The study and description of musical documents and of the literature about music, especially in published form. The most widespread use of the word ‘bibliography’, in music or in any scholarly endeavour, refers to lists, appended to publications, of other scholarly writings which the author used while writing, or which would be useful to an interested reader. This usage is represented at the end of nearly every article in the present dictionary, and might be called ‘citation bibliography’. It is a reflection of a selection process, drawing on and assessing a detailed listing of as much of this secondary literature as possible. The preparation of such full-scale listings is called ‘reference bibliography’. Yet the term has arrived at this usage from more detailed and scholarly practices. The etymology of the word implies the writing of books, but (in common with most other terms ending in ‘-graphy’), it has come also to mean their study, or at least their description, and usually refers to printed material. This leads to two other usages, specifically concerned with the character of books and editions, and only secondarily with their contents. Under the specifier ‘descriptive’, bibliography refers to a listing (with detailed descriptions) of the make-up of books. ‘Analytical’ bibliography goes further, involving the study of books as objects, the manner of their making, their history, and their place in the history of their contents.
5. History of musical bibliography.
6. Musical bibliography as music history.
STANLEY BOORMAN
This involves collecting, assessing and arranging lists of earlier studies in a particular field. This is an essential process for the researcher, for without this evidence of past advances in thought or data-collection, we would be unable to climb upon the shoulders of our predecessors, and our work would advance no further than theirs. Bibliographical listings of the music itself are equally important, for they point the musician to compositions and their sources, for performance as well as for study.
Two central issues concern the preparer of such lists: one is the definition of the area to be covered (in particular the rigorousness or porousness of the topic's boundaries); the other is the level of annotation. For bibliographies in the present dictionary, neither of these is a problem. For most other writings, however, the first (in particular) regularly raises thorny issues, some of which will be discussed below.
Bibliographies of music fall into a number of obvious basic genres: listings by composer, by genre or form, by performing resources, by date, by country of origin or by present-day library. Each is valuable in its own context, presuming a different interest on the part of the user, and therefore implying the different types of information that should be included. By far the best access to these bibliographies is through the listings in Duckles (B5/1997).
Composer bibliographies are used by the whole spectrum of scholars and performers. They supply the essential information about dates of composition, performing resources, available editions, texts being set and details of individual movements (preferably with musical incipits). These facts enable performers to find suitable material. If the list is arranged by genre, rather than simply by date, it shows at once the forms that interested the composer at different times during his or her life. The scholar has additional needs, and recent catalogues have attempted to meet these by extending the coverage to include material that would fall more easily within the definition of ‘descriptive bibliography’. Therefore, basic information on manuscripts – including sketches and drafts – and first editions, as well as revised versions, early sets of parts and corrected proofs, is often expanded to include a description of their structure and contents. Additional material might include reports on the critical reception of early performances, and subsequent writings about the work, as well as discussion of compositions that may have been incorrectly assigned to the composer. These ranges of information (not always found only in bibliographies) have forced revision of our view of composers as diverse as Bach and Ives, Rore and Beethoven, Mozart and Elgar.
For some composers the various layers of material have been catalogued separately. A bibliography of the early editions of Handel's music was compiled by Smith (C1970), and there are similar catalogues of early editions of Brahms and others; the manuscripts and printed editions of Chopin's music are listed in two distinct volumes (Chomiński and Turło, B1990), and Beethoven's sketchbooks have been the subject of a specialized bibliographical study, which goes far beyond the basic requirements of a descriptive bibliography.
Equally important, especially for performers, is scoring, and there is an increasing number of catalogues which list works for individual instruments or singers, or for various combinations. Early examples include Altmann's Kammermusik-Katalog (B1910), or Sears's Song Index (B1926). The genre shows no sign of diminishing, either in production or in usefulness, especially given the increasingly diverse ensembles for which composers are writing and the spread of bibliographical control to more ephemeral publications.
Bibliographies of repertory can be paralleled by a group of genre bibliographies. At first sight, they may seem similar, often providing material for consistent performing groups. Catalogues of violin sonatas, lieder or 16th-century madrigals clearly do fulfill that function, though others equally do not. But they also serve to stimulate research into how a genre (or a form) emerges, changes, and dies with the passage of time.
These listings raise a number of problems for both compiler and reader, of which the most important lies in decisions about what to include or exclude. The standard bibliography of printed Italian secular music, 1500–1700 (Vogel, B1892) would seem to face few such problems, but it includes works composed before 1500 though published later, and works composed by non-Italians working in Italy as well as elsewhere, while omitting secular works written in Italy but in another language. These seem to be reasonable decisions, ones that can be reached without difficulty, and justified without hesitation. But a similar catalogue of villanellas (Galanti, 1954) evidently heavily dependent on Vogel, faces the more difficult issue of trying to define the borders of a genre. The compiler chose to be inclusive rather than exclusive, and included canzoni and canzonettas, as well as spiritual villanellas, when she believed that they were related. The problem is even greater for later music: a bibliographer of opera, the Baroque cantata, or the 18th-century symphony or sonata is faced with almost intractable problems of defining the field, and of limiting the range of material to be included.
There is also the problem of how far to range in terms of date and type of source. An attempt at listing all the manifestations of a genre will immediately run into this problem, as will a decision to list all the extant sources. The Census-Catalogue of Renaissance polyphonic manuscripts (1979–88), while an ambiguously defined project as far as a catalogue or bibliographical description is concerned, also has porous chronological boundaries, including music probably composed before the cut-off date of 1550, but to be found in manuscripts compiled as much as 100 years later. Tyson (C1963) demonstrates that sources distant from the composer are often very important, and yet, for example, other sources with music printed by Petrucci between 1501 and 1520 span a period of over 150 years. The bibliographer must decide the relevance of the sources when they were copied far from the composer, or much later in time, and whether to include them. Several volumes of RISM face this problem, although they fall more correctly into the category of ‘descriptive bibliography’, for their first intention is to list sources for specific repertories, rather than to provide a conspectus of the repertory in them. Other volumes, such as those of Das Deutsche Kirchenlied or of Hebrew Notated Manuscript Sources (RISM BVIII and BIX), can reasonably take a restrictive view of their repertories.
Other volumes in RISM and many other bibliographies of music adopt a chronological series of boundaries – one that is particularly satisfactory for the music historian interested in the rise and decline of musical taste. Sometimes the dates chosen or implied represent a real historical shift: catalogues of electronic and computer music necessarily do so, as do the famous volumes prepared by Friedrich Ludwig of music in the Notre Dame sources (B1910). The boundaries in others seem to some extent to reflect convenience. In either case, the contents can rarely be arranged in a true chronological order, given the absence of so much data. However, the exercise is a historiographical one, and, like all reference bibliography, is designed as an aid to further research.
More frequent are similar lists which cover the contents of individual libraries or groups of libraries. Often seeming more like catalogues than bibliographies, these are designed to accommodate a number of different readers. A first use, of course, is for the librarian, as a control on the collection: the bibliography will then give sufficient detail to identify the individual items precisely. Other users include local musicians, looking for copies of specific works, works with specific scorings, or by specific composers. These readers need enough detail and a clear arrangement, as well as the call-number, to allow reader or librarian to find the book. Finally, scholars wish to know, if possible, whether the book listed is worth a research journey: this is often asking too much of the catalogue, for it requires information that, again, falls within the bounds of ‘descriptive bibliography’. With a music collection the size of that at the British Library, the Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale in Bologna, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris or the Library of Congress, it is not feasible either to gather or to print so much detail. The same is true for those volumes of RISM which set out, on the largest scale, to catalogue the musical contents of all possible libraries: series A comprises lists of editions, arranged by composer, with minimal additional information, and notes as to the libraries which hold copies (including incomplete copies). This type of listing, arranged by composer or repertory, but giving in addition the locations of copies, is not new. In the late 19th century, when attempting single-handedly to do something similar, Robert Eitner was already providing statements of the libraries holding copies.
Each of the categories and volumes mentioned so far has listed material found up to the date of publication – each is a ‘cumulative’ bibliography. However, at least as important are ‘current’ bibliographies, which reappear like journals, and attempt to list music that has appeared since the previous issue. The most important of these are the various national bibliographies of music, of which the British Catalogue of Music (1957–) is one of the best. Similar catalogues are published for a number of countries, among them Germany and the USA, as Deutsche Musikbibliographie (1829–) and The Library of Congress Catalogues (1954–). These cover music published within their area during the preceding year, with one important exception. They are almost invariably compiled from the music that is placed in one of the national ‘deposit libraries’, as part of the process of registering for copyright protection. This means that a small percentage of editions does not get listed, often comprising short-lived material or work from small presses – sometimes the most valuable for specific research projects. This percentage is likely to increase as editions are made available over the Internet, rather than by traditional means.
Many publishers issue similar lists of their own editions, or those from other publishers with whom they have agreements. Similarly, a few specialist music dealers (among them Theodore Front and Otto Harrassowitz) issue occasional lists which help librarians and collectors keep up-to-date. The range of catalogues produced by antiquarian and second-hand dealers obviously lies beyond the scope of the present article, for they do not aim to present complete coverage of any repertory other than the fortuitous collections acquired by the dealer.
Finally, there is one particular problem, encountered with anthologies of music, and particularly acute in repertories which largely comprise small-scale compositions – most music before 1600, piano Characterstücke and the like. The anthologies themselves will probably appear in one or other of the types of bibliographies already described, and there may even be an ‘analytical’ entry, listing the contents. But each item will not normally be entered separately, under the composer's name, or in any manner by which it can easily be found. As a result, a few bibliographers (most recently Hill and Stephens, B1997) have compiled catalogues of these compositions, both as the contents of anthologies and separately as works listed by composer. Such volumes serve the classic function of reference bibliography: they provide the reader (whether or not a specialist) with immediate guidance to works and editions otherwise difficult to trace.
Many of the same problems pertain here. There is a vast number of books and articles about all sorts of music and musical topics; they are not automatically arranged by subject – and even when books are so arranged, as in a library, most readers have specific (and different) enquiries in mind. Much published scholarship appears in anthologies (such as Festschriften) which often include a range of subjects; even more appears in journals, which must also cover various topics if they are to maintain their subscription lists. In almost all these categories, scholarship continues to appear at apparently ever-increasing rates. So great is the current rate of production that a comprehensive bibliography of writings on any major composer is bound to be a large volume. Similarly, a reasonably thorough bibliography of significant writings on music between 1400 and 1600 would include at least 15,000 items. When bibliographies begin to approach even several hundred entries, they cease to be of use unless the entries are carefully sorted into categories and supported by critical annotations.
Again, as with bibliographies of music, there is a major division between ‘cumulative’ and ‘current’ bibliographies – those listing works issued before the publication date of the bibliography (as in this dictionary), and those that behave like journals, appearing at regular intervals and listing the newest material, in each issue. As with musical editions, the first and simplest guide to these bibliographies is Duckles (B5/1997), although this too is a cumulative bibliography.
‘Current’ bibliographies are clearly essential for active researchers, just as they are for scientists working at the cutting edge of their field. With the emergence of computer databases for current research, and easy access to the Internet, these bibliographies are taking a leading role in making research accessible. Among the earliest to emerge, and still an invaluable guide, is The Music Index, which began appearing in 1949, and has steadily increased the number of journals which it covers. Other similar series have also included monographs, dissertations, and the contents of anthology volumes. The most important of these, RILM (1967–), now provides coverage for a large proportion of the writing about music, including reviews of editions and books. This publication relies heavily on the willingness of authors to submit references to their own writings, and to provide what is one of its most useful attributes, the addition of abstracts and key-words to almost all entries. Even so, RILM and all the other such current bibliographies demand vast amounts of labour to chase down relatively obscure material, such as is to be found in congress reports and anthology volumes of all sorts, or published in volumes not primarily devoted to music, or even in reprints of earlier volumes, and to sort and enter it in the database. In addition, current bibliographies, by their nature, do not include any coverage of publications dating from before their first issue, although RILM is beginning to work backwards in certain areas. For detailed bibliographical listing of scholarly work before the 1950s, it is still necessary to track down earlier or specialist bibliographies, sometimes concentrating on publications in a geographical area, or more often focussed on a topic (such as performing practice) or a specific composer. (These are not listed at the end of the present article, for they can be traced through the relevant entries elsewhere in the Dictionary.) The cumulative bibliography is therefore far from obsolete, and will continue to be necessary for many years to come.
Occasional references have already been made to bibliographies and catalogues that include descriptive bibliography. The essential point in each case has been that the catalogues include commentary not merely on the music, but also on the nature of the sources listed. Both descriptive and analytical bibliography are concerned with the document – with the form of presentation of the content, rather than solely (or even primarily) with the content itself. The presumption underlying this interest is that the manner in which music is presented can tell us a great deal about the music itself, or about the circumstances of its use.
The description of a printed book involves three groups of components: two are obvious, one recording particular characteristics of the copy in hand, and the other listing and commenting on the contents. These are preceded by what is bibliographically the fundamental component, describing an ‘Ideal Copy’ (see §4 below). In brief, this is a description of a (notional) copy that represents what the printer and publisher wished to see put on the market; it provides a yard-stick against which surviving copies can be measured, and it is built up from examining many of those copies.
The first and fundamental part of the description of a book is therefore a description made from the study of a number of copies, sometimes with the addition of editorial material where, for example, one part is missing from all copies. This precedes the discussion of extant copies, and the description of their contents, even though it can not be prepared until after they have been examined.
It will be obvious that the structure of any book, and particularly that of musical volumes, is directly influenced by the contents: for example, the size of a score reflects the number of instruments and voices involved, as does the number of parts; for well over a hundred years, popular music has been laid out on the pages so that a decorative cover can act as a magnet for potential purchasers; and there are other similar instances. But the act of beginning a description with the structural aspects of the books partly reflects the bibliographer's primary concerns, and partly ensures that these features are seen as significant, thereby highlighting their relevance to the content.
The description contains a number of basic elements, common to all books and musical volumes. By convention, these follow certain patterns, in both the order and the style in which they are presented. The most thorough introduction to the techniques by which they are discovered, and the manners in which they are laid out, can be found in Bowers (C1949) with supplementary comments in Tanselle (C1982). Some of these elements are self-evidently necessary, and are to be found in any respectable catalogue and bibliography of sources (whether arranged by composer, by genre, by printer or by library). They include:
(i) an accurate transcription of the title-page (which offers an immediate first approximation for identifying a copy). This is presented in a conventional manner, following standardized procedures for indicating such features as borders and designs, coats of arms and pictures, line-ends and rules;
(ii) a statement of the size and format of the volume. The various formats – folio, quarto, octavo, etc., are of course vague indicators of the dimensions of the book (and are so used by dealers and auctioneers), but they are also indicative of the publisher's view of where a book fits in a hierarchy of functions and values. Piano music published in octavo (as were the Lea Pocket Scores) serves a different function from that in the more normal folio format, and organ music in landscape (horizontal) formats is more common than that in portrait (upright) arrangement. In bibliographical terms, the format is a reflection of the number of leaves that are printed from a single sheet of paper, and thus the number of times that sheet has been folded;
(iii) a statement of the collation of the book. This describes the formal structure in clear terms, indicating the gatherings and their sizes, which, in earlier volumes, can usually be determined from the signatures printed throughout the book. With engraved music, the collation is harder to detect, and sometimes seems almost random. However, it is a clear indicator of how the printer divided up the work, and will sometimes (as with 19th-century Italian opera) reveal whether two copies of the same work could have been printed at the same time;
(iv) a description of the style of signatures and the pages on which they appear. Equally important is a listing of plate numbers, also giving the abbreviated title, or other initials that appear with them. As with other parts of the description, any anomalies or errors are also cited;
(v) a similar sequence of page or folio numbers, again giving erroneous or missing numbers. It is surprising how frequently errors in pagination yield important information about how a book was planned and printed. Similar significance attends the evidence in those volumes, again not uncommon in the 19th century, in which two sets of pagination are used;
(vi) transcription of some other peripheral matter, all part of the production of the book rather than its contents. This may include direction lines and running heads. In addition, the presence of catchwords, part-names or similar indicators is usually noted, for they serve as evidence of the printer's technique and his concern for accuracy;
(vii) a transcription of other important material in the preliminary pages, or acting as support for the musical or verbal text of the book. This may include a dedication, a letter to the reader, a subscription list, a cast list for an opera or a colophon. All, of course, have a direct bearing on the history of the contents of the book, but they also bear in significant ways on its printing history;
(viii) the presence of advertising pages or sections, with a comment on their contents. These pages are sometimes dated; they will often have been prepared more recently than the musical contents, especially with engraved music. Since so many editions published after 1700 carry no dates, and since they could be reprinted as long as the plates remained usable, the evidence of a dated advertisement, or of the most recent compositions on an undated one, may be the best information we have for dating a copy in hand;
(ix) a comment on the technique used by the printer. When this involved type, a description of the material used for both music and text is expected, together with comments on how it was used. If the book was printed from engraved plates, or by one of the lithographic or later processes, the process should be described (as far as possible). In particular, for engraved plates, the size of the plate, the plate number and other identifying features are presented;
(x) the presence and style of a publisher's binding. Although publishers did supply bound copies of music on demand from the 16th century, providing their own bindings only began to be standard practice at the end of the 18th, when they begin to have titles, descriptions, and advertisements printed on them. These printed bindings are useful for dating and placing editions, in the same way that advertisements are.
This list includes the standard ingredients for the description of an Ideal Copy: in some cases, a few of these items may not be relevant, and in others there will be special additional information to include. However, at this point, the bibliographer turns from description of an Ideal Copy to the copies that actually survive. Each of these deserves individual attention: for music printed before the end of the 18th century, at the earliest, it is safe to assume that every copy is different in at least some significant aspect. Even later, copies continue to be produced apparently as part of the same edition, but with noticeable changes to structure and content. Each copy must therefore be examined, and each deserves discussion of the following elements:
(xi) the library or private collection where it is located, with a call number;
(xii) a note of the extent to which it is incomplete or defective;
(xiii) the size of the copy, and of its print area, the so-called ‘Spiegel’ or ‘text-block’. In many cases, the second of these items is listed under discussion of the Ideal Copy, for it is assumed that the printed area remains the same in all copies of the same edition. This is largely true, though paper shrinkage can affect the issue;
(xiv) a description of the paper, and the watermarks used (when present). These will often vary from copy to copy, and may be the best indicator of the presence of cancel leaves or of a later impression: in issues of 19th-century editions printed from the same plates, changes in the paper type or quality are sometimes the only sure indicator;
(xv) a note of any variations in text, especially the following: changes to the title-page, including new prices or publisher's agencies; the presence or absence of a dedication; different advertisement pages; a different publisher's binding, etc. Many of these serve to distinguish not merely different impressions, but actually different issues of the same edition, and are therefore crucial for dating. Of course, changes to the content are also important, and may be the result of proof corrections or of a later impression;
(xvi) a note of the binding, if specific to a particular copy, and not part of the book as published. The style and quality of the binding tells us much about the owner, and about the history of the copy;
(xvii) evidence of the music's use or history after it was printed. This may include simple inscriptions of donation or ownership, but it may equally include manuscript corrections or performance indications, suggestive of the musical taste and abilities of the owner.
Each of these features is peculiar to the copy in hand, and may be assumed to have arisen after the book left the publishing house. In this respect they represent the history of the individual copy and its musical contents, rather than its publishing history.
The third stage of description involves the contents:
(xviii) a simple list, accounting for every page, and supplying the original wording of the title, composer's or poet's name, and text incipits, as well as scoring, key, tempo indications, and any unusual features. It is still important at this stage to use the spelling or attributions found in the book, even if they are known to be inaccurate or erroneous. The corrected version can be supplied as well, of course, but the version found in the edition often indicates something of the history of the music before it was printed, as well as something of the background of the printer or editor;
(xix) some descriptions also add at this point references to other sources containing the same pieces, or to authoritative or recent editions. These are not part of the description proper, but they do provide an easy way of confirming the identity of each composition. The alternative, or an additional item, is to include:
(xx) a musical incipit for each composition, and for each part or movement;
(xxi) a final and most important section involves a commentary. This may include valuable information about the music, or the version presented in the edition. In the present context, it is the place for noting the existence of related editions, issues or states, for explaining the presence of bibliographical anomalies, and for drawing connections between the structure and the musical contents.
For much music, especially sheet music published after the late 18th century, some of these items will be irrelevant. For example, many such editions comprise a single bifolio, without pagination or advertising material, and were never intended to be bound by the publisher. However, they were often reprinted by the same or another company, and the detailed differences between copies and issues are of the greatest value. The many editions of such popular works can only be related or arranged in order, and the variations in musical content can only be evaluated, once the most careful bibliographical description has been completed. While this is evident for much ephemeral music of the 19th and 20th centuries, it is also true for much music of more lasting significance: many editions published before 1800 included dates that were misleading or reflected earlier editions, while few editions published after 1800 carry dates: even the works of great composers need careful bibliographical analysis.
This level of research and description vastly increases both the labour involved in preparing a descriptive bibliography, and the cost of disseminating it. In many cases, therefore, some elements are presented in a skeletal form or even omitted. However, as bibliographical control over the musical repertory gradually improves – and with the ability to circulate materials by CD-ROM and the Internet – such problems should gradually become less important. For example, RISM has begun producing its catalogues of musical manuscripts dating after 1600 on CD-ROM, and making them available on the Internet, allowing for much more detail to be stored and available to the scholar. There is still the labour of collecting the data and adding them to the data-base, so that progress is likely to remain slow, even with the willing cooperation of many international scholars. The benefits to scholarship, though, should be enormous.
It was early realized that such descriptive bibliographies were essential to any study of musical repertories, and examples date back into the 19th century: significant examples include Ludwig's study of the Notre Dame repertory (which goes into much greater detail, both of the music and of the sources, the first part appearing in 1910) or Sonneck's A Bibliography of Early Secular American Music (B1905). These were followed by a number of catalogues of printed repertories, sometimes arranged by printer: Humphries and Smith's catalogues of Walsh's editions (which do not give detailed lists of contents, B1968), Hopkinson's of editions of Berlioz' music (C1951), or Lesure's of various French publishers (B1955; C1979–88). Excellent recent demonstrations of what is possible are to be found in the studies of theory manuscripts in RISM, in the catalogues of early printed editions of music by Brahms (Hofmann, C1975), or in Vanhulst's catalogue of the editions published by Phalèse (B1984).
A number of later bibliographies, especially of early music printers, have gone beyond the necessary descriptive features, and begun to introduce elements of analytical work: examples include Weaver's division of his work (C1994) on the printers Waelrant and De Laet into two volumes – a ‘descriptive bibliographical catalog’ and a study which is partly analytical, or Gustavson's study of Formschneider (C1998).
If there is a clear distinction between descriptive and analytical bibliography (other than in the depth of investigation), it lies in the underlying motivation for the study. Analytical bibliography is concerned primarily with understanding the printed document as a document, and its place in the history of printing and publishing. It is further concerned with the individual copy or copies, because we cannot assume that any two copies will be identical, and the variations are often of much significance for the musical text. Analytical bibliography examines the document as a carrier of the text, and as a vehicle for some musical function. While these may seem to be disparate topics, they are tightly bound together. A volume produced as a ‘vanity’ publication, or one in an old-fashioned printing technique, will often reveal much through this aspect of its motivation: for instance, it may not do justice to details of the musical text, or it may not be easily usable by performers.
In practice, analytical bibliography has come to be a separate discipline in its own right. It involves study of the history of the press and type-faces, patterns of engraving or lithography, of trade practices and marketing, and indeed of every decision made by printer and publisher. Printing house practice is a central concern, for the normal practices will indicate much about the priorities behind a publication, at the same time as they will highlight any anomalies found in surviving copies. This covers everything, from layout on the title-page to details of typesetting or engraving; from the routines of paper-use to filling blank space with advertisements; from the treatment of score layouts to patterns of signatures, pagination, and other non-text material – the so-called ‘meta-text’. Publishers' practices are equally central topics of study, and for the same reasons. These might include the ways of presenting different editions and issues, the patterns by which parts of a large-scale work are published separately, or by which vocal scores, piano reductions or study scores are marketed, or the patterns of relationships between publishers and sellers. Any one of these can turn into a lifetime's study, and any one may produce some slight piece of non-musical evidence that will allow the scholar to reach conclusions involving the music, its detailed readings, its market and popularity, its relation to other editions of the same works, or its place within a genre or a repertory.
Additional areas of interest include anything that will bear on dating the edition: trade catalogues, city census records, and (on the document itself) details of partnerships with other companies, of plate numbers, of the advertisements on spare pages. Since engraved plates, in common with the materials of more recent printing processes, can be re-used for many years, and can be corrected along the way, procedures for dating become increasingly important as we trace changes in a score, especially if they were overseen by the composer. Important examples concern a number of editions of Wagner's Tannhäuser (Hopkinson, C1973), and the series of revisions and new mistakes to be found in scores of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (Cyr, C1982).
Further discussion of the breadth of topics involved in analytical bibliography could easily turn into a catalogue of things that scholars have learned by studying printed music and the means by which it was prepared and circulated. There are many ways in which this type of study has improved, and even changed, our perceptions of specific repertories and their circulation (for examples see §6 below). Here, instead, there follows a brief survey of some of the types of research that are fruitful, and of some serious lacunae in the field.
The bibliographer starts with the assumption, common among students of manuscripts, that the way in which the music is presented always affects the content. Study therefore includes a focus on the preparation of music for printing, and decisions affecting its visual impact.
Typefaces are distinctive, and the distribution of individual faces to printers in different cities is significant. This is particularly true for music, where the faces are fewer in number, but more closely related to the music to be printed, ranging in size from small faces for psalm books to large ones for chant and Catholic liturgical books, and in character from elegant rounded forms intended to imitate script to nested types for keyboard music. Since there were fewer different type-faces, cast by fewer founders, their dissemination tells us something about the distribution of the repertories to be printed, as well as the aesthetic taste of local purchasers. For example, the spread of German and French founts of type into the Low Countries can be related, in part, to the migrations of printers, but also to the ranges of repertory that were popular (Krummel, C1985; Guillo, C1997).
Study of lithographic and engraving processes focusses on similar details. The differences in style of the music to be printed are still part of the style of a specific printer working with a specific repertory at a specific time, but they are also a reflection of the individual preferences and practices of each craftsman working for that printer. Study of Walsh's editions or those put out by Ricordi over a hundred years later shows clearly that different craftsmen engraved different pages. In some cases, such study has been able to show how certain types of error were perpetrated (Poole, C1980) or the presence of a replacement plate, perhaps indicating a problem in the musical text.
This study of the musical notation thus is closely related to how it is laid out, and leads to a consideration of the general shape and character of musical books – what Krummel (C1976) called ‘bibliographical forms’. Beyond assuming a conservative mentality on the part of publishers and purchasers, we cannot yet explain the reasoning behind continuing to publish organ music in the landscape (or ‘oblong’) format long after virtually all other genres have changed to the more current portrait (or ‘upright’) orientation. A similar conservative practice involves the continuing production in Germany of vocal parts for large-scale choral works. While these are curious instances, more important is the emergence of new lay-outs – the adoption of partbooks as a regular format in the 16th century, the very unusual proportions of solo songbooks during the 17th, or the production of single operatic numbers in full score in England around 1800. Each of these must, on purely commercial grounds, have met a felt need, but until the bibliographer has fully studied them and their like, and traced the patterns of their use, we have little hope of understanding exactly what need they met, or how it arose.
Coupled with this is the significance of all the supporting verbal text – title, dedication, preface, etc. – as well as advertising pages. The wording of titles needs much study. We rarely understand fully the meaning of many words used by publishers: ‘printed for’, ‘published by’, ‘issued by’, ‘can be purchased at’; each of these seems to have had a specific meaning, which itself varied from time to time and place to place, perhaps (for all we know) from occasion to occasion. But our understanding of the financial arrangements which led to any given publication are closely bound up with our interpretation of these and similar phrases.
Nowhere is this more true than with the dedication. In some cases, it seems to represent the composer's thanks for past favours, as in the 16th-century examples which refer to a patron who, we happen to know, was the composer's employer. In others, it was probably an attempt at currying favour, or soliciting future employment. No doubt many of those keyboard works of the 19th century which are dedicated to young lady students represent a little of both, as well as an indication of the social acceptability of the composer in other affluent houses. Other dedications stem from the publisher, and in these cases, we have to assume a slightly different range of possible meanings.
But the dedication is only one of a number of texts attached to published music. When the publisher adds a page ‘To the Reader’, pointing out some feature of musical style or raising issues of performance, we hope we are justified in assuming that he (or the composer) has developed a clear view of who will be purchasing that music, even though we cannot always understand that view. Only considerable bibliographical research will clarify this issue, and so many others.
That research regularly has to be undertaken away from the book of music itself. It involves questions such as the following: what was the range of music this publisher put out? Does the appearance (the format and size of notation, etc.) differ from one repertory to another from the same publisher? Is this a reflection of different costs for different repertories? How did the publisher market these repertories, or advertise them? What about pricing? How fast did he expect to be able to recoup his expenses? These are all questions within the realm of publishing history, and yet they frequently produce results which illumine the content and function of an individual published musical work.
More immediately significant are questions related to reprints – new editions put out by the same or another publisher, new issues from the same plates, the separate issue of numbers from an opera, or of units from a set of quartets or a song cycle. Tied in with this is the evidence of published (as opposed to manuscript) parts for orchestral music or opera, of full as opposed to vocal scores, or of piano and piano duet versions of string quartets or symphonies. It is obvious that a publisher's decision to issue any one of these represents a calculation as to the popularity of the music or its composer. In addition, the geographical and temporal spread of such publications will help to define where and for how long that popularity lasted, just as the format of the publication, the nature of the arrangement and its cost, all define the types of musicians among whom such popularity continued. The publication of Arcadelt's madrigals over a period of 150 years is a significant example, and so is the proliferation of editions of Handel in different countries, or the pattern by which J.S. Bach's music was revived and printed throughout Europe.
Many of the ranges of topics touched on in the preceding paragraphs have not been studied in enough detail – at least in music. In this respect, the analytical bibliography of music is still in its infancy. Much of the best work in recent decades has been laying the ground-work, collecting the data and producing preliminary analyses. It is only recently, for example, that serious study of groups of publishers in Rome or Vienna has provided us with some of the basic material from which we could begin to answer the types of questions discussed above. Yet, as should by now be evident, analytical bibliography is almost certainly the key to a large number of issues of interest to contemporary musicologists.
This article is not the place to discuss definitions or problems of terminology in bibliography, even less to give a guide to practices and procedures. Information on the former can be found in Glaister (C1960) and Boorman (C1990); for the latter, the standard reference source remains Bowers (C1949). However, there are a few basic terms that do need to be discussed briefly, in part because music printing and publishing presents a slightly different picture from the procedures and practices of textual printing, which form the basis for most scholarly thinking.
Central to the identification of any printed matter are the concepts of edition, issue, impression and state. These terms define the series of actions that printers and publishers go through when producing a series of copies of a book across a period of time, and they also locate any individual copy within that series. An understanding of their implications is therefore necessary for any work in musical bibliography.
The most important is the term ‘edition’, which is used to define all the copies that are printed from basically the same printing surface, whenever they appear. When they are printed from type, they will usually have been printed at one time; music printed from engravings or lithographed plates can obviously be printed at any later date, for the surfaces can be retained for long periods. Photographic processes have extended the possibilities, so that a copy printed from a photograph of an earlier book is deemed to be part of the same edition, for it is based on the same printing surfaces.
This definition places the edition at the centre of all bibliographical work, for it asserts that all copies printed from the same edition will carry fundamentally the same text. It allows for corrections to a plate, for the replacement of a single page with a corrected version, and for later copies to be sold for a different price, or even by a different publisher. The copies need not be identical throughout: indeed, before the 19th century, it is unusual for several copies to be the same in every respect.
An ‘impression’ comprises all those copies that were printed at the same time, as part of one sequence of activities. As already implied, when printing from type, the impression usually comprised the whole of an edition, because the type would have to be dismantled after printing and distributed ready for use in the next volume. This is evidently not true for music printed from plates, stones, photographs and similar surfaces. Here, any number of impressions can be taken: indeed, it is the advantage of the processes that the publisher only need invest in as many copies as would sell relatively quickly, and then commission more copies from the printer.
In such instances, there may be almost no way of detecting consecutive impressions: they can be identical in every detail of the content, including the supporting details on the title-page, and even printed on similar paper – particularly after the middle of the 19th century. Sometimes, a change in paper may be the only evidence of a new impression.
This is not true for a new ‘issue’, for here we assert that some aspect of the publishing details has been changed. The change may be as slight as the substitution of a new price, to reflect the impact of inflation, or the addition of a second address for the publisher. It may be larger, showing a completely new cover or the addition of a dedicatory letter, or it may be primarily bibliographical, involving a different gathering structure and format (usually also indications of a new impression). In any of these cases, there need not have been any change to the musical content, for the concept of issue is tightly bound to the manner in which the music was put on the market.
When there are changes to the content, we speak of a new ‘state’. This presupposes that a page or pages have been changed or replaced. The change need not imply that the earlier version was erroneous, for a composer may have decided on a new version, perhaps of the orchestration or dynamics, or the language of a text set to music might have been changed, or a second language added as a translation. But, in other cases, there may have been a serious error, or the plate itself has been damaged during the printing process. All these potential reasons argue that several copies of a publication need to be studied and arranged in order by the bibliographer, before the content can be used by the musicologist or performer.
Clearly, a volume can go through a multiplicity of states, as individual plates are replaced or as the composer continues to tinker with the text, and the volume could gradually be transformed into something completely different, in effect a new edition. This has led to some discussion as to when this sequence of changes must be seen as producing a new edition. There is no clear-cut answer here – in part because it depends on the size of the changes – but there is a consensus among musical bibliographers that any sequence that changes more than 50% of an edition should be seen as introducing a new edition. This is not a very happy solution, for there may have been no such intention on the part of the publisher. In one sense, therefore, it is wiser to talk about states, not of a whole book of music, but of the individual pages or gatherings that make up the whole. Since the changes are made to each page separately, without any intention of changing the character (musical or bibliographical) of the whole, this reflects the process more accurately.
However, whatever decision is made, it is clear that each individual ‘state’, like each individual ‘issue’ and ‘impression’, is normally subordinate to the whole ‘edition’, and that this last is the fundamental categorization of copies. The other subdivisions are just that, usually subordinate to the edition, even though they are themselves essential to any understanding of the date, the reliability or the hierarchical place of the contents of a given copy of music.
In discussing each of these, describing and cataloguing them, and placing them in sequence, the bibliographer relies heavily on the ability to detect whether a copy is complete, and whether it actually represents what the publisher wanted to see sold. Many copies survive incomplete, adapted and annotated by performers and scholars, rebound or collected into a set with other works: sometimes these changes are of the greatest interest, as when a conductor such as Mahler annotates and modifies the parts for a Beethoven symphony, or when a collection of music can be taken as representing the taste of a known social circle. But such changes would be misleading for the bibliography of the music as published, and have to be discounted: the scholar needs to work with a mental construct, the Ideal Copy.
This concept of the Ideal Copy is central to all bibliographical research: Tanselle (C1980) regards it as ‘the element that distinguishes bibliographical description from cataloguing’. It is defined as a copy that survives complete and as the printer or publisher would like to have seen it leave the shop. For many books, and even more often in the case of music, copies no longer survive in that complete, corrected and pristine condition: pages (especially blank leaves) are missing; several printer's corrections are not found in any one copy; various publishers' or dealers' marks have been stamped on the copy; it has been bound, perhaps with other works, by a later owner, and this has affected its completeness; or perhaps some instrumental parts have disappeared. If the bibliographer were to describe such a copy as if it represented a newly published copy, the results would clearly be misleading. So the bibliographical version of an Ideal Copy is created – representing a copy with everything present, without later additions (owners' bindings and annotations), and with all corrections that the printer and publisher made – a version that may survive in only a few copies, if at all.
The earliest attempts at cataloguing music and musical books were, without exception, made during the process of listing the contents of libraries: thus a number of early monastic library catalogues include treatises about music, and a few institutions also listed the musical books they owned. An important early example is the catalogue of the library of the Duke de Berry, which included music by Machaut. In this case, however, as in most others, any music books were entered not because they were performing copies, but specifically because they were worthy to be placed alongside the other valuable books in the collection. Other books were often listed as a group, without any detail beyond perhaps a general categorization or, more often, an indication of their size or binding. This is particularly frequent in descriptions of the estates of the recently deceased. There are few lists of musical books used in performance, no doubt because they were usually kept in a different location, or were the private property of the musicians. This is particularly true for music used in liturgical situations. Most chant books were kept close to the church itself, while other musical books would have been kept in the library. Extant catalogues reflect this division.
However, the 16th century saw a significant change in this pattern. It opens with one of the most useful of all early book (and music) catalogues, that made of the acquisitions of Cristoforo Colòn during the early decades of the century. Colòn's various catalogues are remarkable, not merely because he attempted to acquire a copy of every book he came across, including music, but because he also entered the opening and closing items, where and when he had purchased the book, and the price he paid. This provides unparalleled evidence, on a grand scale, about the circulation and costs of early printed music. Colòn's catalogue is but the earliest of a series of lists that record musical volumes, appearing with increasing frequency throughout the next two centuries: these include catalogues of collections (the Fugger Musikbibliothek in Augsburg or the Lumley Collection now in the British Library), of institutions with performing traditions (the collections at Rheinpfalz or at St Anna, Augsburg), of publishers (Alessandro Gardano or Vincenti in Venice, or Gerlach in Nuremberg) or book-dealers (Martin and Playford in London or Mayr in Ljubljana), or for the book fairs in Frankfurt and Leipzig. All these have proved invaluable for modern scholars, for they list many books that have since disappeared. The book fair catalogues are particularly useful, for they list all books which publishers were intending to bring to the fairs. While there are evident errors and problems of interpretation (especially for the dates), the lists still give much detail otherwise unavailable, and in particular illumine patterns of the spread of musical repertories and the contacts between publishers and dealers.
At the same time, scholars were compiling lists of the known literature in specific fields (or, still during the 16th century, of all fields), and these included lists of music or books on music. The earliest were the work of Conrad Gesner (D1548) and Antonfrancesco Doni (D1550–51): Gesner attempted to be comprehensive, while Doni concentrated on Italian secular music. These, and subsequent works, are examples of bibliographical work, although they hardly exceeded the limits of reference bibliography, providing lists of contents with little or no description. This is not surprising, for their function was as a display of the material available in a given field.
This pattern seems to continue for much of the 17th century. A number of catalogues of libraries (many of which contained important musical editions or manuscripts) survive, and one – the catalogue of the vast collection of João IV of Portugal – was actually printed (D1649). Other writers used the book fair catalogues to provide a bibliography of music and writings about music: these include Willer (D1592) and Draudius (D1610), the latter writing very much in the Gesner tradition. Similarly, publishers' catalogues grew in significance and scale (see, among others, Mischiati, D1984), a practice that continued well into the 20th century.
Near the end of the 17th century, the growth in writings about musical history followed a pattern of scholarship in many other fields: with it, there came the practice of citing one's sources – not necessarily in the form of footnotes, but at least as a bibliography of works consulted. J.K. Trost seems to have been the first to do this: his Ausführliche Beschreibung (Nuremberg, 1671) included such a list at the end. He was followed by many other writers, including those who compiled historical dictionaries. Brossard (D1703), Walther (D1732) and Adlung (D1758) all listed their musical sources, including earlier treatises, while Gruber (D1783) and particularly Forkel (D1792) added earlier scholarly writing. These lists were early examples of a number of bibliographical catalogues that have remained of value for modern scholarship. Perhaps the greatest achievements, and still the most useful, were the work of Gerber (1790–92/R), Fétis (D1835–44) and Eitner (B1900–04). These progressively increase the range and depth of material covered, at the same time as they respond to the growing sophistication of citations to be found in bibliographical work.
After about 1800, many of the attempts at cataloguing and studying musical material reflect new interests, particular the growth of a market in antiquarian books. Whereas Padre Martini in Bologna had acquired many of his books by exchange or gift, more and more collectors were now purchasing their rare and early books, and dealers emerged to specialize in the material. At the same time, details of the books themselves became more important – such features as the book's completeness, the presence of blank leaves, an early binding, large paper copies or autograph annotations made a book more valuable. Cataloguers and bibliographers therefore turned to studying the make-up of the books in more detail, and providing detailed descriptions. It was a short step from this to the emergence of bibliography as a discipline. At first, the field developed most strongly in the study of incunabula, and only slowly spread to 16th-century books. By the end of the century, however, scholarship had reached relatively recent volumes, books that had been produced less than 100 years earlier.
For music, a parallel development can be seen. Early work included both the study of incunables proper – which meant almost entirely treatises on music, with a little work on liturgical printing – and of what were called ‘musical incunabula’, books printed within the first 50 years or so of the start of music printing (i.e. the first half of the 16th century). It was natural that this growth of descriptive bibliography should be connected with the earliest music printing: apart from the value of those books on the commercial market, they had the fascination attaching to the ‘first’ examples of anything, and they were in some respects easier to describe than later editions. Typeset music books lend themselves to quantitative description more easily than does engraving, and the structure of the books was also easier to understand. It is true that there were many apparent anomalies, but these could usually be detected by an astute observer, and added their own fascination to the process. As a result, the basic processes for making typeset books came to be understood fairly well, and catalogues of incunables show considerable sophistication.
It is unfair, however, to characterize 19th-century musical bibliography as being driven by a commercial market or restricted to the earliest material. Many bibliographers were turning further afield, studying or cataloguing music from all periods to some of the most recent. Some were music librarians: Gaetano Gaspari worked at the Liceo Musicale in Bologna, Anton Schmid was librarian at the court library in Vienna, and Emil Vogel was librarian for Peters, the publishing house in Leipzig. This pattern still continues: important work has been done by Alec Hyatt King and Oliver Neighbour at the British Library, by François Lesure at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, by Mariangela Donà in Milan and by Mary Kay Duggan in California, although the interests displayed by these scholars have changed as the field itself has expanded. Other early bibliographers were archivists and historians who became interested in printing history; yet others were essentially freelance scholars: Carl von Winterfeld was an early example, followed by Robert Eitner.
It was in the early years of the 20th century that musical bibliographers began to turn to other, often more detailed and analytical issues. One of the first of these issues was the significance of plate numbers, explored by Barclay Squire (C1913–14), followed by many scholars, importantly Deutsch (C1946), and Tyson and Neighbour (C1965). There were other purely bibliographical explorations: questions of typefaces and their uses (Meyer-Baer, C1962, since intensively developed in Duggan, C1992); issues of terminology and describing editions (Meyer, C1935; Hoboken, C1958); and problems of defining and dating first editions, especially of the major 18th- and 19th-century composers (Kinsky, C1934).
Since the middle of the 20th century, musical bibliography has expanded enormously: on one hand, many more scholars and librarians are addressing the issues, exploring new repertories (finally coming to grips with musical and other ephemera, for example), employing sophisticated analysis to explore new ranges of evidence, and attempting to face the difficult questions. In these respects, the discipline has begun to catch up with the skills deployed by bibliographers of English and American literature, or scholars studying engravings and etchings of the major artists. There is still ground to be explored, particularly in the realms of publishing history, of the ‘meta-text’, and of the relationship of the printed edition to its potential and actual consumers. Some current problems of this sort will not be usefully resolved until much more detailed research of many repertories has been undertaken. For example, the high level of research into 16th-century printing and publishing in Italy and the Low Countries is matched, in research into later periods or the rest of Europe, only by a number of excellent local or specific studies; work on editions of music by the major late-18th- and 19th-century composers is not equalled by that on the second- and third-rank masters, or by studies of composers before Haydn and Mozart; and we need serious research into 17th- and 20th-century printing and publishing.
There have been some recent efforts to survey the whole field of musical bibliography, placing its different aspects in context, perceiving trends and trying to suggest directions for work. Among these a most useful review of the more analytical end of the field is Krummel 1992.
It is evident that all forms of bibliography will change drastically under the impact of modern technologies. CD-ROM and the Internet have already made a difference. Large-scale bibliographical resources can be circulated on the former, and many details that have not reached a publishable condition are obtainable from the latter. While many scholars would perhaps be reluctant to see the printed page decline in importance, and there are some ranges of research that can not be conducted via the Internet, it must be acknowledged that the new resources are already making bibliographical control much more feasible, and thereby opening new doors for the analytical and speculative bibliographer.
There have already been many references to ways in which bibliographical work can aid the musician and scholar. Most obviously, catalogues and descriptive bibliographies are the tools by which we discover new materials, but they are useful in other ways. Behind the data presented in bibliographies are many strands of evidence waiting to be uncovered: the data show trends and patterns; they present evidence of popularity or salesmanship and reveal details of performance practice and of patterns of patronage.
The general rise in the numbers of editions over the past 500 years indicates a general increase in musical literacy and the desire to use notation in performance. These increasing numbers far outstrip the rate of growth of population, presenting an argument for the spread of notated music through increasing sectors of the population, an argument which is well supported by the advance of editions into popular genres of all sorts. Whether this expansion will continue under the impact of newer technologies is a moot point. But the pattern, over hundreds of years, both reflects and has its own impact on the styles in which composers write and the genres which publishers choose to promote, and the details of the pattern are most important for understanding historical developments.
In different periods, some repertories have been printed extensively, while others have more often remained in manuscript. Little keyboard music was printed in the first half of the 16th century: while this was partly due to the technical problems of printing chords, it is notable that the pattern continues even after engraving becomes widely used. The scarcity of printed church cantatas in 17th-century Germany can be contrasted with the many editions of Gelegenheitskompositionen – occasional pieces for weddings, funerals, degree ceremonies and the like. In the late 18th century and early in the 19th, few songs and opera arias were published in full score, appearing largely with piano reductions; this contrasts markedly with the practice in 17th- and 18th-century France.
The superficial reason for these phenomena must be that publishers decided that they could not sell enough copies of the neglected repertories, and would take a financial loss with them. But, beneath that, the deeper reasons are more diverse: the opera example is of course a reflection of the large number of domestic musicians, wanting to play and sing their favourite pieces, music heard at Vauxhall and similar places, or from stage works they had seen. There was no corresponding number of chamber orchestras willing to devote their energies to supporting singers. (This does raise the question of why any scores of single numbers were published.)
The contrast with published scores of French Baroque opera is highly significant. The historian is forced to believe that the French editions must have been subsidised, or else bought by many people who had no intention of performing them. Given that the scores often represent works presented before the French court, and that they were published in elegant form, it is probable that both explanations are correct, working in combination.
A related argument justifies the printing and sale of occasional compositions in 17th-century Germany: indeed, it is tempting to see the honoree buying, or commissioning, virtually all the edition, to serve as gifts to guests, friends and potential patrons. However, this raises another question, one for which we have few answers: how large was an edition, or how many copies were printed? Contracts do survive, giving specific figures, but there are far too few of them for us to be able to extrapolate. Instead, it seems likely that many print runs (at least before the late 18th century) were very small. It is hard to believe that a death in a small town in Germany could stimulate sales outside the area, and just as hard to believe that the heirs would give away more than 100 copies at most. Much the same argument can be raised for the French Opera scores, for vihuela music in Spain, and elsewhere. Given the relative costs of labour and materials, this is not unreasonable, and it was apparently cheaper for a printer to prepare a new edition, if more copies were needed, than to tie up capital in slow-moving copies.
The last point seems the best explanation for the many hidden editions that are being found as a result of detailed study of 16th- and even 17th-century editions. A small print run could well explain why new editions were so often printed within one or two years of the first.
Such arguments raise questions about how large the market for music ever was. We can only speculate about this for most generations before the 19th century. Two pieces of late evidence, however, are important: one is the continuing practice of publishing manuscript copies. Publishers in Italy and elsewhere, even as late as the middle third of the 19th century, continued to employ copyists, certainly working on sets of parts for hire, but also preparing piano-vocal arrangements of popular songs and arias for sale to the general public. There was evidently not enough demand (in a short enough period) to justify engraving the plates and running off copies. It was still cheaper to prepare manuscript copies as they were required.
The second evidence lies in the occasional survival of publisher's records, of which Ricordi's Libroni are among the most important. The small size of the print run indicated for many entries in these ledgers also argues a smaller market than we have tended to assume.
Parallel with this range of evidence is the presence on many title-pages of phrases such as ‘newly corrected’, ‘revised’ or ‘with additional compositions’. These wordings suggest that publishers, while recognizing that a second (or later) edition was being sought, were afraid that there were not enough purchasers to justify the cost of preparing it: they were therefore trying to persuade some of the original buyers to return for the new edition.
The few editions of keyboard music in the 16th century are significant not only by virtue of their scarcity, but also for the repertory they contained. It seems that, by contrast with the ready market for professional-level lute music, evident from the 1540s on, the potential purchasers of keyboard music were not regularly as skilled (at least before late in the century). There seem to have been fewer virtuosic keyboard players around, or (more probably) skilled organists and harpsichordists preferred to create their own music. If these types of evidence argue for the size and character of the market for particular repertories, there are also signs of publishers working to expand the number of purchasers of their music.
The pattern in the second half of the 18th century, whereby the title-pages of editions of keyboard music moved from the designation ‘for harpsichord’ to ‘for harpsichord or fortepiano’ and eventually to ‘for fortepiano’, is certainly an indicator of the progressive take-over by the latter instrument. While many of the compositions described as being for either instrument were evidently written for one rather than the other, the additional listing on the title-page implied that many amateur musicians had only one of the two instruments, and it was clearly intended to increase sales. Similarly, the mid-17th-century title-pages offering some version of the formula ‘for four soloists, with a four-part chorus ad placitum’ or ‘ad libitum’ tell us something about the number of institutions which could not afford, or find, enough qualified singers to cope with full choral music. These works, by Cazzati and others, are indeed composed so that the chorus is optional. They show the composer writing for as many situations as possible: the prominence given to the option on title-pages indicates that the publisher (probably influenced by Cazzati himself) also saw the commercial advantages implicit in this mode of writing. This sort of conclusion, while fairly obvious, is only justifiable once the bibliographical work has been completed. The evidence uncovered by such work is interesting for other aspects of musical history as well.
The problem of dating many 18th- and 19th-century editions has already been mentioned, and indeed the bibliography and cataloguing of 19th-century music remains one of the most important lacunae in the field. Major composers and their works have been studied in detail, and many of their editions have been dated, often with the aid of personal correspondence, newspaper advertisements and other external data. However, as soon as one turns to composers who are only marginally less important, such as Dussek, Thalberg or Humperdinck, the research is so uneven in coverage that few editions have been even approximately dated. Standard reference works give very different dates for first editions, often relying on opus numbers as a guide, or depending on the particular copy examined by the writer. The problem is of course compounded by the number of editions that went through series of impressions and issues, each without date. Careful work on the early editions of Brahms has shown what can be achieved (Hofmann, C1975).
It is clear that the history of styles and taste, as much as local histories of music and its reception, needs all these data, and needs this type of research to be undertaken. Given the extent to which publishing and dissemination were influential in the development of musical taste, to some extent taking the place of actual performances of the original form of the music in all but the most important cultural centres, much research is dependent on clarifying publication and selling data. The new edition of Ricordi's Libroni has again led the way here, allowing the reader to see the relative importance of selections from operas, arrangements of inidividual numbers for instruments, and fantasias or potpourris of themes. Each of these genres had a different function, and their relative importance (as measured by their appearance and the size of the print run) tells us something about the character of the market for the music. Similar studies of publishers' advertisements, dealers' catalogues, and purchasing records will certainly aid in our understanding of how, for example, features of Beethoven's music were so rapidly absorbed and imitated in different parts of Europe and America.
This highlights the extent to which bibliography is always at the service of our study of the content of the document. The bibliographer has to be immersed in the technicalities of printing and publishing, and has a whole armoury of research tools as complex and detailed as those available to the musicologist: he or she may in practice hardly look at the music itself. The end, product, though, is always either a deeper understanding of the processes of producing a musical edition or a better grasp of how a particular copy of an edition relates to the content which it purports to present to a musician. A few examples of the impact of such research follow:
(i) almost all early music printers seem to have preferred to reprint, going through the labour of preparing a new edition, rather than having larger initial print runs. This is true of the first publisher of music, Petrucci, and continues throughout the 16th century and as late as Thomas East (Smith, C1996–7). Such a pattern tells us something about the cost of labour as opposed to supplies, but it also says much about the speed with which publishers expected to be able to sell copies, and hence something about the extent to which purchasers were not only interested in ‘the latest thing’;
(ii) detailed study (Bernstein, C1985–6) of the typographical material found in several Venetian music books of the 1540s and 50s, which carry no printer's or publisher's name, but do include the device of a salamander, has shown that they were connected with one of the major Venetian publishing houses of the time. We still can not answer why he chose not to acknowledge these editions;
(iii) the relative numbers of editions of different repertories – congregational music, simple part-music, complex madrigalian styles and church or instrumental music at various levels – and the format and manner of their presentation, taken together, allow us to detect different patterns of music-making in Italy as opposed to the Low Countries, reflecting different approaches in the various strata of society;
(iv) demonstrations of the value of studying every available copy of each printed edition abound in the literature, revealing manuscript corrections of misprints made in the printing shop or by early owners (Charteris, C1995);
(v) analysis of the use of ornamental initial letters has helped in dating editions, and in the study of work-patterns, for French music of the 16th and 17th centuries (Guillo and Noailly, C1988);
(vi) study of the engravers for editions of Handel's instrumental music has led to detailed re-evaluations of the texts they prepared (Burrows, C1983);
(vii) analysis of how London engravers divided up their work on editions of Haydn has helped identify the characteristics of each craftsman and the range of errors each was liable to make (Poole, C1980);
(viii) Tyson's study (C1963) of the business arrangements for publishing Beethoven's works in England has shown that some English editions reflect the composer's intentions better than those published closer to home;
(ix) study of the engraved scores of 19th-century Italian operas reveals that some pages, while carrying the same plate numbers as their neighbours, are engraved in a different hand. While, in some cases, these pages appear to be replacements for defective ones, in others they represent necessary changes in layout as more popular numbers, published earlier, were incorporated into complete editions;
(x) close examination of copies of the original editions of works by Brahms throws light on the lack of care with which engravers handled many details of the composer's score, as well as the extent to which Brahms felt it necessary to notate corrections and improvements on his proof (Pascall, C1983; Grassi, C1995);
(xi) study of normal practice is beginning to draw attention to differences in the boldness with which a printer displays on the title-page the composer's name, the genre or title of the work, and the name of the dedicatee. This is important evidence for assessing the contemporary stature of the individual composer, the reputation of different genres (and particularly of the works that lay behind potpourris and fantasies), and the selling power attached to the name of a distinguished or accomplished and beautiful member of society;
(xii) the various editions of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring show in an exemplary manner how a new edition, intended to correct errors or to carry a composer's latest thoughts, will inevitably also carry new errors (Cyr, C1982).
These are all exemplary, not merely for the study itself, but because they show what can be done with other repertories. Similar problems abound, and remain untackled, throughout music history. In each case, bibliographical study will force us to reconsider the history of the music itself (of its composition and revision), of the ways in which it was performed, or of the manner in which it reached and was received by an audience.
A Music bibliography: (i) General (ii) Cataloguing music and music literature. B Reference bibliography: (i) Music: major cumulative bibliographies (ii) Music: current and national bibliographies (iii) Music: reference bibliographies (iv) Music literature: cumulative bibliographies (v) Music literature: current bibliographies. C Descriptive and analytical bibliography: (i) General studies (ii) Music: methodologies (iii) Music: sample descriptive bibliographies (iv) Music: case studies in analytical bibliography. D History of music bibliography: (i) General (ii) Early printed music bibliographies (to 1850) (iii) Selected studies of early inventories.
For further relevant literature, especially concerning analytical bibliography, see Printing and publishing of music.
c: descriptive and analytical bibliography
d: History of music bibliography
Bibliography of music: Bibliography
W. Schmieder: ‘Musikbibliographie: ein Beitrag zu ihrer Geschichte und ihren Problemen’, AMw xii (1955), 239–47
G.B. Koltypina: Bibliografiya muzïkal'noy bibliografii (Moscow, 1963)
Å. Davidsson: Bibliographie zur Geschichte des Musikdrucks (Uppsala, 1965)
H.-M. Plesske: ‘Bibliographie des Schrifttums zur Geschichte deutscher und österreichischer Musikverlage’, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Buchwesens, iii (1968), 135–222
Foundations in Music Bibliography: Evanston, IL, 1986
D.W. Krummel: Bibliographical Handbook of American Music (Urbana, IL, 1987)
B.M. Antolini: ‘L'editoria musicale in Italia dal Settecento al Novecento: fonti e bibliografia’, Fonti musicali in Italia: studi e ricerche, iii (1989), 33–55
D.W. Krummel: The Literature of Music Bibliography: an Account of the Writings on the History of Music Printing and Publishing (Berkeley, 1993)
O.E. Deutsch: ‘Music Bibliography and Catalogues’, The Library, 4th ser., xxiii (1942–3), 151–70
S. Goldthwaite: ‘Classification Problems in Bibliographies of Literature about Music’, Library Quarterly, xviii (1948), 255–63
IAML International Cataloging Code Commission: Code international de catalogage de la musique (Frankfurt, 1957–83)
Music Library Association and American Library Association: Code for Cataloguing Music and Phonorecords (Chicago, 1958)
E.J. Coates: The British Catalogue of Music Classification (London, 1960)
C.S. Spalding: Anglo-American Cataloging Rules (Chicago, 1967, rev. 2/1974 by P.W. Winkler)
I. Pethes: A Flexible Classification System of Music and Literature on Music (Budapest, 1968) [in Eng., Hung.]
Bibliography of music: Bibliography
L. Allacci: Drammaturgia (Rome, 1666, enlarged 2/1755/R) [AllacciD]
C.F. Whistling: Handbuch der musikalischen Literatur (Leipzig, 1817–27/R, 2/1828–39/R)
C. Gardeton: Bibliographie musicale de la France et de l'étranger, ou Répertoire général systématique de tous les traités et oeuvres de musique vocale et instrumentale (Paris, 1822/R)
C.F. Becker: Die Tonwerke des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts, oder Systematisch-chronologische Zusammenstellung der in diesen zwei Jahrhunderten gedruckten Musikalien (Leipzig, 1847, 2/1855/R)
US Board of Music Trade: Complete Catalogue of Sheet Music and Musical Works (New York, 1870/R)
Le bibliographe musical (Paris, 1872–6/R)
R. Eitner and others: Bibliographie der Musik-Sammelwerke des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1877/R) [EitnerS]
A. Deakin: Outlines of Musical Bibliography: a Catalogue of Early Music and Musical Works Printed or Otherwise Produced in the British Isles (Birmingham, 1899/R)
B. and F. Pazdírek: Universal-Handbuch der Musikliteratur aller Zeiten und Völker (Vienna, 1904–10/R) [PazdírekH]
Eesti muusikaajaloo lugemik: Eesti muusikakirjandus aastatel 1622–1917 [The history of Estonian music: Estonian musical literature] (Tallinn, 1934)
Bibliografia musical Brasileira, 1820–1850 (Rio de Janeiro, 1952)
A.H. Heyer: Historical Sets, Collected Editions, and Monuments of Music: a Guide to their Contents (Chicago, 1957, 3/1980)
E.B. Schnapper, ed.: British Union-Catalogue of Early Music (London, 1957) [BUCEM]
Répertoire international des sources musicales (Munich and Kassel, 1960–) [RISM]
Magyar könyvészet 1945–1960: a Magyarországon nyomtatott térképek szakosétott jegyzéke/Bibliographia hungarica 1945–1960: catalogus systematicus notarum musicarum in Hungaria editarum (Budapest, 1969)
B.S. Brook: Thematic Catalogues in Music: an Annotated Bibliography (Hillsdale, NY, 1972, enlarged 2/1997)
S.R. Charles: A Handbook of Music and Music Literature in Sets and Series (New York, 1972)
S. Klevenhusen: Thematische Werkverzeichnisse: eine annotierte Bibliographie (Berlin, 1972)
The Catalogue of Printed Music in the British Library to 1980 (London, 1981–7); updated versions on CD-ROM as CPM Plus (London, 1992, 2/1997)
Bibliografia da música brasileira, 1977–1984 (São Paulo, 1984)
B. Pierreuse: Catalogue général de l'edition musicale en France: livres, méthodes et partitions de musique sérieuse en vente (Paris, 1984)
C.A. Höweler and F.H. Matter: Fontes hymnodiae neerlandicae impressi 1539–1700/De melodieën van het Nederlandstalig geestelijk lied 1539–1700: een bibliografie van de gedrukte bronnen (Nieuwkoop, 1985)
G.R. Hill and N.L. Stephens: Collected Editions, Historical Series & Sets & Monuments of Music (Berkeley, 1997)
Hofmeisters Handbuch der Musikliteratur (Leipzig, 1844–)
Bibliographie musicale (Paris, 1875–1920/R) [from 1879 Bibliographie musicale française]
Uppslagsbok för Svenska musikhandeln (Linköping, later Stockholm, 1891–)
Dansk musikfortegenelse (Copenhagen, 1931–)
Deutschen Musikbibliographie (Leipzig, 1943–)
Bibliographie de la France: tables annuelles alphabétique, iv: Oeuvres musicales (Paris, 1946–) [later Bibliographie nationale française, suppl.iii: Musique]
Oesterreichische Musikbibliographie: Gruppe 13a (Vienna, 1949–) [later Oesterreichische Bibliographie: Gruppe 13a]
Library of Congress Catalogues: Music, Books on Music, Sound Recordings (Washington DC, 1954–) [formerly Music and Phonorecords]
The British Catalogue of Music (London, 1957–)
D.W. Krummel and J.B. Coover: ‘Current National Bibliographies: their Music Coverage’, Notes, xvii (1959–60), 375–84
Belgische bibliographie/Bibliographie belge, suppl. (Brussels, 1966–)
Svensk musikförteckning (Stockholm, 1966–)
Magyar zenemüvek bibliográfiája (Budapest, 1970–)
Norsk bokfortegnelse: musiktrykk (Oslo, 1981–7)
Música impresa: Biblioteca nacional, bibliografia español (Madrid, 1985–)
Muziek catalogus Nederland (The Hague, 1985–)
See also a series of articles in FAM, xxvii (1980) and xxxiii–xli (1986–94)
P. Wackernagel: Bibliographie zur Geschichte des deutschen Kirchenliedes im XVI. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt, 1854–5/R)
E. Challier: Grosser Lieder-Katalog: ein alphabetisch geordnetes Verzeichniss sämtlicher einstimmiger Lieder mit Begleitung des Pianoforte (Berlin, 1885–1914)
G. Gaspari: Catalogo della Biblioteca del Liceo musicale di Bologna, i–iv (Bologna, 1890–1905/R); v, ed. U. Sesini (Bologna, 1943/R) [GaspariC]
E. Vogel: Bibliothek der gedruckten weltlichen Vocalmusik Italiens, aus den Jahren 1500 bis 1700 (Berlin, 1892, rev. 3/1978 by F. Lesure and C. Sartori) [VogelB]
R. Eitner: Biographisch-bibliographisches Quellen-Lexikon der Musiker und Musikgelehrten der christlichen Zeitrechnung bis Mitte des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts (Leipzing, 1900–04, 2/1959) [EitnerQ]
H. Parent: Répertoire encyclopédique du pianiste (Paris, 1900–07)
O.G.T. Sonneck: A Bibliography of Early Secular American Music (Washington, DC, 1905, rev. and enlarged 2/1945 by W.T. Upton, repr. 1964 with preface by I. Lowens)
W. Altmann: Kammermusik-Katalog: ein Verzeichnis von seit 1841 veröffentlichten Kammermusikwerken (Leipzing, 1910, 6/1945)
F. Ludwig: Repertorium organorum recentioris et motetorum vetustissimi stili, i/1 (Halle, 1910/R)
J. Ecorcheville: Catalogue du fonds de musique ancienne de la Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris, 1910–14/R)
M.E. Sears: Song Index: an Index to more than 12,000 Songs in 177 Song Collections (New York, 1926, suppl. 1934)
H. Endō: Bibliography of Oriental and Primitive Music (Tokyo, 1929)
A. Weinmann: Beiträge zur Geschichte des Alt-Wiener Musikverlages (Vienna, 1948–87)
Å. Davidsson: Catalogue critique et descriptif des imprimés de musique des XVIe et XVIIe siècles conservés dans les bibliothèques suédoises, excepté la bibliothèque de l'Université royale d'Upsala (Uppsala, 1952)
C. Sartori: Bibliografia della musica strumentale italiana stampata in Italia fino al 1700 (Florence, 1952–68) [SartoriB]
O.E. Albrecht: Census of Autograph Music Manuscripts of European Composers in American Libraries (Philadelphia, 1953)
F. Lesure and G. Thibault: Bibliographie des éditions d'Adrian Le Roy et Robert Ballard, 1551–1598 (Paris, 1955)
C. Sartori: Dizionario degli editori musicali italiani (Florence, 1958) [SartoriD]
R.J. Wolfe: Secular Music in America, 1801–1825: a Bibliography (New York, 1964)
H.M. Brown: Instrumental Music Printed before 1600: a Bibliography (Cambridge, MA, 1965) [BrownI]
M. Farish: String Music in Print (New York, 1965, 2/1973; suppls., 1968, 1984, 1998)
J.H. Taylor: Vocal and Instrumental Music in Print (New York, 1965)
J.J. Fuld: The Book of World-Famous Music (New York, 1966, 2/1971) [FuldWFM]
L.M. Cross: A Bibliography of Electronic Music (Toronto, 1968)
H. Davies: Répertoire international des musiques electroacoustiques/International Electronic Music Catalog (Cambridge, MA, 1968)
W.C. Smith and C. Humphries: A Bibliography of the Musical Works Published by the Firm of John Walsh during the Years 1721–1766 (London, 1968)
W.C. Smith: Handel: a Descriptive Catalogue of the Early Editions (Oxford, 1970)
T.R. Nardone, J.H. Nye and M. Resnick: Choral Music in Print (Philadelphia, 1974; suppls.: N.K. Nardone: Sacred Choral Music in Print, 1981; N.K. Nardone: Secular Choral Music in Print, 1982)
H. Rheinfurth: Der Musikverlag Lotter in Augsburg (ca. 1719–1845) (Tutzing, 1977)
Jazz-Index (Frankfurt, 1977–83)
The Catalogue of Printed Music in the British Library to 1980 (London, 1981–7); updated versions on CD-ROM as CPM Plus (London, 1992, 2/1997)
H. Vanhulst: Catalogue des éditions de musique publiées à Louvain par Pierre Phalèse et ses fils, 1545–1578 (Brussels, 1984)
S.D. Westcott: A Comprehensive Bibliography of Music for Film and Television (Detroit, 1985)
Annotated Bibliography of Japanese Classical Music (Tokyo, 1987)
A.P. Britton, I. Lowens and R. Crawford: American Sacred Music Imprints, 1698–1810: a Bibliography (Worcester, MA, 1990)
J.M. Chomiński and T.D. Turło: Katalog dzieł Fryderyka Chopina [Catalogue of the works of Fryderyk Chopin] (Kraków, 1990)
C. Lems-Dworkin: African Music: an Annotated Bibliography (Munich, 1991)
W. Freystätter: Die musikalischen Zeitschriften seit ihrer Entstehung bis zur Gegenwart: chronologisches Verzeichnis der periodischen Schriften über Musik (Munich, 1884)
J.E. Matthew: The Literature of Music (New York, 1896/R)
B. and F. Pazdírek: Universal-Handbuch der Musikliteratur aller Zeiten und Völker (Vienna, 1904–10/R) [PazdírekH]
M. Brenet: ‘Bibliographie des bibliographies musicales’, Année musicale, iii (1913), 1–152; pubd separately (New York, 1971)
J. Prod'homme: ‘Essai de bibliographie des périodiques musicaux de langue française’, RdM, i (1917–19), 76–90
A. Aber: Handbuch der Musikliteratur in systematisch-chronologischer Anordnung (Leipzig, 1922/R)
E. Blom: A General Index to Modern Musical Literature in the English Language (London, 1927/R)
P.A. Scholes: A List of Books about Music in the English Language prepared as an Appendix to the Oxford Companion to Music (London and New York, 1939)
D.H. Daugherty, L. Ellinwood and R.S. Hill: A Bibliography of Periodical Literature in Musicology and Allied Fields (Washington DC, 1940–43/R)
Å. Davidsson: Bibliografi över Svensk musiklitteratur 1800–1945 (Uppsala, 1948, 2/1980)
J.B. Coover: A Bibliography of Music Dictionaries (Denver, 1952, rev. 3/1971 as Music Lexicography, including … a Bibliography of Music Dictionaries)
E.C. Krohn: The History of Music: an Index to the Literature available in a Selected Group of Music Publications (St Louis, 1952/R)
W. Kahl and W.-M. Luther: Repertorium der Musikwissenschaft: Musikshrifttum: Denkmäler und Gesamtausgaben in Auswahl (1800–1950) (Kassel, 1953)
J.A. Thoumin: Bibliographie rétrospective des périodiques français de littérature musicale 1870–1954 (Paris, 1957)
M. Briquest: La musique dans les congrès internationaux, 1835–1939 (Paris, 1961)
E. Rohlfs: Die deutschsprachigen Musikperiodica, 1945–1957 (Regensburg, 1961)
Å. Davidsson: Bibliographie der musiktheoretischen Drucke des 16. Jahrhunderts (Baden-Baden, 1962)
K.E. Mixter: General Bibliography for Music Research (Detroit, 1962, 3/1996)
R. Schaal: Verzeichnis deutschsprachiger musikwissenschaftlicher Dissertationen 1861–1960 (Kassel, 1963, suppl., 1974 [covers 1961–70])
F. Blum: Music Monographs in Series: a Bibliography of Numbered Monograph Series in the Field of Music current since 1945 (New York, 1964)
V. Duckles: Music Reference and Research Materials: an Annotated Bibliography (New York, 1964, 5/1997)
Å. Davidsson: Bibliographie zur Geschichte des Musikdrucks (Uppsala, 1965)
J.H. Davies: Musicalia: Sources of Information in Music (Oxford, 1966, 2/1969)
F. Gillis and P. Merriam: Ethnomusicology and Folk Music: an International Bibliography of Dissertations and Theses (Middletown, CT, 1966)
I. Fellinger: Verzeichnis der Musikzeitschriften des 19. Jahrhunderts (Regensburg, 1968)
W. Gerboth: An Index to Musical Festschriften and Similar Publications (New York, 1969)
D.-R. de Lerma: A Selective List of Masters' Theses in Musicology (Bloomington, IN, 1970)
P. Ericksen: Indeks til Danske periodiske musikpublikationer 1795–1841 (Århus, 1975)
G.A. Marco and S.P. Ferris: Information on Music: a Handbook of Reference Sources in European Languages (Littleton, CO, 1975–84)
G.D. Gibson and M.H. Gray: Bibliography of Discographies, i: Classical Music 1925–1975 (Munich, 1977)
J. Gribenski: Thèses de doctorat en langue française relatives à la musique: bibliographie commentée (New York, 1979)
J. Tyrrell and R. Wise: A Guide to International Congress Reports in Musicology 1900–1975 (London, 1979)
D. Allen: Bibliography of Discographies, ii: Jazz (Munich, 1981)
M.H. Gray: Bibliography of Discographies, iii: Popular Music (Munich, 1983)
A. Hodges and R. McGill: The British Union Catalogue of Music Periodicals (London, 1985, 2/1998)
I. Fellinger: Periodica musicalia (1789–1830) (Regensburg, 1986)
H. Walther: Bibliographie der Musikbuchreihen, 1886–1990 (Kassel, 1991)
The Music Index: a Subject-Author Guide to Music Periodical Literature (Detroit, 1949–)
Oesterreichische Musikbibliographie (Vienna, 1949–)
H. Hewitt [later C. Adkins and A. Dickinson]: Doctoral Dissertations in Musicology (Philadelphia, 1952–)
W. Schmieder: Bibliographie des Musikschrifttums 1950/51–1958/59 (Frankfurt, 1954–64)
P. Doe: ‘Register of Theses on Music’, RMARC, iii– (1963–)
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature (New York, 1967–)
Musikbibliographischer Dienst (Berlin, 1969–) [pubn of the Deutscher Büchreiverband]
Bibliographia musicologica: a Bibliography of Music Literature (Utrecht, 1970–78)
Bibliographic Guide to Music (New York, 1976–)
Bibliography of music: Bibliography
G. Schneider: Handbuch der Bibliographie (Leipzig, 1923, 4/1930; Eng. trans., 1934, as Theory and History of Bibliography)
R.B. McKerrow: An Introduction to Bibliography for Literary Students (Oxford, 1927)
F. Bowers: Principles of Bibliographic Description (Princeton, NJ, 1949)
G.A. Glaister: Glossary of the Book (London, 1960, 3/1997)
P. Gaskell: A New Introduction to Bibliography (Oxford, 1972)
G.T. Tanselle: ‘The Concept of Ideal Copy’, Studies in Bibliography, xxxiii (1980), 18–53
G.T. Tanselle: ‘The Description of Non-Letterpress Material in Books’, Studies in Bibliography, xxxv (1982), 1–42
S. Boorman: ‘Glossary’, Music Printing and Publishing, ed. D.W. Krummel and S. Sadie (London, 1990), 487–550
W. Barclay Squire: ‘Publishers' Numbers’, SIMG, xv (1913–14), 420–27
J. Schmidt-Phiseldeck: ‘Datierung der Musikalien’, Beethoven-Zentenarfeier: Vienna 1927, 279–82
K. Meyer: ‘Über Musikbibliographie’, Musikwissenschaftliche Beiträge: Festschrift für Johannes Wolf, ed. W. Lott, H. Osthoff and W. Wolffheim (Berlin, 1929/R), 118–22
K. Meyer: ‘Was sind musikalische Erstausgaben?’, Philobiblon, viii (1935), 181–4
C. Hopkinson: ‘Fundamentals of Music Bibliography’, Journal of Documentation, xi (1955), 119–29
A. van Hoboken: ‘Probleme der musikbibliographischen Terminologie’, FAM, v (1958), 6–15
O.W. Neighbour and A. Tyson: English Music Publishers' Plate Numbers in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century (London, 1965)
M. Przywecka-Samecka: Drukarstwo muzyczne w Polsce do Końca XVIII wieku [Music printing in Poland to the end of the 18th century] (Kraków, 1969) [Przywecka-SameckaDM]
M. Bohatcová: ‘Bibliografie a dějiny knihtisku’ [Bibliography and the history of printing], Sborník Národniho Muzea v Praze: řada c. Lit.-Hist., xvi (1971), 205–42
H. Lenneberg: ‘Dating Engraved Music: the Present State of the Art’, Library Quarterly, xli (1971), 128–40
D.W. Krummel: Guide to Dating Early Published Music: a Manual of Bibliographic practices (Hackensack, NJ, 1974); suppl. in FAM, xxiv (1977), 175–84
D.W. Krummel: ‘Musical Functions and Bibliographical Forms’, The Library, 5th ser., xxxi (1976), 327–50
D. Fog: ‘Random Thoughts on Music Dating and Terminology’, FAM, xxiv (1977), 141–4
L. Weinhold: ‘Erst- und Frühdrucke von Beethovens Werken’, Beiträge zur Beethoven Bibliographie: Studien and Materialien zum Werkverzeichnis von Kinsky-Halm, ed. K. Dorfmüller (Munich, 1978), 245–68
A. Devriès and F. Lesure: Dictionnaire des éditeurs de musique française: des origines à environ 1820 (Geneva, 1979–88)
M.K. Duggan: ‘A System for Describing Fifteenth-Century Music Type’, Gutenberg-Jb 1984, 67–76
D.W. Krummel: ‘Citing the Score: Descriptive Bibliography and Printed Music’, The Library, 6th ser., ix (1987), 329–46
B.M. Antolini and A. Bini: Editori e librai musicali a Roma nella prima metà dell'Ottocento (Rome, 1988)
C.L. Day and E.B. Murrie: English Song-Books, 1651–1702 (London, 1940) [Day-MurrieESB]
C. Hopkinson: A Bibliography of the Musical and Literary Works of Hector Berlioz, 1803–1869, with Histories of the French Music Publishers Concerned (Edinburgh, 1951, rev. 2/1980 by R. Macnutt)
W.C. Smith: Handel: a Descriptive Catalogue of the Early Editions (London, 1960, 2/1970)
K. Meyer-Baer: Liturgical Music Incunabula: a Descriptive Catalogue (London, 1962)
D. Heartz: Pierre Attaingnant, Royal Printer of Music: a Historical Study and Bibliographical Catalogue (Berkeley, 1969)
E.-L. Berz: Die Notendrucker und ihre Verleger in Frankfurt am Main von den Anfängen bis etwa 1630: eine bibliographische und drucktechnische Studie zur Musikpublikation (Kassel, 1970)
K. Hofmann: Die Erstdrucke der Werke von Johannes Brahms (Tutzing, 1975)
C.A. Höweler and F.H. Matter: Fontes hymnodiae neerlandicae impressi 1539–1700/De melodieën van het Nederlandstalig geestelijk lied 1539–1700: een bibliografie van de gedrukte bronnen (Nieuwkoop, 1985)
G. Haberkamp: Die Erstdrucke der Werke von Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tutzing, 1986)
M.S. Lewis: Antonio Gardano, Venetian Music Printer, 1538–1569: a Descriptive Bibliography and Historical Study (New York, 1988–)
H. Schneider: Der Musikverleger Johann Michael Götz (1740–1810) und sein kurfürstlich priviligierte Notenfabrique (Tutzing, 1989)
R. Benton and J. Halley: Pleyel as Music Publisher: a Documentary Sourcebook of Early 19th-Century Music (Stuyvesant, NY, 1990)
A.P. Britton, I. Lowens and R. Crawford: American Sacred Music Imprints, 1698–1810: a Bibliography (Worcester, MA, 1990)
M.K. Duggan: Italian Music Incunabula: Printers and Type (Berkeley, 1992)
R.L. Weaver: A Descriptive Bibliographical Catalog of the Music Printed by Hubert Waelrant and Jan De Laet (Warren, MI, 1994)
D. Hunter: Opera and Song Books Published in England, 1703–1726: a Descriptive Bibliography (London, 1997)
A. Goovaerts: Histoire et bibliographie de la typographie musicale dans les anciens Pays-Bas (Antwerp and Brussels, 1880/R) [GoovaertsH]
P. Hirsch: ‘Bibliographie der Musiktheoretischen Drucke des Franchino Gafori’, Musikwissenschaftliche Beiträge: Festschrift für Johannes Wolf, ed. W. Lott, H. Osthoff and W. Wolffheim (Berlin, 1929/R), 65–72
G. Kinsky: ‘Erstlingsdrucke der deutschen Tonmeister der Klassik und Romantik’, Philobiblon, vii (1934), 347–64
O.E. Deutsch: Music Publishers' Numbers (London, 1946; Ger. trans., rev. 2/1961 as Musikverlagsnummern) [DeutschMPN]
C. Johansson: French Music Publishers' Catalogue of the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century (Stockholm, 1955) [JohanssonFMP]
Å. Davidsson: Studier rörande svenskt musiktryck före år 1750 [Studies on Swedish music printing before 1750] (Uppsala, 1957) [with Ger. summary]
D.W. Krummel: ‘Graphic Analysis: its Application to Early American Engraved Music’, Notes, xvi (1958–9), 213–33
H. Pohlmann: Die Frühgeschichte des musikalischen Urheberrechts, ca. 1400–1800 (Kassel, 1962)
A. Tyson: The Authentic English Editions of Beethoven (London, 1963)
E.-L. Berz: Die Notendrucker und ihre Verleger in Frankfurt am Main von den Anfängen bis etwa 1630: eine bibliographische und drucktechnische Studie zur Musikpublikation (Kassel, 1970)
K. Hortschansky: ‘Die Datierung der frühen Musikdrucke Etienne Rogers’, TVNM, xxii/2 (1971), 152–86
D.W. Krummel: ‘Oblong Format in Early Music Books’, The Library, 5th ser., xxvi (1971), 312–24
H. Lenneberg: ‘Dating Engraved Music: the Present State of the Art’, Library Quarterly, xli (1971), 128–40
C. Hopkinson: Tannhäuser: an Examination of 36 Editions (Tutzing, 1973)
K. Hofmann: Die Erstdrucke der Werke Johannes Brahms (Tutzing, 1975)
A. Devriès: Edition et commerce de la musique gravée à Paris dans la première moitié du XVIIIe siècle (Geneva, 1976)
A. Leicher-Olbrich: Untersuchungen zu Originalausgaben Beethovenscher Klavierwerke (Wiesbaden, 1976)
S. Boorman: ‘The “First” Edition of the Odhecaton A’, JAMS, xxx (1977), 183–207
K. Forney: Tielman Susato, Sixteenth-Century Music Printer: an Archival and Typographical Investigation (diss., U. of Kentucky, 1978)
H.E. Poole: ‘Music Engraving Practice in Eighteenth-Century London: a Study of some Forster Editions and Haydn and their Manuscript Sources’, Music and Bibliography: Essays in Honour of Alec Hyatt King, ed. O. Neighbour (London, 1980), 98–131
R.J. Wolfe: Early American Music Engraving and Printing: a History of Music Publishing in America from 1787 to 1825 (Urbana, IL, 1980)
D.G. Cardamone: ‘Madrigale a tre et arie napoletane: a Typographical and Repertorial Study’, JAMS, xxxv (1982), 436–81
L. Cyr: ‘Le sacre du printemps: petite histoire d'une grande partition’, Stravinsky: études & témoignages, ed. F. Lesure (Paris, 1982), 89–147
J. Kallberg: ‘Chopin in the Marketplace: Aspects of the International Music Publishing Industry’, Notes, xxxix (1982–3), 535–69, 795–824
D. Burrows: ‘Walsh's Editions of Handel's Opera 1–5: the Texts and their Sources’, Music in Eighteenth-Century England: Essays in Memory of Charles Cudworth, ed. C. Hogwood and R. Luckett (Cambridge, 1983), 79–105
R. Pascall: ‘Brahms and the Definitive Text’, Brahms (Cambridge, 1983), 59–75
D.W. Krummel: ‘Early German Partbook Type-Faces’, Gutenberg-Jb 1985, 80–99
J. Bernstein: ‘The Burning Salamander: Assigning a Printer to some 16th-Century Music Prints’, Notes, xlii (1985–6), 483–501
J. Coover: ‘Musical Ephemera: some Thoughts about Types, Controls, and Access’, Foundations in Music Bibliography: Evanston, IL, 1986, 349–64
B. Huys: ‘Overzicht van de muziektypografie in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden voor 1800’, Jb van het Vlaams centrum voor oude muziek, ii (1986), 21–42
S. Boorman: ‘Some Non-Conflicting Attributions, and some Newly Anonymous Compositions, from the Early 16th Century’, EMH, vii (1987), 109–57
B.M. Antolini and A. Bini: Editori e librai musicali a Roma nella prima metà dell'Ottocento (Rome, 1988)
L. Guillo and J.-M. Noailly: ‘Lettrines et ornements dans l'édition musicale aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles’, Ornementation typographique et bibliographique historique, ed. M.-T. Isaac (Brussels, 1988), 107–28
H. Vanhulst: ‘La diffusion des éditions de musique polyphonique dans les anciens Pays-Bas à la fin du XVIe siècle’, Musique et société hommages à Robert Wangermée, ed. H. Vanhulst and M. Haine (Brussels, 1988), 27–51
R. Cafiero and F. Seller: ‘Editoria musicale a Napoli attraverso la stamp periodica: il “Giornale del Regno delle Due Sicilia” (1817–1860)’, Fonti musicali in Italia: studi e ricerche, iii (1989), 57–90; iv (1990), 133–70
D. Cardamone and D.L. Jackson: ‘Multiple Formes and Vertical Setting in Susato's First Edition of Lassus's “Opus 1”’, Notes, xlvi (1989–90), 7–24
G. Butler: Bach's Clavierübung III: the Making of a Print (Durham, NC, 1990)
S. Boorman: ‘Printed Music Books of the Italian Renaissance from the Point of View of Manuscript Study’, IMSCR XV: Madrid 1992 [RdMc, xvi (1993)], 2587–602
H. Vanhulst: ‘Plantin et le commerce international de éditions de musique polyphonique 1566–1578’, IMSCR XV: Madrid 1992 [RdMc, xvi (1993)], 2630–40
R. Charteris: ‘Newly Discovered Manuscript Parts and Annotations in a Copy of Giovanni Gabrieli's Symphoniae sacrae (1615)’, EMc, xxiii (1995), 487–96
A.M. Grassi: ‘Varianti d'autore e varianti di trasmissione nel Trio op.114 di Johannes Brahms: osservazioni sui testimoni manoscritti e a stampa’, La critica del testo musicale: metodi e problemi della filologia musicale, ed. M.C. Vela (Lucca, 1995), 325–57
G.S. Bozarth, ed.: The Brahms-Keller Correspondence (Lincoln, NE, 1996)
M. Twyman: Early Lithographed Music: a Study Based on the H. Baron Collection (London, 1996)
J.L. Smith: ‘The Hidden Editions of Thomas East’, Notes, liii (1996–7), 1059–91
L. Guillo: ‘Les caractères de musique utilisés des origines à environ 1650 dans les anciens Pays-Bas’, Music Fragments and Manuscripts in the Low Countries; … Music Printing in Antwerp and Europe in the 16th Century: Antwerp 1995 [Yearbook of the Alamire Foundation, ii (1997)], 183–235
R. Gustavson: Hans Ott, Hieronymus Formschneider, and the Novum et insigne opus musicum (Nuremberg, 1537–1538) (diss., U. of Melbourne, 1998)
Bibliography of music: Bibliography
E.C. Krohn: ‘The Bibliography of Music’, MQ, v (1919), 231–54
A.H. King: ‘Recent Work in Music Bibliography’, The Library, 4th ser., xxvi (1945–6), 122–48
W. Schmieder: ‘Musikbibliographie: ein Beitrag zu ihrer Geschichte und ihren Problemen’, AMw, xii (1955), 239–47
J.B. Coover: ‘The Current Status of Music Bibliography’, Notes, xiii (1955–6), 581–93
M. Plesske: ‘Zur Geschichte der deutsche Musikbibliographie: die periodische Verzeichnung der praktischen Musik’, BMw, v (1963), 97–111
D.W. Krummel: The Literature of Music Bibliography: an Account of the Writings on the History of Music Printing and Publishing (Berkeley, 1993)
D. Hunter: ‘Two Half-Centuries of Music Bibliography’, Notes, 1 (1993–4), 23–38
(not including catalogues put out by printers or publishers listing their own publications)
C. Gesner: Bibliotheca universalis (Zürich, 1545–55/R) [incl. Pandectarum (1548)]
A. Doni: La libraria (Venice, 1550–51)
G. Willer: Collectio in unum corpus, omnium librorum (Frankfurt, 1592) [incl. ‘Libri musici variaeque cantiones’, 608ff]
J. Cless: Unius seculi eiusque (Frankfurt, 1602)
G. Draudius: Bibliotheca exotica, sive Catalogus officinalis librorum peregrinus linguis usuabilus scriptorum … depuis l'an 1500 (Frankfurt, 1610, enlarged 2/1625) [2nd edn incl. ‘Libri musicorum, vocalium atque instrumentalium’]
P. Bolduanus: Bibliotheca philosophica, sive Elenchus scriptorum philosophicorum (Jena, 1616) [facs. of bk iv: Musicae praeceptae (Detroit, 1972)]
G. Willer: Catalogus librorum musicalium variorum (Augsburg, 1622)
[João IV:] Primera parte do index da livraria de musica do muyto alto, e poderoso Rey Dom João o IV. nosso senhor (Lisbon, 1649/R), ed. J. Vasconcellos (Oporto, 1874–6) [JoãoIL]
S. de Brossard: Dictionaire de musique, contenant … un catalogue de plus 900 auteurs qui ont écrit sur la musique (Paris, 1703/R, 3/c1708/R); Eng. trans., ed. A. Gruber (Henryville, PA, 1982)
J. Boivin: Catalogue général des livres de musique (Paris, 1729)
J.G. Walther: Musicalisches Lexicon oder Musicalische Bibliotec (Leipzig, 1732/R) [WaltherML]
C. Mizler von Kolof: New eröffnete musicalische Bibliothek (Leipzig, 1736–54)
F.W. Marpurg: Historisch-kritische Beyträge zur Aufnahme der Musik (Berlin, 1754–78/R)
J. Adlung: Anleitung zu der musikalischen Gelahrtheit (Erfurt, 1758/R, 2/1783)
J.L. Albrecht: Gründliche Einleitung in die Anfangslehren der Tonkunst (Langensalza, 1761)
Catalogo delle sinfonie … che si trovano in manuscritto nella officina musica di Giovanno Gottlob Breitkopf (Leipzig, 1762–87) [pubd in several parts, with different titles]
J.A. Hiller: Wöchentliche Nachrichten und Anmerkungen die Musik betreffend (Leipzig, 1766–70/R)
[J.S. Gruber]: Litterature der Musik (Nuremberg, 1783)
J.S. Gruber: Beyträge zur Literatur der Musik (Nuremberg, 1785, 2/1790)
J.N. Forkel: Allgemeine Litteratur der Musik (Leipzig, 1792/R)
F.J. Fétis: ‘Revue des journaux de musique publiés dans les divers paus de l'Europe’, Revue musicale, ii (1828), 313–20
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C.F. Becker: Systematisch-chronologische Darstellung der musikalischen Literatur von der frühesten bis auf die neueste Zeit (Leipzig, 1836/R, suppl. 1839/R)
A. Schmid: ‘Beiträge zur Literatur und Geschichte der Tonkunst’, Cäcilie, xxi–xxvii (1842–7), passim
A. Göhler: Verzeichniss der in den Frankfurter und Leipziger Messkatalogen der Jahre 1564 bis 1759 angezeigten Musikalien (Leipzig, 1902/R)
G. Turrini: L'Accademia filarmonica di Verona (Verona, 1941)
R. Schaal: ‘Die Musikbibliothek von Raimund Fugger d. J.: ein Beitrag zur Musiküberlieferung des 16. Jahrhunderts’, AcM, xxix (1957), 126–37
D. Plamenac: ‘Excerpta Colombiniana: Items of Musical Interest in Fernando Colón's Regestrum’, Miscelánea en homenaje a Monseñor Higinio Anglés (Barcelona, 1958–61), 663–87
H.C. Slim: ‘The Music Library of the Augsburg Patrician, Hans Heinrich Herwart (1520–1583)’, AnnM, vii (1964–77), 67–109
R. Schaal: Das Inventar der Kantorei St. Anna in Augsburg, CaM, iii (1965)
M. de Sampaio Ribeiro: Livraria de música de el-rei D. João IV: estudo musical, histórico e bibliográfico (Lisbon, 1967)
C.W. Chapman: ‘Printed Collections of Polyphonic Music owned by Ferdinand Columbus’, JAMS, xxi (1968), 34–84
K. Hortschansky: ‘Pränumeration und Subskriptionslisten in Notendrucken deutscher Musiker des 18. Jahrhunderts’, AcM, xl (1968), 154–74
J. Haar: ‘The Libraria of Antonfrancesco Doni’ MD, xxiv (1970), 101–23
D.W. Krummel: Bibliotheca Bolduaniana: a Renaissance Music Bibliography (Detroit, 1972)
L. Bernstein: ‘The Bibliography of Music in Conrad Gesner's Pandectae (1548)’, AcM, xlv (1973), 119–63
H. Heussner and I. Schultz: Collection Musica: Musikbibliographie in Deutschland bis 1625, CaM, vi (1973)
D.W. Krummel: ‘Venetian Baroque Music in a London Bookshop: the Robert Martin Catalogues, 1633–1650’, Music and Bibliography: Essays in Honour of Alec Hyatt King, ed. O.W. Neighbour (London, 1980), 1–27
O. Mischiati: Indici, cataloghi e avvisi degli editori e librai musicali italiani dal 1591 al 1798 (Florence, 1984)
H. Vanhulst: ‘Balthasar Bellère, marchand de musique a Douai (1603–1636)’, RdM, lxxxiv (1998), 175–98