December 2014

This annotated bibliography from Routledge’s extensive series leads scholars and performers researching the history and music of Giuseppe Verdi to printed materials by indexing and describing the most important studies on the subject. Prepared by Gregory W. Harwood, it includes the author’s selection of research about Verdi that had been printed in English, Italian, French, or German by 2010. Harwood excludes materials written for a popular audience, materials in program booklets, articles from nineteenth-century periodicals, textbooks, general histories of music and opera, theatre chronicles, master’s theses, unpublished European dissertations, reviews, musical scores, and librettos.

The bibliography is organized topically, then alphabetically by author last name. Entries contain standard bibliographic information, including ISBN where available, with annotations. The main body of entries is followed by a catalog of Verdi’s compositions (with title, description, librettist, and premier information) and a “Biographical Dictionary of People Associated with Verdi.” There are five indexes: Authors, Editors, and Translators, Subjects, Verdi’s Music (General), Verdi’s Music (Specific Compositions), and General Index.

Abraham Myler, research assistant

These directories from Routledge, one for classical and one for popular music, are hefty volumes that music business and performance professionals can use to find background and contact information for potential colleagues and collaborators. Each contains biographies of about eight thousand entrants, with information about the person’s career, education, repertoire, recordings, compositions, publications, honors and, where available, personal and contact details. Entries are organized alphabetically by family name.

The classical volume includes prominent people in both classical and light classical music, including composers, conductors, instrumental and vocal performers, arrangers, managers, and writers. The popular music volume covers people working in of pop, rock, jazz, rap, dance, world, blues, gospel and country music.

The information in these volumes is also available in a subscription-based online database that is updated quarterly.

Abraham Myler, research assistant

 

 

 

This addition to the Routledge series of music bibliographies leads scholars researching the history and music of Edward Elgar to works by the composer and printed materials about him. Performers can also use it to find information that will inform their interpretations of his music. It is divided into three sections, the first of which is the thematic catalogue. This includes first-time publications of works composed between 1866 and 1933 and is organized chronologically by the date of composition. Compositions in this catalogue are not assigned catalogue numbers, but entries include title, incipit, manuscript location, date of composition, edition information, and literature about the composition.

The second section, a bibliography, includes author Christopher Kent’s selection of letters, monographs, articles and collections of articles, discographies, scrapbooks, and a wide variety of other sources written by or about Elgar. It is divided into twelve sub-sections by source type or topic. Entries within sub-sections are then organized alphabetically by author last name with standard bibliographic information plus ISBN where available. Unlike most other books in the series, the bibliography is not annotated (a decision which was made to save space in the book for the thematic catalogue).

Section three lists the contents of various public and private collections and archives devoted to Edward Elgar. Three indexes list Elgar’s compositions, writers of sources in the bibliography, and proper names mentioned in the volume.

Abraham Myler, research assistant

This meticulously illustrated encyclopedia provides history and descriptions of instruments and instrument families from around the world. It surveys a wide variety of musical instruments from cultures across all inhabited continents, including wind, percussion, and string instruments. The authors have organized it by region of instrument origin, then by instrument class and subclass. Region headings provide commentary on music and culture, and instrument entries provide the name, a description, and a hand-drawn illustration. A six-page introduction to organology preceeds the main encyclopedia, giving readers a chance to understand the system of instrument classification that the authors use throughout the volume.

Abraham Myler, research assistant

Prepared by Barbara B. Heyman and published by the Oxford University Press, this book organizes compositions into categories by newly assigned identifying numbers. It includes all of the known works of American composer Samuel Barber, both published and unpublished.

Heyman has organized it chronologically by date of completion of the earliest version of each composition. Entries provide title, subtitle, incipit, text source, performance forces and instrumentation, origin, information about the first performance, editions, duration, manuscript sources, recordings, and commentary. There are six appendixes: Register of Works by Genre, Alphabetical Dictionary of the Works of Samuel Barber, Index of First Lines of Vocal Works, Authors and Translators of Texts Set by Barber, Discography, and Register of Incipit files. It also includes a selected bibliography and an integrated index.

Abraham Myler, research assistant