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.

Music-In-Print. Online continuation of the suspended printed version of the Music-In-Print series for Choral, Organ, Vocal, Orchestral, String, Classical Guitar, Woodwind, and Piano music, available at the Reference Desk. Literature represented includes standard "classical" repertoire, educational works, and some popular music. UCB access only.

British Library Public Catalogue incorporates and supercedes the Catalog of Printed Music and the Current Music Catalog. Online manuscript (accessions from 1753) and sound archive catalogs are also available from the British Library.

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.

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.

Library of Congress Music Catalog. Provides access to over 354,000 bibliographic records plus contributions of a selection of other major libraries. All musical media are covered, including musical scores, monographs, books, serials, audiovisual materials on music, sound recordings, and other materials. UCB access only. Materials in this catalog may also be found in WorldCat and RLG catalogs, as well as the freely accessible Library of Congress Online Catalog.

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.

Obituary Index, online version of an index of obituary citations published annually by the Music Library Association (MLA) in its quarterly journal, Notes.

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 A/II. Répertoire International des Sources Musicales/ International Inventory of Musical Sources, Series A/II: Music Manuscripts After 1600, a database containing records of music manuscripts written after ca. 1600 and, in most cases, before ca. 1850, and the RISM Bibliographic Citations Database, referring to thematic catalogs and other secondary sources cited in RISM Series A/II. The complete RISM series in print is available in the Reading Room reference collection at ML113.R45. UCB access only.

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. Access to GroveMusic also includes the complete New Grove Dictionary of Opera (1992) and the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd ed. (2002). UCB access only.

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

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
Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music, University of Oxford, and Royal Holloway University of London
Digital Scriptorium, Columbia University
Hoagy Carmichael Collection, Indiana University
Indiana University Sheet Music, Lilly Library, Indiana University
Inventions of Note, Sheet Music Collection, MIT
Levy Collection of Sheet Music, Johns Hopkins University
Lully Collection, University of North Texas
MLA Sheet Music Collections, Duke University
NMA Online, Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum
Online Music Scores, Prof. Gordon J. Callon, Acadia University
Performing Arts in America 1875-1923, New York Public Library
Schubert-Autographs, Wienbibliothek im Rathaus
Sheet Music Consortium, UCLA, Indiana, Johns Hopkins
Templeton Sheet Music Collection, Mississippi State University
University of Colorado Digital Sheet Music Collection
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

For a guide describing some of the most commonly found music printing formats on the web see Free Printable Music on the Web by Martin Jenkins of Wright State University.