The Complete Vocal Instructor. Dedicated to the Ladies of Baltimore

Baltimore: Geo. Willig Jr., 1828. Hardcover. Good +. A scarce and early American musical instructor, written by Henri-Noel Gilles, brother of Peter Gilles, Jr, one of the original twelve directors of the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia. Published by George Willig, Jr., one of the earliest musical publishers in America.

"A new crop of emigrant musicians arriv(ed) after the War of 1812...Significant among these latest newcomers were... Denis-Germain Etienne, a prize-winning graduate of the Paris Conservatoire, and his equally distinguished compatriots the Gilles, father and two sons, all of whom arrived from France about 1815... They presented a series of fashionable "Academic and Didactical Concerts," highly successful despite their forbidding name. Notwithstanding their extraordinary success, about 1818 they disbanded - the 2 Peter Gilleses to settle in Philadelphia, Henri-Noel in Baltimore, and Etienne to remain in New York, where he assumed a leading position in the music community." (Lawrence, Vera Brodsky. Strong on Music: Resonances, 1836-1850, p.xl.) "Gilles, who based his Vocal Instructor on the principles of composition and vocal instruction which he had learned at the Paris Conservatory, specifically attributed his discussion of the principles of melody to Antonin Reicha, whose Traite de Melodie (1814) Gilles claimed to be "The first treatise on melody, distinct from harmony..that has ever been composed." (The Quarto, Quarterly for the Clements Library Associates, Univ. of Michigan, No. 123, January 1979.)

Very uncommon: OCLC: 7629695 cites copies at Johns Hopkins, Free Library of Philadelphia & the State Library of Penn.; OCLC: 84569578 at American Antiquarian Society & the Clements Library at the Univ. of Michigan; OCLC: 43191335 at the New York Public. Shoemaker 33357.

Signed by the author at the foot of the title page. An instructional work on singing, with exercises, lessons, a list of subscribers, and a section on Italian pronunciation. The Third Part includes Six Vocal Lessons, composed by H. N. Giles; A Vocal Lesson, composed by M. P. Gilles for Tenor Voice; and A Vocal Lesson, composed by D. Etienne. Folio, viii, 99pp. Three quarter brown leather with marbled boards. Gilt title on red label at front cover. Covers quite rubbed, spine rebacked in red cloth. A little foxing.