First complete handwritten edition, with a number of deletions and cross-references. Each booklet consists of 12 bifolia. The pages were numbered by Rousseau. The recto of the pages contain the text, the verso corrections and additions. In his Dictionnaire de musique, Rousseau takes up again the approximately four hundred articles he had written in 1749 for the Encyclopédie. Starting in 1753, in answer to attacks and criticism brought on by his articles, he begins to revise and rewrite them. Because he strives for lexicographic completeness in the field of music, the author composes more and more new entries, reaching close to nine hundred terms. In 1794 the manuscript is donated to the Neuchâtel Library by Pierre-Alexandre DuPeyrou (1729-1794) from Neuchâtel, Rousseau's friend and publisher. (beg)

Online Since: 04/09/2014