Search Other Music Reference Works

This webpage expands upon the UCB Library list of online music resources compiled at Electronic Resources: Subject Music. Though the majority of resources described below are intended for specialized research needs, one in particular, the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, has proven invaluable to all levels of research. If you are new to music research you may want to consider starting with the New Grove.

For a list of general reference sources available for online searching see the UCB Library web page on Electronic Resources: Types A-Z.

Bibliographies

Bach Bibliography, a database of more than 17,000 books, articles, facsimiles, dissertations, and papers read at conferences and meetings, maintained by Yo Tomita at Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Beethoven Bibliography Database from the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies at San Jose State University.

Bibliography of Swedish Music Literature, Svensk musikhistorisk bibliografi (SMHB), provides citations for books, articles in all Swedish music periodicals (popular as well as scholarly), articles on music in other periodicals, contributions to collective volumes, record liner notes (when substantial), selected documents on the Internet, reviews etc., from 1991- . Only 10-15% of SMHB contents are forwarded, with English abstracts, to RILM. Provided by the Documentation Centre at the Music Library of Sweden.

Iter, Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance, serves the advancement of learning in the study and teaching of the period 400-1700 through the development of electronic resources, such as bibliographic databases and a directory of scholars.

Hofmeister XIX is the online version of the Hofmeister Monatsberichte, a detailed source of information about nineteenth-century music publications, with particular emphasis on the German-speaking countries. Hofmeister XIX provides information about when a given composition was published, where, and by whom. The records are linked to the facsimiles of the Monatsberichte on the Austrian National Library website.

MIML: Musical Instruction and Musical Learning, 1450-1650, a bibliography designed to cover secondary literature on how music was taught and learned during the two-century period 1450 to 1650. Prepared by Cynthia J. Cyrus, with Susan Forscher Weiss and Russell E. Murray, Jr. of Vanderbilt University.

Musical Borrowing: An Annotated Bibliography, summarizes writings addressing borrowed material in musical composition, including transcription, variations, quotation, cantus firmus technique, paraphrase, imitation/parody, modeling, allusion, and other ways to rework existing music. From J. Peter Burkholder and colleagues at the Center for the History of Music Theory and Literature, Indiana University.

Oxford Bibliogaraphies: Music. Provides access to anotated lists of carefully selected articles and other reference sources in the area of Music. Follow links to browse other subjects such as Classics, Criminology, International Relations, Islamic Studies, Medieval Studies, Renaissance and Reformation and Victorian Literature. USB access only.

Analecta hymnica medii aevi digitalia, originally published in 55 volumes from 1886 to 1926, contains texts of hymns of the Catholic Church, 500-1400. This complete digital edition allows for searching the full text of the hymns, as well as the bibliographic references to manuscripts and prints. User may also search by author and title, and browse by volume. Available in the stacks at BV468.A6. UCB access only.

Canadian Music Periodical Index provides citations to nearly 30,000 articles found in Canadian music periodicals from the late-19th century to the present day. Provided by the National Library of Canada.

CANTUS, a Database for Latin Ecclesiastical Chant, offers indexes from selected manuscripts and early printed sources of the Divine Office. Developed at the Catholic University of America, now maintained by Debra Lacoste at the Faculty of Music, University of Western Ontario.

Hymn Tune Index, a searchable index of all hymn tunes printed anywhere in the world with English-language texts up to 1820, and their publication history up to that date. Based on the printed, four-volume Hymn Tune Index: A Census of English-Language Hymn Tunes in Printed Sources from 1535 to 1820, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), by Prof. Nicholas Temperley of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Available in the Reading Room reference collection at ML128.H8.T46 1998.

IPM. The Index to Printed Music: Collections & Series, an electronic resource for finding individual pieces of music printed in standard scholarly editions. Indexing each individual piece in selected collections (ca. 9,300 bibliographic citations as contained in Collected Editions, Historical Series & Sets & Monuments of Music: A Bibliography, by George R. Hill and Norris L. Stephens [Berkeley: Fallen Leaf Press, 1997]), over 130,000 records reside in the database, searchable by names (composers, poets, librettists, editors); titles and alternate titles; language of text and text incipit; performing forces (medium); identifying numbers (item numbers, opus/thematic catalogue numbers, key); formats (full score, piano vocal score, parts, etc.); language; presence of non-standard clefs; figured bass and how treated; duration of piece (if given in item); genres; musical incipit (if needed for identification); citations for performing editions based on the main work; and RISM source numbers. UCB access only.

International Inventory of Villancico Texts (IIVT), seeks bibliographic control over all villancico sources throughout the world, especially those appearing in manuscript in Iberian and Latin American archives and libraries and texts found in the pliegos sueltos printed by religious institutions for specific matins services. The database currently includes information on about 22,000 villancicos in two databases—imprints and manuscripts. Directed by Prof. Paul Laird, University of Kansas.

Mozart Sources Database, Mozart-Quellendatenbank, includes a "Database" link containing work and source indexes to compositions and sketches used in the Neue Mozart–Ausgabe, available in the stacks at M3.M6 1955.

Music Necrology, from the University of Washington, St Louis, indexes obituaries by name and year, and is the source from which the Obituary Index below is derived.

PRIMMUS, an index to microfilm sets derived from music manuscript collections in various British libraries, is available on CD-ROM at the Music Library Circulation Desk with the call number M2.P775 1999 compu/d.

Renaissance Liturgical Imprints: A Census (RELICS) is a database of information about worship books printed before 1601, including information on over 13,000 titles, mostly in US libraries, compiled under the direction of Prof. David Crawford, University of Michigan.

RISM B/I: Index of composers, an index of composers in the Répertoire International des Sources Musicales/ International Inventory of Musical Sources, Series B/I: Recueils imprimes : XVIe-XVIIe siecles. (pdf)

Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, electronic version of the printed Second Edition (1992), supported by the National Library of Canada, also available in the Reading Room reference collection at ML106.C36.E52 1992.

Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, the preeminent reference work for research in ethnomusicology, is now available as a single, integrated online database. The 10-volume set is also available in the Reading Room reference collection at ML100.G16 1998. UCB access only.

Grosse Saengerlexikon, a CD-ROM version, available at the Circulation Desk with call number ML105.K83 2000 compu/d, based on the 7 volume edition of 1997, found in the Reading Room reference collection at ML105.K83 1997.

Lexicon musicum Latinum medii aevi, Dictionary of Medieval Latin Musical Terminology to the end of the 15th century, from the Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften.

Das neue Lexikon der Musik. Access to the most current editions of 17 standard, German-language reference works, including the Brockhaus Enzyklopädie and Das neue Lexikon der Musik. UCB access only.

New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Online version of the second edition of the 29-volume encyclopedia published in 2001, available in the Reading Room reference collection at ML100.N48 2001. The New Grove is the most comprehensive general music encyclopedia in English, comprising over 29,000 articles, two-thirds of which are biographies. Various search modes are available to scour full text, article headings, bibliographies, biographies (by date of birth/death, nationality, etc.), and composer worklists. Also includes the complete New Grove Dictionary of Opera (1992) and the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd ed. (2002). UCB access only.

Oxford Music Online. Oxford Music Online provides access to a suite of music reference resources: Grove Music Online, the Encyclopedia of Popular Music, the Oxford Companion to Music, and the Oxford Dictionary of Music. The Grove Dictionary (described above) has been restructured, and the numerous updates include links to the audio databases Classical Music Online and the Database of Recorded Music (DRAM). Enhanced search functions include the ability to limit searches by source, time period, and subject, while advanced searches can be limited to search full article text, entry title, bibliography, or works lists only. Entries in Grove bibliographies are linked to the Melvyl catalog via UC-eLinks for quick catalog searches. UCB access only.

The Encyclopedia of Popular Music features entries on popular music, including jazz, country, folk, rap, reggae, techno, musicals, and world music. The Encyclopedia also covers popular music genres, trends, styles, record labels, venues, music festivals, biographies, and discographies that include record labels, release dates, and a 5-star album rating system. The print version of the 4th edition is available in the Reading Room reference collection at ML102.P66.G84 2006.

The Oxford Companion to Music contains articles that range from concise definitions of musical ideas and terms to extended surveys of musical forms and styles. The print version of the 2002 edition is available in the Reading Room reference collection at ML100.O94 2002.

The Oxford Dictionary of Music includes brief entries on composers, performers, conductors, musical terms and forms, instruments, works, venues, and a host of other topics. The print version of the 2nd revised edition is available in the Reading Room reference collection at ML100.K35 2006.

Oxford Reference Online—Performing Arts. Access to eight reference sources published by Oxford University Press on the topic of theatre, dance, music and performing arts. Search sources collectively or search within an individual title, including The Oxford Companion to Music, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music, The Concise Dxford Dictionary of Opera, and Who's Who in Opera. UCB access only.

Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale provides a portal to information on Italian libraries, catalogs, and some manuscript holdings.

Statistical Data Sources

CPANDA, Cultural Policy and the Arts National Data Archive, is an interactive digital archive of data on the arts and cultural policy in the U.S. available for research and statistical analysis, with data on artists, arts and cultural organizations, audiences, and funding for arts and culture.

e-Texts

saggi musicali italiani (SMI), intended to comprise printed texts on Italian music theory and aesthetics from the Renaissance to the present, following the model of the Thesaurus Musicarum Latinarum (TML). From the Center for the History of Music Theory and Literature, Indiana University.

Texts on Music in English (TME), from the Medieval and Early Modern Eras, designed to extend the Thesaurus Musicarum Latinarum (TML) and comprise all relevant manuscript and printed texts on music theory and aesthetics from the Middle Ages to the 17th century. From the Center for the History of Music Theory and Literature, Indiana University.

THEory of the Middle Ages (THEMA), transcriptions of 18 manuscript copies of 14 Latin theoretical treatises related to musica mensurabilis of the 13th century maintained by Sandra Pinegar, Univesity of Georgia.

Thesaurus musicarum italicarum (TMI), is an electronic corpus of Italian music treatises from the Renaissance and early Baroque in multimedial transcription, from the Institute of Information and Computing Sciences, Utrecht University, Netherlands.

Thesaurus Musicarum Latinarum (TML), evolving to contain the entire corpus of Latin music theory written during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It complements but does not duplicate the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG), Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (TLL), Lexicon musicum Latinum medii aevi (LmL), and similar projects such as the Center for Computer Analysis of Texts (CCAT) and saggi musicali italiani (SMI). From the Center for the History of Music Theory and Literature, Indiana University.

Scores and Other Sources

For a recent overview of websites offering scores online (off-campus, online access to the following articles restricted to UC Berkeley), see Martin Jenkins, "Digital Media Reviews: Free (Mostly) Scores on the Web," Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association 59, 2 (December 2002): 403-407. For historical sheet music collections, see Victor Cardell, "Digital Media Reviews," Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association 58, 4 (June 2002): 889-900. These two articles discuss many of the following websites:

19th-Century American Sheet Music, UNC Chapel Hill
19th-Century California Sheet Music, UC Berkeley
American Memory, Library of Congress
      Aaron Copland Collection, ca. 1900-1990
      African-American Sheet Music 1850-1920, from Brown University
      America Singing: Nineteenth-Century Song Sheets
      American Variety Stage: Vaudeville and Popular Entertainment
      Band Music from the Civil War Era
      California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties.
      Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection
      Hispano Music & Culture from the Northern Rio Grande
      Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920, from Duke University
      Inventing Entertainment, Edison Companies Sound Recordings
      Irving Fine Collection
      Leonard Bernstein Collection, ca. 1920-1989
      Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music 1870-1885
      "Now What a Time", Fort Valley Music Festivals, 1938-1943
      Omaha Indian Music
      Southern Mosaic, Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip
      Voices from the Dust Bowl, Migrant Worker Collection, 1940-1941
      "We'll Sing to Abe Our Song", Sheet Music Collection of Lincolniana
Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads, University of Oxford
Chopin Early Editions, University of Chicago
Choral Public Domain Library
Codici Online, MSS from Castello del Buonconsiglio, Trent
Digital Archives of the Beethoven-Haus Bonn
Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music, University of Oxford, and Royal Holloway University of London
Digital Scriptorium, Columbia University
Early Music Online, pilot project to digitise 300 volumes of the world’s earliest printed music (16th-century anthologies of printed music) from holdings at the British Library
Hoagy Carmichael Collection, Indiana University
IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library, public domain sheet music library
Indiana University Sheet Music, Lilly Library, Indiana University
Inventions of Note, Sheet Music Collection, MIT
Juilliard Manuscript Collection, The Juilliard School
Levy Collection of Sheet Music, Johns Hopkins University
Lully Collection, University of North Texas
Mahler Archives
MLA Sheet Music Collections, Duke University
Music Manuscripts Online, Morgan Library & Museum
Neue Mozart Ausgabe Online, Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum
Online Music Scores, Prof. Gordon J. Callon, Acadia University
Performing Arts in America 1875-1923, New York Public Library
Petrucci Music Library/IMSLP, public domain sheet music library
Schönberg Music Manuscripts, Arnold Schönberg Center
Schubert-Autographs, Wienbibliothek im Rathaus
Schumann Autographs, Bonn University Library
Sheet Music Consortium, UCLA, Indiana, Johns Hopkins
Templeton Sheet Music Collection, Mississippi State University
University of Colorado Digital Sheet Music Collection
University of Rochester Research, Eastman School of Music, scores and books in the public domain
VARIATIONS Prototype: Online Musical Scores, from the Cook Music Library, Indiana University, includes selected opera, song, orchestral, chamber, and piano literature from the public domain
Virtuelle Fachbibliothek Musikwissenschaft, Bavarian State Library

Additional Resources

ARTstor Music Subject Guide points to relevant featured collections for the field of music, as well as search terms and tips from a series of guides to the ARTstor image database.