Curt Sachs the History of Musical Instruments — Signed First Edition, 1940 w.w. Norton

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First edition, first printing. W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 1940. Signed by the author on the front free endpaper.

… Read more First edition, first printing. W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 1940. Signed by the author on the front free endpaper.

This is the book — Curt Sachs co-built the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, the framework every ethnomusicologist still uses to sort instruments. The History of Musical Instruments was the first comprehensive survey of its kind, tracking sound-makers from prehistoric rattles to the modern orchestra across five continents. A foundational reference that’s never gone out of print, here in its original 1940 form.

Sachs fled Nazi Germany in 1933 and wrote this from his new post at NYU. The dedication — “In Memory of George E. Sachs, 1909–1939” — quietly marks the era it was made in.

From the library of Rolland Neilson, whose Art Deco woodcut ex libris (a violinist mid-performance) is a fitting mark of ownership for a book on musical instruments. Red cloth boards with a gilt lute vignette on the front panel.

505 pages, 24 plates, 167 illustrations. No dust cover. See less