Our Top Reference Sources for Music

Encyclopedias

Encyclopedias, usually multi-volume sets, include extensive topical and biographical articles. Start here for an overview before diving into your literature search. Check the bibliography at the end of an article for leads on additional sources.

Location	Title
Reference ML100 .N48 2001	The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd edition, 2001). International in scope. Focus is "mainstream" music history. Articles on composers usually feature a works list. This new edition includes an index.
(available at Oxford Reference Online)	Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera.
Reference ML102 .P66 G84 1998	The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (1988). 3rd edition. 8 volumes. Covers performers, songwriters, genres, organizations, record companies, etc. in pop, rock, metal, country, rhythm and blues, rap, reggae, jazz, ragtime, big band, Latin, folk, and gospel
Reference ML102 .M88 G3 1994	Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre (1994). Focus is on musicals (omits opera, musical film, and television).
Reference ML100 .G16 1998	The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music (1998- ) The first comprehensive encyclopedia for world music. Each volume focuses on a particular continent or region and is accompanied by an audio CD.
Reference ML105 .I5 1999	International Dictionary of Black Composers (1999). 2 vols.
Reference ML1100 .C63 1994	The Literature of Chamber Music (1997). 4 volumes.
Reference ML101 .U6 N48 1986	The New Grove Dictionary of American Music (1986) The principal reference work for American music.
Reference ML102 .J3 N48 2001	The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (2002).
Reference ML102 .I5 N48 1984	The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments and Instrument Makers (1984). Covers Western and non-Western, historical and modern instruments.
Reference ML102 .O6 N5 1997	The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (1997). 4 volumes. Covers composers, operas, singers, conductors, librettists, terms, history, and technical aspects of opera.
Reference ML105 .N38 1995	The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers (1995). Includes about 900 women composers is classical and popular music born before 1959.
Reference ML100 .S37 2002	The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers (1995). Includes about 900 women composers is classical and popular music born before 1959.
Reference ML100 .S37 2002 (Online version available at Oxford Reference Online)	The Oxford Companion to Music (2002). A single-volume reference to performers, composers, individual works, instruments, notation, forms & genres, and more.
Reference ML82 .W625 2002	Women and Music in America Since 1900: An Encyclopedia (2002) A two-volume set that covers prominent women in music, musical genres, gender issues, organizations, professions, and more.

Dictionaries of Musical Terms

Location	Title
(available at Oxford Reference Online)	The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music.
Reference ML100 .A64 2003	The Harvard Dictionary of Music (2003). The standard reference work in English for nonbiographical information. Illustrated. A quick place to find original titles for use in searching CLICnet (e.g., "Magic Flute...See Zauberflöte, Die").
(available at NetLibrary)	The NPR Classical Music Companion: Terms and Concepts from A to Z.
Reference ML109 .F73 1996	Fradkin, Robert A.. The Well-Tempered Announcer: A Pronunciation Guide to Classical Music (1996).

Biography

These are all one-volume works. See also Encyclopedias above for more biographical sources.

Location	Title
Reference ML105 .B16 2001	Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (Centennial ed., 2001). One of the most authoritative sources for basic biographical information. Includes bibliographies and works lists. International in scope. Includes musicians from art music and popular music.
Reference ML105 .S612 1997	Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Classical Musicians (1997).
Reference ML105 .C75 1992	Contemporary Composers (1992). Selective biographical dictionary of 500 working composers.
Reference ML105 .H38 1996	The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music (1996). Includes 5,500 entries for musicians in classical music and in jazz, blues, rock, and pop. Does not include extensive works lists.
Reference ML106 .G7 W4	International Who's Who in Music and Musicians' Directory (1994). Includes entries for about 8,000 musicians, musicologists, music critics, managers, publishers, and others (all were living in 1994). Emphasis on Western art music.
http://library.wustl.edu/ units/music/necro/	Music Necrology File from Washington University in St. Louis Lists death dates and bibliographical references to obituaries for people of interest in music who have died since about 1991.
Reference ML102 .O6 W37 1992	Oxford Dictionary of Opera (1992). A good source for concise information about people, places, terms, and works.
(available at Oxford Reference Online)	Who's Who in Opera

>Indexes to Periodicals (printed and online)

Use these tools to locate journal articles by subject. See our list of music databases for additional online indexes.

Format	Location	Title
online	EBSCOhost website	Music Index Online.
paper	Index shelves	Music Index.

Indexes to Anthologies, Collected Editions, and Complete Works

Location	Title
Reference ML113 .H55 1997	Hill, George Robert. Collected Editions, Historical Series & Sets & Monuments of Music: A Bibliography (1997). A guide to scholarly anthologies and collected works sets of major composers. Indexes by composer, editor, and title. Entries list contents of individual volumes of a set.
Reference ML100 .N48 2001	The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd edition, 2001). Use the works lists for composers to quickly track down which volume of a composer's complete works contain a particular piece.

Song Indexes

Additional song indexes are available on the Web.

Thematic Catalogs

Ever wonder why radio announcers are always mentioning "Kershel"? See Köchel below. Thematic catalogs list and enumerate a composer's entire output, accompanied by incipits (a musical excerpt, usually the first few measures of the piece). The incipits are handy identifiers. For example, if you have an arrangement of an unknown Bach fugue for woodwind quintet, you could identify the original fugue by consulting a thematic catalog. Good thematic catalogs tell you when a piece was composed, where the autograph score is, and other important facts. Here are a few of our thematic catalogs.

Location	Title
Reference ML134 .B4 K5	Kinsky, Georg. Das Werk Beethovens: thematisch-bibliographisches Verzeichnis seiner sämtlichen vollendeten Kompositionen.
Reference ML134 .H272 H6	Hoboken, Anthony van. Joseph Haydn: thematisch-bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis.
Reference ML134 .M9 K55 1965	Köchel, Ludwig. Chronologisch-thematisches Verzeichnis sämtlicher Tonwerke Wolfgang Amade Mozarts.

Other Bibliographies