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Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians

 
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians

 
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Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
 
 
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The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopaedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart
Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart

Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart is the largest and most comprehensive German music encyclopedia, and as a Western music reference source is comparable only to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians in size and scope....
, it is the largest single reference work on Western music. The Dictionary has gone through several editions since the 19th century and is widely used. In recent years it has been made available as a computer resource.

Editions
Grove's Dictionary
It was first published as A Dictionary of Music and Musicians in four volumes (1878, 1880, 1883, 1899) edited by Sir George Grove
George Grove

Sir George Grove was an England writer on music, immortalised in the title of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians.He was born in Clapham, and studied to be a civil engineer, working for two years in a factory near Glasgow....
 with an Appendix edited by J. A. Fuller Maitland
John Alexander Fuller Maitland

John Alexander Fuller Maitland was an influential British music critic and scholar....
 and an Index edited by Mrs.






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Encyclopedia


The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopaedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart
Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart

Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart is the largest and most comprehensive German music encyclopedia, and as a Western music reference source is comparable only to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians in size and scope....
, it is the largest single reference work on Western music. The Dictionary has gone through several editions since the 19th century and is widely used. In recent years it has been made available as a computer resource.

Editions


Grove's Dictionary


It was first published as A Dictionary of Music and Musicians in four volumes (1878, 1880, 1883, 1899) edited by Sir George Grove
George Grove

Sir George Grove was an England writer on music, immortalised in the title of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians.He was born in Clapham, and studied to be a civil engineer, working for two years in a factory near Glasgow....
 with an Appendix edited by J. A. Fuller Maitland
John Alexander Fuller Maitland

John Alexander Fuller Maitland was an influential British music critic and scholar....
 and an Index edited by Mrs. Edmund Wodehouse.

The 2nd edition, in five volumes, was edited by Fuller Maitland and published in 1900.

The 3rd edition, also in five volumes, was an extensive revision of the 2nd edition; it was edited by H. C. Colles and published in 1927.

The 4th edition, also edited by Colles, was published in 1940 in five volumes (a reprint of the 3rd edition, with some corrections) plus a Supplementary Volume (making six volumes in all).

The 5th edition, in nine volumes, was edited by Eric Blom
Eric Blom

Eric Walter Blom Order of the British Empire was a Swiss-born British-naturalised music lexicography, musicology, music critic, music biography and Translation....
 and published in 1954. This was the most thoroughgoing revision of the work since its inception, with many articles rewritten in a more modern style and a large number of entirely new articles. Many of the articles were written by Blom personally, or translated by him. An additional Supplementary Volume, prepared for the most part by Eric Blom, followed in 1961. Blom died in 1959, and the Supplementary Volume was completed by Denis Stevens
Denis Stevens

Denis William Stevens Order of the British Empire was a British musicology specialising in early music, conductor, professor of music and radio producer....
. The 5th edition was reprinted in 1966.

The New Grove, 1st ed.


When the next edition appeared in 1980, it was under the new name The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and was greatly expanded to twenty volumes with 22,500 articles and 16,500 biographies. It was edited by Stanley Sadie
Stanley Sadie

Stanley Sadie Order of the British Empire was a leading United Kingdom musicology, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians....
.

It was reprinted with minor corrections each subsequent year until 1995, except 1982 and 1983. In the mid-90s, the set version sold for about $2300. A paperback edition was reprinted in 1995 which sold for $500. At that point, editors likely decided to concentrate on the 2nd edition rather than continue to correct the mistakes of the original 1980 edition.

  • ISBN 0-333-23111-2 - hardback
  • ISBN 1-56159-174-2 - paperback
  • ISBN 0-333-73250-2 - British special edition
  • ISBN 1-56159-229-3 - American special edition


The New Grove, 2nd ed.


The second edition under this title (the seventh overall) was published in 2001, in twenty-nine volumes. It was also made available by subscription on the Internet in a service called Grove Music Online. It was again edited by Stanley Sadie
Stanley Sadie

Stanley Sadie Order of the British Empire was a leading United Kingdom musicology, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians....
, and the executive editor was John Tyrrell. It was originally to be released on CD-ROM as well, but this plan was dropped. As Sadie writes in the preface, "The biggest single expansion in the present edition has been in the coverage of 20th-century composers".

This edition has been subject to some negative criticism (e.g. in Private Eye
Private eye

A private eye is a nickname for a private investigator. It may also refer to:*Private Eye, a fortnightly British satirical magazine-newspaper, edited by Ian Hislop...
) owing to the significant number of typographical and factual errors that it contains. Some of the errors were ascribed to the use of students for checking the dictionary, although in fact no students were ever employed as editorial staff. Two volumes were re-issued in corrected versions, however, after production errors originally caused the omission of sections of Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian-born composer, considered by many to be the most influential composer of 20th century music. He was a quintessentially Cosmopolitanism Russian who was named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people of the century....
's worklist and Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, Conducting, theatre director and essayist, primarily known for his operas . Unlike most other great opera composers, Wagner wrote both the scenario and libretto for his works....
's bibliography.

  • ISBN 0-333-60800-3 - British
  • ISBN 1-56159-239-0 - American (cloth: alk.paper)


Grove Music Online


Since its publication, the online edition of the New Grove has been continually maintained under the editorship of Laura Macy. Regular updates are made to the content of the encyclopedia, including a large number of revisions and additions of new articles. As well as the 29 volumes of the New Grove 2nd edition, Grove Music Online incorporates the 4-volume New Grove Dictionary of Opera
New Grove Dictionary of Opera

The New Grove Dictionary of Opera is an encyclopedia of opera, considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5448 pages in four volumes....
 (ed. Stanley Sadie
Stanley Sadie

Stanley Sadie Order of the British Empire was a leading United Kingdom musicology, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians....
, 1992) and the 3-volume New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd edition (ed. Barry Kernfeld, 2002), comprising a total of more than 50,000 articles.

The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is available to use free of charge to many UK and International Library members from the Grove website using a Library membership number to login.

Oxford Music Online


In March 2008, Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press

Oxford University Press is a publisher and a department of the University of Oxford in England. It is the largest university press in the world, being larger than all the American university presses combined with Cambridge University Press....
 launched a new online service called Oxford Music Online, replacing Grove Music Online. The new service is designed to provide a "gateway that offers users the ability, for the first time ever, to access and cross-search the vast resources of Oxford's music reference in one location." In addition to providing a new interface, the new service brings the Grove encyclopedias together with the Oxford Companion to Music, the Oxford Dictionary of Music, and the Encyclopedia of Popular Music. OUP plans to continue adding other reference works to the service, including Richard Taruskin
Richard Taruskin

Richard Taruskin is an American musicologist, music historian, and critic who has written about the theory of performance, Russian music, fifteenth-century music, twentieth-century music, nationalism, the theory of modernism, and analysis....
's Oxford History of Western Music.

The Grove Dictionary component of Oxford Music Online continues to be updated much as Grove Music Online was, still under the direction of Grove Dictionaries Editor in Chief Laura Macy.

Status


The New Grove is often the first source that English-speaking musicologists use when beginning research or seeking information on most musical topics. Its scope and extensive bibliographies make it exceedingly valuable to any scholar with a grasp of the English language.

The dictionary was published by Macmillan Publishers
Macmillan Publishers

Macmillan Publishers Ltd, also known as The Macmillan Group, is a Private company international publishing company owned by Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group....
 but was sold in 2004 to Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press

Oxford University Press is a publisher and a department of the University of Oxford in England. It is the largest university press in the world, being larger than all the American university presses combined with Cambridge University Press....
. Its principal competitor is the Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart
Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart

Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart is the largest and most comprehensive German music encyclopedia, and as a Western music reference source is comparable only to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians in size and scope....
 ("MGG"), currently ten volumes on musical subjects and seventeen on biographies of musicians, written in German.

In accordance with its status, the New Grove is expensive; the print edition costs over $2000, while an annual subscription to Grove Music Online is $300.

The companion four-volume series, New Grove Dictionary of Opera
New Grove Dictionary of Opera

The New Grove Dictionary of Opera is an encyclopedia of opera, considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5448 pages in four volumes....
, is the main reference work in English on the subject of opera.

Contents


The 2001 edition contains:

  • 29,499 articles in total
    • 5,623 entirely new articles
  • 20,374 biographies of composers, performers and writers on music
    • 96 articles on theatre directors
  • 1,465 articles on styles, terms and genres
    • 283 articles on concepts
  • 805 articles on regions, countries and cities
    • 580 articles on ancient music and church music
    • 1,327 articles on world musics
    • 1,221 articles on popular music, light music, and jazz
  • 2,261 articles on instruments and their makers, and performance practice
    • 89 articles on acoustics
  • 693 articles on printing and publishing
    • 174 articles on notation
    • 131 articles on sources


External links

  • 'About the New Grove Dictionary', San Francisco Symphony Orchestra,
  • 'Grove Music Online ', Rutgers University
    Rutgers University

    Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766 and is the Colonial colleges in the United States....
     Libraries,
  • Greg Sandow
    Greg Sandow

    Greg Sandow is an United States music critic and composer. He is a graduate of Harvard University, with a bachelor's degree in government, and of Yale University, with a master's degree in composition....
     and Anne Midgette
    Anne Midgette

    Anne Midgette is an American journalist and classical music critic. Her father was the painter Willard Midgette.Midgette is a 1986 graduate of Yale University....
    , 'Grove sees trees but not forest', The Wall Street Journal
    The Wall Street Journal

    The Wall Street Journal is an English language international daily newspaper published by Dow Jones & Company in New York, New York with Asian and European editions....
    , July 3, 2001
  • Benjamin Ivry
    Benjamin Ivry

    Benjamin Ivry is an American writer on the arts, broadcaster and translator.Ivry is author of biographies of Francis Poulenc, Arthur Rimbaud, and Maurice Ravel, as well as a poetry collection, Paradise for the Portuguese Queen....
    , 'You could look it up: The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians' (Review), Commonweal, March 9, 2001
  • Allen P. Britton, 'Review: The New Grove Dictionary of American Music', American Music, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Summer, 1987), pp. 194-203
  • Linda B. Fairtile, 'Review: The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online', Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 56, No. 3 (Autumn, 2003), pp. 748-754
  • Phillip D. Crabtree, Donald H. Foster, 1993, Sourcebook for Research in Music, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, ISBN 0253213231