Carl Engel: The Music of the Most Ancient Nations (Commented Reprint)

The first volume of the newly established series ANTIQUARIAN WRITINGS IN MUSIC ARCHAEOLOGY celebrates the 150th anniversary of Carl Engel’s groundbreaking work THE MUSIC OF THE MOST ANCIENT NATIONS (1864). Long before music archaeology became a discipline, Carl Engel (1818-1882) was the first scholar to undertake revolutionary research into our musical past, taking into account all sources available at the time.
Like other scholars, Engel referred to archaeological finds of musical instruments, works of art with musical scenes and written testimonials on the musical life of the past, but the level of integration of these sources was outstanding. Furthermore, being thoroughly ahead of the times, he compared the historical sources with traditional music from all over the world in order to make interpretations of the musical past.
THE MUSIC OF THE MOST ANCIENT NATIONS was reprinted once in Carl Engel’s lifetime (1870), and facsimiles of the first edition were published in 1909 and 1929. The present reprint is made from the 1929 facsimile with the additional inclusion of three photographs of recent finds, namely the silver trumpet from the tomb of king Tut-Ankh-Amun and the harp from queen Pu-Abi from Ur. These photographs are now printed on art print paper.
The present edition also contains, in the form of supplements, the title page of the first edition and Carl Engel’s introduction from the second edition. Special care has been taken in reproducing the original woodcuts and restoring the musical notations, which were partly washed out due to a defective print of the first editions.
The reprint is complemented by two commentaries on Engel’s life, three commentaries on individual chapters of THE MUSIC OF THE MOST ANCIENT NATIONS, and a timeline of Engel’s world. The commentaries, written by distinguished scholars in ancient music studies, discuss Engel’s work in the light of present-day scholarship. The historiographical reflection makes the present edition an indispensable tool for everyone interested in the study of past music cultures.