The Sonata Principle from 1750 (Man and his Music: The Story of Musical Experience in the West series)

First edition, first impression.  xiv, 236pp, with black and white plate illustrations.  Red cloth-covered boards, gilt titles on the spine.  8vo.  Cloth is worn, rubbed at edges and corners, sunned over spine obscuring titles.  Faint and occasional spotting on text block edges and first and last few pages.  Previous owner’s name neatly inked and blind embossed on the front free endpaper else internally neat, clean and tight.  

An account of the history of the sonata in western music, from Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven to the birth of a new kind of opera with Wagner, Berlioz and Verdi.