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Reference Sources for the Study of Musical Manuscripts/Editions
Single Composer Thematic Catalog - A reference work that documents a composer's complete output. They may be arranged chronologically, by genre/medium, or by opus number. Entries typically include the following information:
- Title of the work
- Date and place of composition
- Information about the premiere
- Author of any text used
- Location of extant manuscripts and sketches
- Information on important early editions
- Musical incipits (the opening bar of the musical work; entries for multi-movement works usually include incipits for each individual movement or part)
Thematic catalogs are located in the ML134 call number range. The newly published Köchel-Verzeichnis (KV) : thematisches Verzeichnis der musikalischen Werke von Wolfgang Amadé Mozart, edited by Neal Zaslaw, is a typical example.
Facsimile Edition - A facsimile edition is one that recreates the appearance of an original hand-written manuscript. The most authentic facsimiles replicate the size, colors, paper, binding and physical condition of the original. These editions are used as tools for study by students, teachers, and researchers who might not have access to the original material.
Complete Works Edition - A single edition of all of the works by one composer. Complete works are intended to present the composer's original intent, and they are compiled from manuscripts, sketches, and early printed editions. Editorial decisions are often detailed in accompanying critical reports (kritische berichte). Complete works often take many years to complete; The Neue Bach Ausgabe began publication in 1954 and was only completed in 2007. While some library catalogs provide access to the contents of each volume, you may need to consult other reference sources (e.g., the works list in a composer's article in Oxford Music Online) to locate individual works. Collected editions are given the M3 call number.
Musical Monuments and Historical Sets - These are examples of collected editions with works by multiple composers. These editions are usually themed around a place, time period, or genre. Like complete works editions, you may need to consult additional reference works to discover their contents.
Questions? Ask Me!
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Sara Manus
Director of the Marta and Austin Weeks Music Library
she/her/hers
305-284-9884
Key Online Resources
Includes the Oxford Dictionary of Music, Grove Music Online, and the Oxford Companion to Music. Entries on composers usually contain complete works lists. If a composer has a collected works edition, their works list will indicate the series and volume for individual works.
Recent Researches in Music Online
Recent Researches in Music Online is a collection of historical sets of music based on style period (e.g., Recent Researches in the Music of the Classical Era) and geographic location (e.g., Recent Researches in American Music). The most recent series, Recent Researches in the Oral Traditions of Music, is global in scope.
Special Collections at the Weeks Music Library
The Alfred Camner, Anne Camner, and Camner Family Music Collection - The scores in Camner Family Music Collection are first or early printed editions of major musical works, many of which were published during the composers' lifetimes. Composers generally worked directly with their publishers during the editing and print process, resulting in editions that best represent these musical works as they were at the time of their creation. Preserved with marginal notations by earlier performers, the Camner Family Music Collection offers a window into the past, demonstrating how musical scores were used in both study and practice. This collection provides Frost students, faculty, and researchers with the opportunity to work directly with physical, historical editions of printed music.
The Frank Cooper Music Facsimile Collection - Thanks to the generosity of Professor Emeritus Frank Cooper’s family and friends, the Weeks Music Library houses a growing collection of facsimiles of music manuscripts dating from the 12th century to modern times.
Link List
The Music Index provides citations for 882 international scholarly, popular, and trade journals and magazines. It indexes articles, book reviews, recording reviews, and live performance reviews.
The Music Periodicals Database indexes journal literature in all areas of music. It provides indexing and abstracts for more than 425 international music periodicals, plus full text for around 140 journals. Coverage includes recording and performance reviews of both popular and classical music.
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature is a comprehensive, global bibliography of writings about music. RILM Abstracts currently indexes and abstracts scholarly music publications from 184 different countries, featuring content in 140 languages. RILM supports interdisciplinary scholarship by tracking music focused writings in anthropology, archaeology, architecture, art history, dance studies, dramatic arts, librarianship, literature, pedagogy, philosophy, physics, psychology, sociology, and therapy. Coverage dates from the early 20th century to the present, and includes journal articles, book chapters, books, reviews, editorials, obituaries, advertising, and news.
Dissertations & Theses Global (ProQuest)
The world's most comprehensive collection of full-text dissertations and theses. Includes millions of searchable citations to dissertations and theses from 1861 to the present day together with over a million full-text dissertations that are available for download in PDF format. The database offers full text for most of the dissertations added since 1997 and strong retrospective full-text coverage for older graduate works. It also includes PQDT UK & Ireland content.
The worlds largest library catalog. WorldCat is the OCLC Online Union Catalog, containing more than 40 million bibliographic items representing the merged library records of Richter Library & hundreds of other member libraries worldwide.
Scholarship@Miami
The Scholarly Repository features selected research and scholarly works prepared by faculty, students, and staff at the University of Miami. ETDs and Non-ETDs completed by Frost graduate students can be found here.
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