Alfred Day (1810 49) first published this controversial work in 1845 to substantial negative criticism. He was encouraged in his enterprise by the composer George Alexander Macfarren (1813 87) who remained a staunch supporter of Day's theories. The work begins with an introduction to Day's new approach to the figured bass and then moves on to set out his concept of diatonic (or strict) harmony and chromatic (or free) harmony. Each is discussed in depth, with sections devoted to common chords and their inversions, discords, pedals and modulation together with a large number of musical...