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4to (245 x 210 mm). [1] f., vi (bound out of order), 153; 112 pp. Engraved title portrait of Luther by L. Meyer after Cranach. Part 2 consists of printed music for 163 chorales. Plain blue wrappers, uncut and unopened. First Edition.

The English-born organist, conductor and composer Peter Mortimer was a Moravian brother who lived and worked in the Moravian settlements of eastern Saxony. In this important work on the early church modes or Gregorian modes he explored the reasons for their superiority over the modern modes in the realm of choral music. Mortimer established that three modes governed Reformation chorale music, the hypodorian, hypophrygian (hypoionische), and hypomixolydian modes, and that the music had to be understood harmonically in that context. Considering the paucity of examples available to him at that time, Mortimer’s musicological analysis was exceptionally astute, being fundamentally sound. Eitner VII, 74-75; Kümmerle, Encyklopädie der evangelischen Kirchenmusik (1890) II:307-8.

Donated by Musinsky Rare Books, Inc., New York, NY.