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey.

Burney’s library was sold at auction by John White of Westminster beginning on 8 August 1814.

 Charles Burney FRS (7 April 1726 – 12 April 1814) was an English music historian, composer and musician. He was the father of the writers Frances Burney and Sarah Burney, of the explorer James Burney, and of Charles Burney, a classicist and book donor to the British Museum.