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Octavo. Full dark-tan mottled calf with raised bands on spine in decorative compartments gilt, dark tan leather label titled in gilt, red speckled edges. 1f. (recto title, verso blank), [iii] (dedication to Monsieur de Sainte Colombe), iv ("Avant Propos" and "Remarques"), [iii] ("Table"), [ii] ("Extrait du Privilege du Roy"), [i] (errata), [i] (blank), 151, [i] (blank) pp. Decorative woodcut head- and tailpieces and initials throughout. With typeset musical examples to pp. 120-151 consisting of "Modelles pour la Transposition d'un degré plus haut, & d'un degré plus bas; Modelles. d'une Tierce; and Modelles. d'une Quarte") and with additional numerous examples of typeset music in text. Two narrow engraved folding plates: "Manche Harmonique" (277 x 81 mm.) between pp. 46 and 47 and "Manche pour la Tablature" between pp. 54 and 55 (ca. 278 x 87 mm.). Stylized "B" to blank lower inner margin of title (possibly Ballard's monogram) and manuscript paraph to foot of errata leaf (possibly that of Rousseau). Manuscript correction in pencil to pp. 121 and 123 (from "haut" to "bas"). Provenance From the library of the noted English early music specialist Arnold Dolmetsch (1858-1940), with his small handstamp ("Dolmetsch Library") to foot of verso of title. Binding slightly, rubbed, and bumped; joints cracked; small portions of spine lacking; hinges tender; endpapers worn, browned, and soiled. Minor internal wear; edges slightly browned; light dampstaining to upper inner margins of several leaves and lower outer margins of several others; occasional small stains; pp. 31-32 slightly detached at head with small tear to blank inner margin repaired with archival tape; minor printer's error to pp. 145/146. Lacking two sections (the "Manche Diatonique" and "Manche Chromatic) of what was originally a larger single folding plate. First Edition. Cortot p. 170. Hirsch I, 513. Gregory Bartlett p. 237. Wolffheim 1162. RISM Écrits p. 720. One of the most important sources for the history and construction of the viola da gamba. A distinguished French viol player, theorist, and composer, "Rousseau dedicated his Traité de la viole (1687) to Sainte-Colombe and in it he defended his master's innovative approach to the position of the left hand one which facilitated performance in the melodic style ( jeu de mélodie ) refuting point by point the attacks on unharmonized compositions made by Machy in the preface to his Pièces de violle (1685) . The Traité also includes a discussion of the history of the viol in France which provides valuable information on construction techniques; Rousseau also mentions Thomas Young, Henry Butler and John Price and the influence of the English viol school on French musicians. The discussion of technique and bowing is the most thorough before Loulié, and in the discussion of ornamentation Rousseau draws upon the lute tradition as well as encouraging the adoption of conventions from vocal music." Robert A. Green in Grove Music Online Dolmetsch was an "English instrument maker and pioneer in the revival of performances of early music on original instruments. . [His] great gift was that, in a period when early music was virtually ignored except for academic study, he had both the imagination and the musicianship to take a musical work that had become a museum piece and to make it speak to the people of his own time in a language intelligible to them. He wrote the book The Interpretation of the Music of the XVII and XVIII Centuries (London, 1915/R2005, 2/1946/R1969)." Margaret Campbell, revised by Katherine K. Preston in Grove Music Online A nice copy of an important work, with distinguished provenance. Seller Inventory # 38597
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