The Online Books Page

Music theory -- Early works to 1800

See also what's at your library, or elsewhere.

• Music theory
• Early works to 1800

• Counterpoint -- Early works to 1800

• Musicae Compendium (in Latin; Amsterdam: Typ. Blaviana, 1683), by René Descartes
  • multiple formats at Google
  • page images at HathiTrust
• Utriusque Cosmi Maioris Scilicet et Minoris Metaphysica, Physica atque Technica Historia (2 volumes, in Latin; ca. 1617), by Robert Fludd
  • Volume I: multiple formats at archive.org
  • Volume II: multiple formats at archive.org
• Harmonies of the World, by Johannes Kepler, trans. by Charles Glenn Wallis (HTML with commentary at sacred-texts.com)

• An Introduction to the Skill of Musick (London: John Playford, 1655), by John Playford (PDF at shipbrook.net)

Items below (if any) are from related and broader terms.

• The Academic Manual of the Rudiments of Music (London: Weekes and Co., 1915), by G. Augustus Holmes (page images at HathiTrust)
• Methodo de Musica (in Portuguese; Coimbra: Na Real Imprensa da Universidade, 1806), by José Maurício
  • multiple formats at Google
  • page images at HathiTrust
• Understanding Basic Music Theory, by Catherine Schmidt-Jones (illustrated HTML at libretexts.org)
• Harmonielehre (4th revised edition, in German; Stuttgart: C. Grüninger, ca. 1915), by Rudolf Louis and Ludwig Thuille (page images at HathiTrust; US access only)
• Harmonielehre (7th edition, in German; Stuttgart: C. Grüninger, ca. 1920), by Rudolf Louis and Ludwig Thuille (multiple formats at archive.org)

• Die Rationalen und Soziologischen Grundlagen der Musik (in German; Munich: Drei Masken Verlag, 1921), by Max Weber, contrib. by Theodor Kroyer
  • multiple formats at Google; US access only
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust; US access only

• Die Harmonikale Symbolik des Alterthums (2 volumes in German; Cologne: M. Du Mont-Schauberg, 1868-1876), by Albert Thimus (page images at HathiTrust)
• Mediaeval Musical Relics of Denmark (Leipzig: Breitkopf and Härtel, 1912), by Angul Hammerich, trans. by Margaret Williams Hamerik
  • multiple formats at Google; US access only
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust; US access only

• Journal of Music Theory (partial serial archives)

• Die Harmonikale Symbolik des Alterthums (2 volumes in German; Cologne: M. Du Mont-Schauberg, 1868-1876), by Albert Thimus (page images at HathiTrust)

• Journal of Music Theory (partial serial archives)
• Gamut, by Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic (full serial archives)

• Direct Approach to Counterpoint in 16th Century Style (New York: F. S Crofts and Co., 1947), by Gustave Fredric Soderlund (page images at HathiTrust; some margins cut off)
• Cours de Contre-Point Théorique et Pratique (in French; Paris: H. Le Moine, ca. 1881), by François Bazin (page images at HathiTrust)

• The Art of Fugue: Bach Fugues for Keyboard, 1715-1750 (open access edition, with links to audio; Oakland, CA: University of California Press, c2015), by Joseph Kerman
  • multiple formats at Luminos
  • PDF files at JSTOR

• Sounding the Depths: Tradition and the Voices of History (2011), by Victor Grauer (HTML with commentary at blogspot.com)

• Acoustemologies in Contact: Sounding Subjects and Modes of Listening in Early Modernity (Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, c2021), ed. by Emily Wilbourne and Suzanne G. Cusick (multiple formats with commentary at Open Book Publishers)
• Instruments for New Music: Sound, Technology, and Modernism (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, c2016), by Thomas Patteson
  • multiple formats at Luminos
  • PDF files at JSTOR
• Die Metalogik: Die Musikalische Logik, Geometrie der Empfindungen (in German; Munich: Musarion verlag, 1919), by Walter Harburger (page images at HathiTrust; US access only)
• The Magic of Tone and the Art of Music, by Dane Rudhyar (HTML at khaldea.com)
• Opera and Drama, by Richard Wagner, trans. by William Ashton Ellis (HTML at Wayback Machine)
• Music Ho! A Study of Music in Decline (c1934), by Constant Lambert (HTML in Canada; NO US ACCESS)
• Aesthetik: oder Wissenschaft des Schönen (3 volumes (third in multiple parts), in German; 1846-1857), by Friedrich Theodor Vischer (page images at HathiTrust)
• Music and Meaning (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1932), by Elizabeth Robinson Woods (page images at HathiTrust)
• The Art-Work of the Future, by Richard Wagner, trans. by William Ashton Ellis (HTML at Wayback Machine)
• The Birth of Tragedy: or, Hellenism and Pessimism (from the Complete Works v1), by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, ed. by Oscar Levy, trans. by William A. Haussmann
  • Gutenberg text and illustrated HTML
  • multiple formats at archive.org
• The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music, by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, trans. by Ian Johnston
  • HTML in Canada
  • Javascript-dependent page images with commentary at Richer Resources Publications

• Die Rationalen und Soziologischen Grundlagen der Musik (in German; Munich: Drei Masken Verlag, 1921), by Max Weber, contrib. by Theodor Kroyer
  • multiple formats at Google; US access only
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust; US access only

• Listening to Popular Music: or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Led Zeppelin (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, c2007), by Theodore Gracyk (page images at HathiTrust)

• Sounding the Depths: Tradition and the Voices of History (2011), by Victor Grauer (HTML with commentary at blogspot.com)

• Bob Dylan's Career as a Blakean Visionary and Romantic (Geneseo, NY: Milne Library, SUNY College at Geneseo, c2013), by Eugene L. Stelzig (PDF and Epub with commentary at geneseo.edu)

• Music as Cultural Practice, 1800-1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), by Lawrence Kramer (HTML at UC Press)

• The Rebirth of Hindu Music (online second edition), by Dane Rudhyar (HTML at khaldea.com)

• A Musicology of Performance: Theory and Method Based on Bach's Solos for Violin (version 1.2; Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, c2016), by Dorottya Fabian (multiple formats with commentary at Open Book Publishers)

• The Aesthetics of Pianoforte-Playing (translated from the third German edition; New York: G. Schirmer, 1907), by Adolf Kullak, ed. by Hans Bischoff, trans. by Theodore Baker (page images at HathiTrust)

• Conversations on Harmony (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1855), by Sarah Mary Fitton (multiple formats at Google)

• On the Musical Scales of Various Nations (extracted from Journal of the Society of the Arts, 1885), by Alexander John Ellis (page images at HathiTrust)

• Pulse and Rhythm (reprinted from the Popular Science Monthly, 1903), by Mary Elizabeth Hallock Greenewalt
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust
• Les Agréments et le Rythme: Leur Représentation Graphique dans la Musique Vocale française du XVIIIe Siècle (in French; Paris: Rouart, Lerolle, et cie, ca. 1917), by Jane Arger (page images at HathiTrust; US access only)

• A Briefe Discourse of the True (But Neglected) Use of Charact'ring the Degrees, by Thomas Ravenscroft (HTML and page images at pbm.com)

• Phonophotography in Folk Music: American Negro Songs in New Notation (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1928), by Milton Metfessel, contrib. by Carl E. Seashore (page images at HathiTrust)
• Die Harmonikale Symbolik des Alterthums (2 volumes in German; Cologne: M. Du Mont-Schauberg, 1868-1876), by Albert Thimus (page images at HathiTrust)

• Latin Zenei Paleográfia és a Pray-Kódex Zenei Hangjelzései (in Hungarian; Budapest: Kiadja a Budavári Tudományos Társaság, 1922), by Isoz Kálmán (page images at HathiTrust; US access only)

• A New Booke of Tabliture, Containing Sundrie Easie and Familiar Instructions (1596), by William Barley (PDF at shipbrook.net)

• The Marchants Avizo: Verie Necessarie for Their Sonnes and Servants, When They First Send Them Beyond The Seas, as to Spayne and Portingale, or Other Countreyes (London: Impr. by T. Orwin, 1590), by J. B. (page images at Yale)

• The Whole Art of the Stage: Containing Not Only the Rules of the Drammatick Art, But Many Curious Observations About It, Which May Be of Great Use to the Authors, Actors, and Spectators of Plays, Together With Much Critical Learning About the Stage and Plays of the Antients (London: Printed for the author and sold by W. Cadman et al., 1684), by François-Hédelin Aubignac (HTML at EEBO TCP)

• Select Works of Sri Sankaracharya (English translations only; 1921), by Śaṅkarācārya, trans. by S. Venkataramanan (HTML with commentary at sacred-texts.com)

More items available under broader and related terms at left.