(b Hoxton, London, 14 June 1814; d London, 28 Oct 1890). English philologist and mathematician. His surname was changed in recognition of a legacy from a relative named Ellis, which made possible a life of independent and active scholarship. He was educated at Shrewsbury, Eton and Cambridge, where he read mathematics and classics. At first a mathematician, he became an important philologist who did more than any other scholar to advance the scientific study of English pronunciation. Intrigued by the pitch of vocal sounds, he became a writer on scientific aspects of music. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1864. His musical studies led to an English translation of Helmholtz’s Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen; its second edition (London, 1885) contains an appendix consisting of a summary of Ellis’s own papers on musical scales, theory of harmony, temperament and pitch, added with Helmholtz’s approval. Ellis’s view of harmony and temperament is controversial because it derived from the idea that music has a discoverable scientific basis, but his essay, ‘On the History of Musical Pitch’ (1880), is obligatory reading. In this essay Ellis describes that he had ‘purposely relied on mechanical evaluation, to the exclusion of mere estimation of ear’ in his studies of pitch. It is highly unlikley, however, that there was any truth in the description of him as ‘tone-deaf’ (as given in E.J. Hipkins's MS A Few Notes on the Engaging Personality of Dr. A.J. Ellis, GB-Lbl).
See also Pitch and Physics of music, §§4–5.
only those on music
‘On the Conditions, Extent and Realization of a Perfect Musical Scale on Instruments with Fixed Tones’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, xiii (1863–4), 93–108
‘On the Physical Constitutions and Relations of Musical Chords’, ibid., xiii (1863–4), 392–404
‘On the Temperament of Instruments with Fixed Tones’, ibid., xiii (1863–4), 404–22
‘On Musical Duodenes, or The Theory of Constructing Instruments with Fixed Tones in Just or Practically Just Intonation’, ibid., xxiii (1874–5), 3–31
On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music (London, 1875, 2/1885/R) [trans. of H. von Helmholtz: Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als physiologische Grundlage für die Theorie der Musik, Brunswick, 1863, with addns]
‘On the Sensitiveness of the Ear to Pitch and Change of Pitch in Music’, PMA, iii (1876–7), 1–32
On the Basis of Music (London, 1877)
On the Measurement & Settlement of Musical Pitch (London, 1877)
Speech in Song (London, 1878)
‘On the History of Musical Pitch’, Journal of the Society of Arts, xxviii (1880), 293–336; appx, p.400 [repr. in A.J. Ellis and A. Mendel: Studies in History of Musical Pitch (Amsterdam, 1969/R)]
‘Tonometrical Observations: on Some Existing Non-Harmonic Scales’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London , xxxvii (1884), 368–85
‘On the Musical Scales of Various Nations’, Journal of the Society of Arts, xxxiii (1885), 485–527 [rev., enlarged version of preceding essay]
DNB (E.I. Carlyle); Grove3 (A.J. and E.J. Hipkins); MGG1 (J. Kunst) [with complete list of writings and fuller bibliography]
C. Suliteanu: ‘Valoara “centului lui Ellis” pentru studierea implicatiilor limbajului verbal în folclorul premuzical si muzical’ [The value of ‘Ellis's cent’ for the study of the implications of verbal language in premusical and musical language], Revista de etnografie si folclor, xxxi/2 (1986), 120–37 [in French and Romanian]
N.A. Jairazbhoy: ‘The Beginnings of Organology and Ethnomusicology in the West: V. Mahillon, A. Ellis, and S.M. Tagore’, Selected Reports in Ethnomusicology, viii (1990), 67–80
V. Kalisch: ‘A.J. Ellis und sein Beitrag zur Methodologie’, Die Musikforschung, xlvi/1 (1993), 45–53
W.R. THOMAS, J.J.K. RHODES/R