Today’s opening session is a short “refresher” course on what a music “reference” source is. I’m going to say something about how the field of music reference tools has developed since the 18th century, and speculate on where we might be going next with our music reference work. As librarians, we seem to have a fair idea of what music “reference” works are: they are those usually large, forbidding and often multi-volume works that sit on our “reference” shelves. The fact that we put them there suggests that we have a very clear idea of what a “reference” source is. But do we? Surely anything that helps us answer a reference question, whether a book, internet site, set of notes for a CD, periodical article, and so on, can be classed as a “reference” source? But are all questions that we are asked in the library, “reference” questions? That is an important issue, and different people will have their own answers to it. Here's a quotation on the subject from 1949, by the distinguished US music librarian Edward Colby:
Before we begin our investigation of music reference works in the public library, we should perhaps decide just what we mean by a reference demand as distinguished from other demands which may be made on the time and energies of the music librarian from day to day. Questions which may be answered by a quick glance at the author or composer and title entries in the card catalog are hardly to be called reference questions, but when we suggest another volume to take the place of the one requested, when we make use of indexes, encyclopedias, and other reference tools, whether in print or in the mental storehouse of the librarian, we are meeting a reference demand…
I would suggest that most librarians have a fairly traditional idea of what a music reference work is, and that their definition tends to be based on historical precedent, and on the contents of books, such as Guy Marco’s Information Sources in Music, or Duckles’ Music Reference and Research Materials, that claim to list reference sources. I suppose that the main characteristic of a reference work tends to be that it is not intended to be read straight through, like a novel, but, rather, to be interrogated when information of a certain sort is required. As a consequence, the information in such sources has to be arranged in such a way as to enable the required data to be found quickly and easily. Therefore we have developed systems for organizing this data – alphabetically first of all; by the provision of indexes at the end of a work; and, in the case of music, we often organise musical compositions in catalogues by opus number, by date (in the case of a catalogue such as Köchel), or by genre, as is the case with Schmieder’s catalogue of the works of J. S. Bach. It seems likely that most people first encountered “reference” works either in the form of dictionaries, or of encyclopedias, both of which are largely an 18th-century phenomenon. I suspect, though, that at least some of the purchasers of these early dictionaries and encyclopedias did actually try to read them from cover to cover. We need to remember that many purchasers of dictionaries and encyclopedias had the leisure to read them carefully.
In the arena of music reference resources, history shows us that, with a few important exceptions, the field began to open up in the 19th century, prompted by the growth of a market of middle-class consumers who wanted books about the rudiments and principles of music. In particular they wanted dictionaries that explained the foreign terms that they encountered in the musical scores that they bought or borrowed, and in this regard it is probably no coincidence that the earliest dictionary of music – Tinctoris’ Terminorum musicae diffinitorium of ca 1495 -- was a dictionary of musical terms. When I began my research for this paper, I was pleased to find that, of the Scandinavian countries, Sweden at least was home to several early music reference works of this sort, such as Carl Envallsson’s Svenskt musikaliskt lexikon efter Grekiska, Latinska, Italienska och Franska språken, published in Stockholm in 1802; Jakob Niklas Ahlstroem’s Musikalisk fick-ordbok, till tjenst för tonkonstnärer och musikvänner [Musical pocket dictionary, for the use of musical artists and musical amateurs], published in Göteborg in 1843, with later editions in 1852 and 1858; and W. Bauch’s Musikaliskt real-lexikon: handbok i musikvetenskapen för musikstuderande såväl som för tonkonstens vänner i allmänhet [Musical education dictionary: handbook of musical knowledge for music students and for musical amateurs in general], published in Stockholm in 1871. The fact that such material was aimed at “musikvänner” confirms, of course, the presence of a strong amateur music culture in 19th-century Sweden. Envallsson's Lexikon was of sufficient importance to be noticed by François-Joseph Fétis in his Biographie universelle: Fétis notes that it is largely based on the Dictionnaire de musique, contenant une explication des termes grecs, latins, italiens, & françois les plus usitez dans la musique, published in Amsterdam early in the 18th century. It also draws on the Allgemeine Theorie der schönen Künste by Johann Georg Sulzer. One assumes that the influence of Brossard's Dictionnaire reflects the strength of French influence on Swedish musical culture in the 18th century. As far as I can tell, there were no indigenous biographical dictionaries of musicians in Denmark, Finland, Norway or Sweden at this time, and, in any case, this particular sort of dictionary was not very common anywhere in Europe during the 19th century, with the exception of Johann Walther’s Musikalisches Lexikon (Leipzig, 1732), which does include a reference to one Swedish Kapellmeister -- you will find the entry quoted in full at the beginning of the preface to Sohlman's Musiklexikon -- and Johann Mattheson’s Grundlage einer Ehrenpforte (?Hamburg, 1740). Johann Nikolaus Forkel, in his Allgemeine Litteratur der Musik, published in Leipzig in 1792, noted only one Swedish musical history existing at that date, the Historiskt Afhandling om musik och instrumenter särdeles om orgwerks inrättningen i allmänhet, jemte kort beskrifning öfwer orgwerken i Sverige [Historical Essay on Music and on Instruments, concentrating especially on the organ, along with a short description of the organ in Sweden.] Of this book, written by Abraham Abrahamson Hülphers and published in Västeras in 1773, Forkel says "Wäre diess Werkchen in einer von den gangbarern europäischen Sprachen geschrieben, so würde es bekannter unter uns geworden seyn, als es nun ist", a charge that must have affected the success of many a Scandinavian reference book over the centuries! He also notes that it is "vielleicht die einzige Quelle, woraus man die Geschichte der Musik in Schweden kennen lernen kann" [perhaps the only source from which one can learn of the history of music in Sweden]. Walther’s Musikalisches Lexikon was unusual, for its time, in covering both biographical and terminological matters, and Envallsson does not attempt this. When George Grove, in the 1880s, added to this mixture some historical articles, the model was set for the multi-volume encyclopedias that have been a feature of the 20th century.
In the field of music reference works, the twentieth century was also distinguished by an expansion both in numbers and in genres, of such works. This reflects the growth of musicology and of new disciplines such as discography, an increase in thematic catalogues, and so on.
So how did librarians set about the bibliographic control of music reference works? In his Guide to the Formation of a Music Library, published in London in 1893, James Duff Brown confined himself to just 11 reference works, whose total cost was some £38.7s.0d [about 460 Kroner]. They included Charles Burney’s General History of Music; the Dictionary of Musical Terms of Stainer and Barrett, published by the English publisher Novello; Chappell’s Popular Music of Olden Times, which is interesting because it is an early account of folk and popular music; various periodicals and instrumental tutors; and Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, recently completed in 4 volumes. Brown marked works that he regarded as being for “reference” with a large letter “R” on his list; so one assumes that he at least knew what a “reference” as opposed to a “non-reference” work was.
Ruth Wallace, in her The Care and Treatment of Music in a Library of 1928 – this, incidentally, is the first book ever to be devoted solely to this topic – also set modest demands for the contents of a music reference section, though the number of works she lists had increased from the 11 listed by Brown to 36. Only 8 of these, though, were marked as “essential”. One important addition is the International Who’s Who in Music, the first mention of a directory as a music reference book. She also recommended libraries to buy the printed catalogues of other libraries, another branch of library literature that was still quite new.
Our next guide to the historical development of the music “reference” collection comes from the book Music Librarianship: a Practical Guide by E. T. Bryant, published in London in 1959 (I am sorry that I have no Scandinavian books on music librarianship to show you). Bryant gave over a whole chapter of his book to a discussion of “Reference books and periodicals”, and proposed the following list:
General dictionaries and encyclopedias
Special dictionaries
Bibliography
History
Opera
Vocal music
Chamber music
Discographies
Thematic Catalogues
Periodicals
To this list I would add “scholarly editions of music” (Gesamtausgaben).
The list is interesting for its length: when it comes to reference resources, although music is quite a small member of the library club, it has a large amount of types of source. In his book Music: a Guide to the Reference Literature (1987), William S. Brockman put it like this:
The reference literature of music is notably diverse because it must address fundamentally dissimilar aspects of music: performance and performers, written music, recordings, and secondary literature. Like other disciplines, music has its own dictionaries, encyclopedias, indexes and bibliographies of its written literature, but it also requires unique forms of reference tools – discographies, bibliographies of music, indexes to thematic incipits – which meet its own particular demands.
If we return to the historical dimension of music reference works, and review Bryant’s list, we can see that some areas of music reference have expanded, while others have not. The field of general music encyclopedias has shrunk to two principal ones – Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart and Grove: though we should not forget some recent efforts such as the Spanish Diccionario de la musica espanola e hispanoamericana, in 10 volumes. Will there be a third edition of Sohlman’s Musiklexikon? You tell me! If there is, will it be in printed or electronic form? On the other hand, work on music bibliography, and on the activities of various music printers and publishers, especially from the early period of music printing, has expanded tremendously via the publication of articles in journals, and of whole books. A few years ago the area of thematic catalogues seemed to be going through a quiet spell, but now seems to have picked up a little. I suggest that this general picture, of productions of fewer general works but more specialised ones is going on in Scandinavia as well as everywhere else: a glance through the recent publications lists in Fontes artis musicae includes Lars Ole Bonde’s Dansk litteratur om musikterapi: en bibliografi; Kaisa Nikula’s Deutschsprachige Lyrik in der finnischen Musik: eine Bibliographie, jointly published in Finland and Germany; and Karleric Liliedahl and Björn Englund’s His Master’s Voice: elektriska inspelningar i Sverige och för den svenska marknaden 1934-1957, a discographical study. Norway, via its publisher Aschehoug has recently completed publication of a Norges musikkhistorie, in five volumes.
An interesting feature of today’s music reference landscape is the use or non-use of the internet. For example, Johs Bergh’s Norwegian Jazz Discography 1905-1998 and Lars Ole Bonde’s bibliography of Danish literature on music therapy, already mentioned, are being published solely or jointly on the internet; but on the other hand, very few more general music reference sources appear on the internet. In this regard, Grove’s Dictionary – which is, of course, available over the net – is as unique today as its first edition was in the 1880s (don’t forget that, although we take Grove for granted today, and although many later dictionaries have used it as a model, in its day there was nothing to compare with it). Except for Grove, the only classical music encyclopedia that I can think of on the Internet is Roland Jackson’s Performance Practice Encyclopedia, which now seems to be unavailable. Would it not be useful to have Sohlman available online, with even more pictures, and its bibliographies and worklists in larger type? And in the case of, for example, Kutsch and Riemens’s Grosses Sänger-Lexikon, or Pipers Enzyklopädie des Musiktheaters, how much more value could be added by the provision of more pictures and sound examples? It is my prediction that we are, surely, going to see more Internet publishing of reference work: but I shall be talking more about the Internet this afternoon, so will leave the topic for now.
In 1986, Ann Basart published a survey on “what music librarians want”. One of the most striking conclusions of her survey was that librarians felt that music reference works were not tackling the “big questions”. By this was meant the lack of comprehensive subject indexes to songs; a “world guide to music in print”; coverage of older material, later than the RISM cut-off date of 1800-1850; better national bibliographies of scores and sound recordings; and better periodicals indexes. Many of these issues persist today. We should remember, too, that people, as well as internet sites, or reference books, are a useful reference resource. As Don Krummel put it some years ago:
"Beyond a certain point…reference expertise is more important than the number of reference sources themselves, i.e. knowing where to find the answer, whether in book form or not. Personal "grapevines" are extremely important… Librarians today must know how to find "walking encyclopedias" and to communicate with them".
Perhaps you should all get together and list those areas of music that you have expertise in, for publication in some sort of “expertise directory”? It could also include musicologists and music researchers whom you felt confident enough to call on when necessary. The effective reference library works through a complex interrelationship of well-trained staff, well-resourced collections that the library’s staff know how to use, a certain amount of lateral thinking, and the ability to think on one’s feet. That, I hope, suggests some themes for today’s course, and will, I hope, stimulate some questions and discussion. Thank you for listening.