A. S. IRISOV. Sound and Music. Edited by A. Bachinsky. GIZ, Moscow—Leningrad, 1926. 139 pp. Price 80 kopecks.

The second edition of A. S. Irisov’s booklet has been considerably expanded and revised in comparison with the first. A large amount of new data from original works on acoustics carried out in recent years has also been introduced into it, which has substantially refreshed the factual material of the book and made it far more interesting.

The chapter on musical intervals and scales is set out in the second edition more compactly, without superfluous music-theoretical details—and this is also for the better.

In the four chapters of the booklet (1. Sound vibrations and waves. 2. Basic properties of musical sounds. 3. Musical intervals and scales. 4. Analysis and synthesis of sound) the reader finds a popular exposition of the foundations of musical acoustics, illustrated with good musical examples and with data from new works on acoustics. The numerous diagrams and drawings (there are 79 of them) are well chosen and almost all have been newly prepared for this booklet.

The explanation in Chapter III of the construction of the major scale has not been carried out altogether successfully. The author operates with white piano keys and ascribes to them the number of vibrations of the enharmonic scale, not of the tempered one. As a result, the reader gets the incorrect impression that on the piano one may have, for example, minor thirds of various magnitudes: \(6/5\) and \(32/27\), or whole tones: \(9/8\) and \(10/9\), as well as a number of other misunderstandings.

As for the data on the audibility of high sounds up to 40,000 vibrations per second (pp. 36 and 105), it is obvious that here the author made use of obsolete data; Lane’s investigations in 1922 showed that sounds above 19,000 vibrations cannot be audible, and even at enormous intensity become painful to the ear before they become audible.

A. S. Irisov’s booklet will undoubtedly be a useful aid for music schools and higher educational institutions; it will also be read with interest by all who in their work come into contact with questions of acoustics.

S. Rzhevkin.