J. S. BACH

Adam & Charles Black, London, 1958, reprint.  Hard covers, Volume 1 has 428 pages with black & white frontis; Volume II has 498 pages including Indices.  Green cloth with gold lettering on spine; binding sound.  Volume I: some rubs and small stains, corners show wear with lower corners having bits of board exposed and a bit of fraying; spine ends bumped; some soil and age spotting on outer page block.  Volume II:  corners and spine ends bumped, a few small stains, some spotting/soil on outer page block.  No jackets.  Gift inscription on FEP of Volume I; remainder of interiors clean and unmarked; both volumes have black & white plates; pages lightly toned.  Translated by Ernest Newman and Preface by C. M. Widor.  ‘While Schweitzer – for he was the pupil – explained them to me one after the other, I made the acquaintance of a Bach of whose existence I had previously had only the dimmest suspicion.  In a flash it became clear to me that the cantor of St. Thomas’s was much more than an incomparable contrapuntist to whom I had formerly looked up as one gazes up at a colossal statue, and that his work exhibits an unparalleled desire and capacity for expressing poetic ideas and for bringing word and tone into unity.’ (from Preface to the German Edition of 1908)