In this introduction to natural-base music theory, Ernst Levy presents the essentials of a comprehensive, consistent theory of harmony developed from tone structure. A Theory of Harmony is a highly original explanation of the harmonic language of the last few centuries, showing the way toward an understanding of diverse styles of music. Basic harmony texts exists, but none supply help to students seeking threads of logic in the field. In a text abundantly illustrated with musical examples, Levy makes clear the few principles that illuminate the natural forces in harmony. He shows that general principles can be successfully extracted from the wealth of examples. This book actually provides a theory of harmony. One of the major musical minds of the twentieth century, Ernst Levy was born in Basel, Switzerland, in 1895. His musical career spanned more than seven decades, from his first public piano performance at age six. A naturalized U.S. citizen, he lived here from 1941 to 1966, teaching at the New England Conservatory, the University of Chicago, Bennington College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Brooklyn College. After his retirement Levy returned to Switzerland, where he continued to compose until his death in 1981. He was an enormously productive composer, with hundreds of works to his credit, including symphonies, string quartets, songs in English, French, and German, and music for solo instruments and small ensembles. His piano recordings, particularly of the last Beethoven sonatas and the Liszt sonata, have become collectors' items. He thought of himself as a successor to Reimann, immediately, and Rameau, more remotely.

Excerpt from L'étude Moderne De La Harpe: Considérations Générales Sur L'instrument, Avec Cinq Études Poëtiques Pour Harpe Seule; Modern Study of the Harp, General Survey of the Instrument, With Five Poetical Studies for the Harp Alone Regarding harpists, the aim of these studies is to offer them something of a decisively musical nature, by means of which they will accustom themselves to the different details of a mechanical order, to the art of phrasing, and to the multiple sonorities of their instrument. These studies can be employed by novices as well as by virtuosi. Harpists of little experience will find in every measure something which will advantageously replace the contents of uninteresting and tiresome books of exercises. They must pay no attention to the metronomic signs, which are meant only for those who intend to play these works in public. Individually, these studies are not restricted to the technical peculiarities suggested by their titles. Each one contains chords of various kinds and har monic tones (double and single), so that one can de ve10p several types of technique from the same study. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This book was originally published prior to 1923 and represents a reproduction of an important historical work.We have not made use of any OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology and represents a digital copy of the original work in its original format