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A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Preface4

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PREFACE.



The general aims and intentions of the Dictionary of Music and Musicians were stated in the Preface to Volume I., and need not be repeated here. The work now appears before the public in a complete form. The large demand for it, which has gone on steadily increasing, not only in this country and the United States of America, but on the Continent of Europe, shows that on the whole the book has fulfilled the intentions with which it started. Shortcomings there will always be in a work of this description, arising from inexperience, from the progress of the general subject, or from deaths of old musicians and arrivals of new ones; but it is hoped that these have been met by the Appendix promised at the outset. For this very important part of the undertaking the Editor has secured the able co-operation of the gentleman whose name appears on the title-page of Volume IV., and who has been of signal assistance to him in a very trying portion of his work. To Mr. Fuller Maitland, and to all the other contributors to the Dictionary, who have so successfully and so cheerfully laboured throughout the long course of its publication, the Editor here returns his heartfelt thanks for their valuable assistance; and embraces the opportunity to express his pride and pleasure at having had the aid of so distinguished an array of workers. To the publishers he offers his sincere acknowledgements for much patience, and many a friendly act.

It would be invidious to single out special articles in addition to those already mentioned, where all have been written with such devotion and intelligence; but the Editor cannot help mentioning, amongst many others, the long articles on Schumann, Spontini, and Weber, by Dr. Spitta of Berlin; on Sonata, Symphony, and Variations, by Dr. Hubert Parry; on Song, by Mrs. Edmond Wodehouse; on Scotish Music, by Mr. J. Muir Wood; on Wagner, by Mr. Dannreuther; on the Organ, by Mr. E. J. Hopkins; the Piano by Mr. Hipkins; the Violin by Mr. Payne; and those on Schools of Composition, and other historical subjects, by Mr. W. S. Rockstro.

A copious Index of the whole four volumes has been prepared by Mrs. Wodehouse, and will shortly be published in a separate volume.

29 Bedford Street, Covent Garden,
Easter, 1889.
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