Tableau synoptique des Voix et de tous les Instruments de Musique employés dans l'Instrumentation moderne

Leipzig: C. G. Röder for Maison Mahillon & Co.,, 1879. The sound of music A rare visual contribution to Mahillon's theory of music, classifying the acoustic range of voices and instruments used in a symphony orchestra on an eight-octave scale. This example is stated the fifth edition. All editions are rare: only this and the second are recorded institutionally, at the Bibliothèque de Genève and the Eastman School of Music respectively. Victor-Charles Mahillon (1841-1924) combined running a successful instrument-making business with the scholarly study of classical music. The central written statement of his approach to acoustic theory is his Eléments d'acoustique musicale et instrumentale (1874), but he expanded these ideas over the next five decades. "As curator of the Brussels Conservatoire museum (from 1879), he formed a collection of more than 1,500 ancient, modern, and non-Western instruments. His analytical catalog of the collection (1880–1922 in 5 volumes.; reprinted 1978 in 2 volumes) contains demonstrations of theories of instrument construction and a classification of instruments based on the material that produces the sound (e.g., a drum is classified as a membranophone). This classification was later adopted and expanded by Erich von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs and has become the most commonly accepted system of instrument classification. He also made copies of rare instruments, notably the Bach trumpet, and organized concerts of music played on old instruments" (Ency. Brit.). Single linen sheet broadside (840 x 570 mm), lithographed in black one side only. Old creases where folded, light foxing and old staining, toning along creases, old pinholes and shadowing at corners: a very good example.