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Showing papers in "Notes in 2001"


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Sep 2001-Notes
TL;DR: Evaluated academic music reference service areas using the Wisconsin-Ohio Reference Evaluation Program (WOREP) as its survey instrument to study the reference performance of student and paraprofessional employees in academic music libraries in relation to that of music librarians.
Abstract: A PROGRESS REPORT Higher education at the turn of the century is faced with dwindling resources and an increased emphasis on accountability. Together with our counterparts in general libraries, music librarians must justify the importance of programs, collections, facilities, and staff with more than vague statements or an emotional defense of the art of music and the preservation of the context in which it was created. We must be able to answer the question "How well are you doing your job?" with measurable information. Although it is fairly easy to collect and report statistics on many aspects of our work (e.g., collection size, circulation, and gate count), it is much more difficult to measure accurately our success in one of the most important services offered by music libraries: answering reference questions. In 1994, the Reference Performance Subcommittee of the Music Library Association developed a plan to evaluate reference service in academic music libraries. [1] Although there have been numerous studies of the effectiveness of general reference departments in central academic and public libraries, [2] no separate study has been made of music reference service performance at academic branch libraries (or subordinate reference service areas in departments of centralized libraries). Reference service in academic branch libraries can vary considerably from the central library model. Branch libraries tend to rely heavily on student and paraprofessional employees [3] to refer, or even to answer, reference questions. Historically, student employees have seldom been involved in reference work in centralized libraries, and the role of paraprofessionals in reference service has also been significantly smaller. [4] In addition, reference work in music libraries may be more complicated than in other subject-specific and general libraries due to the nature of our materials (e.g., multiple physical manifestations of musical compositions in various sound recording, video recording, and score formats, and publication of works in collections and series) and how they are cataloged (using complex uniform tides and form-genre subject headings). Successful music reference work demands thorough knowledge of both the content and function of library catalogs and major reference tools in music, certainly more than can be expected of most student employees. With these characteristics of music library reference service in mind, the Reference Performance Subcommittee developed three primary research objectives: 1) to study the reference performance of student and paraprofessional employees in academic music libraries in relation to that of music librarians; 2) to compare reference performance measures of success in academic music libraries to those in general academic library reference departments; and 3) to locate the top-scoring academic music libraries so that the positive elements of their reference service procedures could be studied, described, and disseminated to the profession through publication and conference presentations. In this progress report, we begin to address the first two research objectives of our study. The third objective will be addressed more thoroughly in future publications; nevertheless, some "best practices" at individual institutions emerge in our commentary concerning the first two objectives. With funding from the Music Library Association and several universities, [5] the subcommittee began to evaluate academic music reference service areas using the Wisconsin-Ohio Reference Evaluation Program (WOREP) as its survey instrument. WOREP was originally developed in the early 1980s by Marjorie E. Murfin of the Ohio State University Libraries and Charles A. Bunge of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Library and Information Studies. [6] W. Michael Havener of the University of Rhode Island has since joined Marjorie Murfin in leading the study. WOREP provides libraries with a valid and reliable tool for measuring their effectiveness in answering reference questions. …

21 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Dec 2001-Notes
TL;DR: Grimsted and Boriak as mentioned in this paper found the notenarchiv of the Berlin Sing-Akademie, long missing and believed to be lost, emerged in 1999 on the eve of the 250th anniversary of Johann Sebastian Bach's death.
Abstract: It was a fortunate coincidence that the Notenarchiv (historical music collection) of the Berlin Sing-Akademie, long missing and believed to be lost, emerged in 1999 on the eve of the 250th anniversary of Johann Sebastian Bach's death. This breakthrough resulted from years of effort on my part, in collaboration with the Russian Research Center of Harvard University and, in particular, the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI). Since 1991, my colleagues Patricia Grimsted of Cambridge and Hennadii Boriak of Kiev had been compiling an inventory of West European political and historical archival holdings in Ukraine for HURI's research project "Trophies of War and Empire: The Archival Heritage of Ukraine, World War II, and the Politics of Restitution." The so-called trophy materials captured at the end of the Second World War by the Red Army and distributed throughout the provinces of the former Soviet Union were invariably held, like all archival possessions in socialist states, under the jurisdiction of sta te security services, the former KGB. Hence, official inquiries usually remained unanswered. Like everyone else, the HURI scholars had again and again encountered utter silence in response to their questions regarding trophy materials, even after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Results were often more readily obtained through unofficial channels, as turned out to be the case with the Sing-Akademie music collection. (1) During the end of the Second World War, many museum, library, and archival holdings were evacuated from German cities and sheltered in remote rural areas. Almost all of the materials located in the eastern parts of Germany were seized as trophies and removed by the Red Army, usually to Moscow. The Red Army cultural officers kept the most significant trophies there and sent those of lesser importance to provincial capitals. Virtually no information was available about the location of these materials, including the confiscated and dislocated possessions of the Berlin Sing-Akademie that had been transferred in August 1943 to the castle of Ullersdorf near Glatz in Upper Silesia. Conflicting hypotheses emerged in the late 1950s, however, when a few nineteenth-century manuscript choirbooks from the Sing-Akademie were returned from Moscow to the music division of the former Deutsche Staatsbibliothek in East Berlin, giving rise to the assumption that the Notenarchiv, along with other extensive music materials, had fo und its way to Moscow. A contradictory rumor reached the East Berlin Staatsbibliothek toward the end of the 1970s, that at least parts of the Sing-Akademie's library were in Ukraine. Yet nothing could be verified, even in official consultations among socialist brother states. The late Leonid Roizman, professor of organ at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow and a long-time member of the editorial board of the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, (2) seriously tried to determine the fate of the Sing-Akademie collection with its important Bach sources. (3) East Berlin librarians and German Democratic Republic authorities did the same, with equal lack of success--to say nothing of the efforts by the owner, the Sing-Akademie, which after the war relocated from their historical headquarters in the old center of Berlin (which had become the Soviet sector) to the American sector in West Berlin. (4) A classified document of the Red Army, commissioned in 1957 by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, eventually provided a clue. It indicated that 5,170 items of music (including first editions and manuscripts) were deposited in the P. I. Tchaikovsky Kiev State Conservatory. (5) Although there was no indication of provenance or other relevant information, the size of the collection corresponded roughly to the size of the Sing-Akademie music collection. Upon inquiry, however, the Tchaikovsky National Music Academy, formerly the conservatory, in Kiev claimed to have no war-time deposited music materials. …

8 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Mar 2001-Notes
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a comprehensive survey of publishers' catalogs, including stock, order blanks, agents' catalog, catalog of books on music, catalogs of single series, substantial publishers' catalogue of single composers and rental catalogs.
Abstract: This column lists new and current publishers' catalogs received since the last issue, and aims at comprehensive coverage. Also included are stock, order blanks, agents' catalogs, catalog of books on music, catalogs of single series, substantial publishers' catalogs of single composers, and rental catalogs. Excluded are catalogs that are exclusively retail. The list also includes catalogs published by national music centers and by licensing agencies. Since the list is international in scope, the same body of music may be represented in catalogs issued by more than one publisher or exclusive agent. Gross references have been provided to the publishers and subsidiaries listed in catalog titles and in cases where catalogs have been issued by agents. The cross references are intended only to lead the user to particular catalogs listed elsewhere in the column. Publishers whose catalogs are exclusively on the Web are indicated with only a Web address following the postal address. All Web sites last accessed 28 May 2009. Acoustic Music Records, Postfach 1945, D-49009 Osnabruck, Germany. http://www.acoustic-music.de/ Katalog, 2009. [1 November 2009] 98 p. Editorial Alpuerto, Canos del Petal 7. E-28013 Madrid, Spain. Catalogo de musicologia espanola, 2003. 86 p. Fundacion Caja Madrid: Coleccion Patrimonio musical espanol. [2004] [7 p.] Sociedad Espanola de Musicologia: Catalogo de publicaciones, 2008. 47 p. AMA Verlag, Wesselinger Strasse 2-8, D-50321 Bruhl, Germany. http://www.ama-verlag.eu/ AMA, 2009, English version. [21 p.] Amadeus, see Hal Leonard. American Institute of Musicology, 8551 Research Way, Suite 180, Middleton, WI 53562. http://www.corpusmusicae.com/Publications. 2009. 32 p. Applause Books, see Hal Leonard. A-R Editions, 8551 Research Way, Suite 180, Middleton, WI 53562. http://www.areditions.com/Music publications. 2009. 46 p. Ashgate, 101 Cherry Street, Suite 420, Burlington, VT 05401-4405. http://www.ashgate.com/Music studies: new titles and key backlist, 2009. 32 p. Music and education: new titles and key backlist, 2008. [6 p. foldout]. Music theory, aesthetics, and analysis: new titles and key backlist, 2008. [12 p.] Backbeat Books, see Hal Leonard. Edition Barenreiter Praha, Bechovicka 26, CZ-10000 Praha 10, Czech Republic. http://www.ebp.cz/Sales catalogue. 2008/2009. [2008] 66 p. Paul Beuscher Publications, see Editions Henry Lemoine. A. & C. Black, 37 Soho Square. London WID 3QZ, England. http://www.acblack.com/music/Music catalogue, 2009. 39 p. Boosey & Hawkes, see Hal Leonard. Breitkopf & Hartel, Postfach 1707, D-65007 Wiesbaden, Germany.http://www.breitkopf.de/Nicolaus A. Huber. [December 2008] [6 p. foldout] Mendelssohn, 2009. 35 p. Dr. J. Butz Musikverlag, Siegburgerstrasse 73, D-53229 Bonn, Germany. http://www.butz-verlag.de/Katalog Auszug 2008/II. 55 p. Katalog Auszug 2009/I. 63 p. Bucher im Butz-Verlag. [2008?] [4 p.] Fundacion Caja Madrid, see Editorial Alpuerto. Carus-Verlag, Sielminger Strasse 51, D-70771 Leinfelden-Echterdingen, Germany. http://www.carus-verlag.com/Missa. [November 2008] 50 p. CeBeDeM, Avenue du port 86c bte 214, B-1000 Bruxelles, Belgium. http://www.cebedem.be/Chant, 2009. [1 December 2009] 59 p. Musique de chambre, 2009. [1 December 2009] 87 p. Orchestre, 2009. [1 December 2009] 37 p. Centro Studi Antoniani, Piazza del Santo 11, 1-351283I-35123 Padova, Italy. http://www.centrostudiantoniani.it/Catalogo, 2009. [6 p.] Edition Delrieu, see Editions Henry Lemoine. Doblinger, Dorotheergasse 10, A-1010 Wien, Austria. http://www.doblinger-musikverlag.at/Neuerscheinungen, Herbst 2008. 19 p. Duke University Press, Dept. …

8 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Mar 2001-Notes
TL;DR: This author traced the history and development of the uniform title, discussing the evolution from its early use for anonymous classics, sacred scriptures and specified publication forms, to its broader use today for any type of material in any format as the need warrants.
Abstract: INTRODUCTION Authority control is an important part of the cataloging process, for it brings consistency to the access points in library catalogs, which in turn enhances the discovery and retrieval of resources. It ensures that these access points are unique and consistent in content and form, and it provides a network of linkages for variant and related headings in the catalog. Reference to an authority file maintains consistency in controlled access points, while cross-references and the adjacent display of identical access points have been the primary methods used to accomplish the necessary linkages in the catalog. In Web-based catalogs, however, hypertext links are beginning to provide more direct catalog linkages, relieving the user of the need to retype a search query and perhaps introduce new errors in the process. Discussions of authority control for music focus primarily on different aspects of bibliographic relationships, for it is the extensive existence of these relationships among music materials that creates the need for authority control. The literature of music librarianship on this topic is not extensive, but one study examined the types and extent of relationships in depth and discovered that relatedness is a pervasive characteristic of music materials. [1] Another study examined bibliographic families, i.e., that "set of works related to one another because they have common ideational and semantic content," revealing that the many instantiations of a musical work can make for a complex network of relationships. [2] One particularly important authority control device for music is the uniform title. Barbara Tillett was among the first to discuss formally the uniform title in the context of bibliographic relationships, noting that it was used as a common device for linking related manifestations of a work and related works. [3] In an early empirical study, Richard Smiraglia examined a sample of musical works to determine the extent of need for uniform titles. [4] His research showed that virtually the entire sample yielded multiple manifestations and that the majority of these had titles proper differing from that of the first edition of the work. From these results Smiraglia concluded that uniform titles are a necessary part of the description of musical works and are needed to serve as authority control collocating devices. In another extensive article, this author traced the history and development of the uniform title, discussing the evolution from its early use for anonymous classics, sacred scriptures and specified publication forms, to its broader use today for any type of material in any format as the need warrants. [5] It is revealing that a large portion of the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules for uniform titles is devoted to the application of uniform titles to musical works. [6] Research has demonstrated that authority control is particularly essential for bibliographic records for music resources. [7] Many factors contribute to the extensive relatedness of music materials, including the high occurrence of works with generic form titles (e.g., Quartet or Symphony); the high occurrence of multiple editions and multiple recordings of the same work; the wide variety of presentation formats for the same work (e.g., full score, vocal score, etc.); and the high occurrence of arrangements, selections, and other bibliographic relationships for music materials. The international music publishing marketplace also contributes to the need for authority control. It is not uncommon for composer and performer names to appear in many different forms, languages, and scripts, or for works to be published under varying titles. Thus, authority control in terms of authorized forms of names and uniform titles has long been a standard part of life for the music cataloger. With the expanding environment of information organization, however, we need to take a new look at authority control. …

8 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Mar 2001-Notes
TL;DR: Jazz musicians depend on intercommunication to achieve and maintain a sense of spontaneity as mentioned in this paper, and the connection between music and language manifests itself in the jazz context, as the jam session exists as the central agency for communicating in a common musical language, in an atmosphere of collective spontaneousity.
Abstract: Jazz musicians depend on intercommunication to achieve and maintain a sense of spontaneity. Musicians encourage each other vocally or through their instruments to attain higher levels of performance. The connection with an audience is also vocal and visceral. Because an original function of jazz was to accompany social dancers, a jazz audience's physical responses signaled the musicians to continue or heighten their level of intensity. Among musicians themselves, the jam session exists as the central agency for communicating in a common musical language, in an atmosphere of collective spontaneity. Parallels between the sense of community in a jam session and an open forum of discussants are clear--a successful session, like group conversation, depends on courtesy, decorum, and mutual respect as well as open-mindedness and willingness to listen. Thus, the connection between music and language manifests itself in the jazz context. As jazz itself evolved from the experience of African Americans, so did the argot that jazz musicians spoke rise from what is called jive language. H. L. Mencken, in a supplement to his American Language, defined jive language as "an amalgam of Negro-slang from Harlem and the argots of drug addicts and the pettier sort of criminals, with occasional additions from the Broadway gossip columns and the high school campus." [1] The linking of jazz and the underworld is not uncommon. Louis Armstrong recalled his days in the Storyville section of New Orleans, where pimps, gamblers, and prostitutes congregated among musicians playing in the hangouts where they plied their trades. [2] Chicago jazzmen Mezz Mezzrow [3] and Jimmy McPartland [4] have documented their experiences among gangsters and other lowlifes during Prohibition. In his preface to the Dictionary of American Slang, Stewart Berg Flexner remarks that the need to use slang terms reflects a need to reject the mainstream, to rebel against the squares, in order to be accepted as an insider. He writes, "We would rather share or accept vices than be excluded from a social group. For this reason, for self-defense, and to create an aura (but not the fact) of modernity and individuality, much of our slang purposely expresses amorality, cynicism, and 'toughness.'"[5] Jazz musicians and their followers saw themselves as outsiders: that is to say, in opposition to the mainstream society at large, to more traditional musicians and listeners, to critics, to authorities, to particular bandleaders, clubowners and union officials, and even to other jazz musicians of a former or a succeeding generation. Between 1934 and 1970, glossaries of jazz slang terms appeared in print, either as articles, appendixes to autobiographies of prominent jazz musicians, or entire volumes referred to as dictionaries. An examination of some of these glossaries and dictionaries, as well as several specific words, can highlight some possible origins as well as a steady and lively evolution of jazz parlance over time. In a 1932 article for American Speech, James Hart suggested that jazz slang found its way into the cultural mainstream through incorporation into popular song lyrics, for strictly commercial reasons. [6] He wrote, "The use of correct language in jazz will stamp a writer's songs as unnecessarily highbrow and hence hinder his sales. Therefore, the song writer allows the vernacular to slip into his compositions wherever it suggests itself." To illustrate this, Hart mentioned the colloquial use of contractions in titles, such as " 'S Wonderful" and "Wha'd Ja Do to Me"; the reconnotation of family words "mama," "papa," and "baby" into a context of adult relationships; and particularly the vocalization of instrumental sounds, such as "Vo-do-de-o-do," "Boop-boop-a-doop," and "Diga-diga-do-digadoo-doo." Arguably, Tin Pan Alley's version of jazz speech as reflected in song titles and lyrics distantly resembles that spoken by jazz players and others in their immediate social circles. …

7 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Sep 2001-Notes
TL;DR: The Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music (JAMS) as mentioned in this paper is the only music journal published on the World Wide Web (WW Web) and it has been published for more than 50 years.
Abstract: The Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music is not found on any bookshelf, but only on the World Wide Web. [1] I predict that in the year 2030, it will still be publishing on the Web, or whatever its cyberspace successor might be, and will have reached its volume thirty-six. And I further predict that by that year every music journal will be published electronically, and that few of them, if any, will be printing on paper. Here in the year 2000, 1 stand exactly halfway between that seemingly distant date, 2030, and the year in which I received my Ph.D. degree, 1970. I began subscribing to the Journal of the American Musicological Society as a graduate student in 1968, the year that the American Musicological Society held its annual meeting in New Haven. My bookshelf is now sagging beneath the weight of all those issues of JAMS, most of which I confess I have not read from cover to cover, except for those few years when I served on the editorial board. My overcrowded study represents a tiny fraction of the problem most libraries face in trying to find space for all those books and journals, and weighing their subscription lists carefully as the prices continue to rise. But apart from that, if every music journal were starting fresh today, without any past history, why would anyone want to publish a music journal on paper, which can offer musical sounds only to those readers who can conjure them up in their imaginations from printed music examples? Paper is wonderful for holding and reading text, and a printed music example can often convey an analytical point more quickly than ten hearings. I myself print out nearly everything from the Web that I want to read. But paper cannot sing! Most of the members of the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music did not see it that way in 1994, however, when they authorized their publication committee to produce a prototype electronic journal. We were then a very new society, only two years old, and we wanted to have a journal in order to establish our identity and support our community of scholarly interests. When we began to explore this issue in 1993, virtually everyone automatically assumed that ajournal meant a printed journal. This was the avenue that we first investigated, and it was only when we had learned that our membership was too small to support a printed journal without exorbitant cost that the society agreed to consider the electronic route. Most of us had not even heard of the Web in 1994. Three enthusiasts worked together on that prototype issue: John Howard, who had put RISM (Repertoire international des sources musicales) onto the Web; [2] Robert Judd, who was then managing Music Theory Online; [3] and I. With their greater technological knowledge, the division of labor was clear: I would edit the articles, as in a print journal; Bob would mark up the text using hypertext markup language (HTML); and John would publish it on the Web via the RISM server at Harvard. I still remember the exhilaration of showing off that first issue in the exhibition hall of the 1995 American Musicological Society meeting as "the journal that sings." John had rented a laptop computer on which we demonstrated Sally Sanford's audio examples for her article comparing French and Italian singing in the seventeenth century. The members of the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music adopted the Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music as their official journal at that meeting, and now we have reached volume six, number one, our first special issue devoted to a single topic, the patronage of sacred music in seventeenth-century Italy. Jeffrey Kurtzman served as guest editor, and it contains articles by Noel O'Regan, Edmond Strainchamps, and Kimberlyn Montford, with responses by Robert R. Holzer, Susan Parisi, and Robert Kendrick, respectively. There are many other electronic journals. I am told that the Yale University Library has some 7,600 titles on its master list of electronic journals and databases. …

7 citations




Journal ArticleDOI
01 Sep 2001-Notes
TL;DR: In this paper, the first detailed study of kiyomoto music in English is presented, focusing on the history and texts rather than on the music, and only a few terms in the list are given an English translation.
Abstract: wonders why only a few terms in the list are given an English translation. These problems aside, this is a significant work, the first detailed study of kiyomoto music in English. Even in Japanese, kiyomoto has not received as much attention as some related genres, and the little written about it focuses on history and texts rather than on the music (pp. 11–12). Tokita’s ethnographic study and analysis of kiyomoto is a valuable resource on this genre of Japanese traditional music and a major contribution to the field.

4 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Dec 2001-Notes
TL;DR: Oh, Mister Jelly as discussed by the authors is a collection of Morton scrapbook entries from the New Orleans Jazz: A Family Album [Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1967; rev. ed. 1978].
Abstract: does not specify a year in Mister Jelly Roll; The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (London: Macmillan; New York: Grove’s Dictionaries of Music, 1988) gives 1890. Morton’s gravestone in Los Angeles also says 1890 (see the photograph of it in Al Rose and Edmond Souchan, New Orleans Jazz: A Family Album [Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1967; rev. ed. 1978], 302). Russell points out that Morton himself gave both 1885 and 1897 (p. 55), adding other reported years as well: 1886, 1889, 1890, and 1894 (this last date given by Morton’s mother to the United States Census to fit within her first year of marriage). Russell’s own guess seems to be 1889, if his caption for an early photograph of Morton (p. 30) is an indication. One would need to read the rest of the Morton materials in the same manner Russell did to share his opinion. Music bibliographers should take an opportunity to examine “Oh, Mister Jelly.” By his thorough collecting, Russell has expanded the jazz scrapbook concept. Knudsen has succeeded in incorporating the compiler’s intentions into the straightforward design of the book, even if the newness of the “scrapbook” type of publication gave him almost nothing to consult when faced with design and indexing challenges. Libraries fortunate enough to secure a copy for their collections should retain the dust jacket, as it contains a rare biography of Russell, written by his brother William F. Wagner, that is not printed in the book. “Oh, Mister Jelly” joins Lomax’s Mister Jelly Roll, Dapogny’s volume of the collected piano music, and Laurie Wright’s discography Mister Jelly Lord on the shelf of essential Mortoniana.

4 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jun 2001-Notes
TL;DR: A group of articles that have been treated by all three databases are identified and a comparison of those treatments in both quantitative and qualitative terms is compared.
Abstract: There are now three major online databases dedicated to current indexing of the literature of music: The Music Index (hereafter MI); RILM Abstracts of Music Literature (RILM); and International Index to Music Periodicals (IIMP). [1] The online version of MI provides citations, but not abstracts, for periodical literature in music going back to 1979, and is available both on CD-ROM and via the Internet. It is produced by Harmonie Park Press, which has published the print version of MI since 1949. The Web version was used in the present study. Chadwyck-Healey, after briefly marketing an earlier CD-ROM version of MI, launched its own music database, IIMP, in 1996. Now owned by Bell & Howell Information and Learning, IIMP, provides indexing and abstracts for music periodical literature since 1996 and is steadily adding citations (without abstracts) for pre-1996 literature. IIMP is available on CD-ROM and in two Web versions: a basic product with traditional citations and abstracts, and IIMP Full Text, which add s access to the full text of articles from over forty journals. Trial access to IIMP, Full Text was used for the present study, though no use was made of the full-text options. RILM is a joint project of the International Musicological Society and the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centers. Since 1967, it has published abstracts of the whole range of scholarly literature in music, going beyond journal articles to include books, dissertations, catalogs, Festschriften, conference proceedings, and other formats. RILM exists in two electronic versions: it is available on CD-ROM and via the Web from National Information Services Corporation (NISC USA), and Web access is also provided through OCLC FirstSearch. The OCLC product was the primary means of access for the present study, though trial access to the NISC product was arranged for comparison of a few points. These three databases differ greatly in the ways in which they index the literature. The present study identifies a group of articles that have been treated by all three databases and compares those treatments in both quantitative and qualitative terms. [2] The quantitative section involved randomly selecting a large group of articles and comparing the number of subjects assigned, total words in the subjects, and unique words in the subjects in each of the three databases, and the number of words in the abstracts in RILM and IIMP. The qualitative aspect required looking more closely at a smaller number of items to compare the appropriateness of subjects chosen for indexing, the content and style of abstracts (for IIMP and RILM), and the accessibility of vocabulary in both. A search of the library literature found no studies comparing both indexing and abstracting of the same articles by different databases. Though many articles can be found comparing various utilities' coverage of particular topics or journals, very few actually examine subject access at the individual record level. MaryEllen C. Sievert and Alison F. Verbeck [3] come closest with a document-level comparison of subject indexing of the literature of online searching in Library and Information Science Abstracts and the education database ERIC, but their study did not include comparison of abstracts. QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS In order to carry out the comparisons envisioned for this study, it was necessary to generate a group of articles for which full treatment could be found in all three databases. This study was meant to be descriptive rather than predictive, and care was taken to make the sample generation process as objective as possible. The sample was limited to articles from 1996 in order to eliminate pre-1996 citation-only records in IIMP and post-1996 brief records added to RILM as part of its current citations project. A list was created of ninety-eight journals which each of the three databases claimed to index comprehensively. …

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Dec 2001-Notes
TL;DR: In a recent article in the New York Review of Books (29 March 2001), Oliver Sacks describes a form of high-functioning autism (Asperger syndrome), the victims of which cannot read the expressions on people's faces or the intentions in their voices; they are "generally blind to social meanings" and create instead their own networks of correlations that bring to mind the elaborate pseudoscientific systems of numerology and astrology as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In a recent article in the New York Review of Books (29 March 2001), Oliver Sacks describes a form of high-functioning autism (Asperger syndrome), the victims of which “cannot read the expressions on people’s faces or the intentions in their voices”; they are “generally blind to social meanings” and create instead their own networks of correlations “that bring to mind the elaborate pseudoscientific systems of numerology and astrology” (Sacks, 4). Within the neurological sciences in which Sacks works, this inability to comprehend human gestures counts as pathological. But the opposite more frequently obtains within musicology, in which skeptics scoff at those who would impose affective significance onto musical patterns. The subfield of music semiotics arose to address the “problem” of meaning in music, but its proponents often restrict the scope of their inquiries to formalist correspondences—as though they were attempting to decipher texts in an unknown tongue without the benefit of a Rosetta stone. The advent of topic-oriented interpretation has advanced the range of justifiable statements a bit. Yet the mere labeling of topics in masterworks produces in me the kind of dismay I would feel if an art critic were to explicate Picasso’s Guernica by proudly identifying the “horsie,” without somehow noticing the creature’s anguished grimace or the other figures on the canvas. When I first picked up Raymond Monelle’s The Sense of Music, the book fell open to a section devoted to none other than the “horse” topic, and I almost shut it before I had begun. Had I done so, however, I would have missed out on a most stimulating experience. Not only does Monelle find formalist semiotics and the topics mania at least as frustrating as I do, but he has set out to transform those projects into something that moves far beyond the usual limitations. I might have written that he goes about this task systematically, except that “system” itself serves as one of his principal targets. Monelle starts and ends his book with a certain Dr. Strabismus (borrowed, he notes, from the writings of “Beachcomber,” aka J. B. Morton), who seeks to crown his career by producing “a comprehensive theory of music” that would include semantics as well as syntactics. “He would describe how music comes to signify things to its listeners; how it participates in the whole signifying life of a culture, echoing the meanings of literature and the fine arts, and reflecting the preoccupations of society.” But our fictional theorist has trouble systematizing his intellectual allegiances—postmodernism, deconstruction, anthropology, social history, literary theory. “Try as he would, his grand theory always fell apart into a bundle of essays. Apparently, consistency was the enemy of insight” (p. 3). And so Monelle gives us that bundle of essays, each of which moves in its own provocative direction before yielding to the next cluster of insights. Take, for instance, his discussion of the horse topic in chapter 3. Like many of the topics that appear in inventories by Leonard Ratner and others, the horse rarely receives direct confirmation from eighteenthand nineteenthcentury writers on music. Yet we would surely qualify as culturally illiterate if we did not recognize a web of references connecting the characteristic rhythm of a galloping horse with (depending on context) the military, the hunt, the masculine. Monelle demonstrates how to substantiate those connections through a series of music examples, which moves from the explicit (Franz (von) Suppé’s Light Cavalry Overture or Schubert’s setting of Erlkönig) to works that employ that rhythmic impulse in the service of “absolute” music (say, the opening of Brahms’s Symphony no. 3). But rather than stopping with the process of labeling, he goes on to ask why galloping horses suddenly appear in European art music of the nineteenth century. And this question leads him into the fields of military and equestrian history. As it turns out, the galloping horse is not a transhistorical entity:

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Dec 2001-Notes
TL;DR: In a recent survey of the history of fugal theory as discussed by the authors, Walker pointed out that there is a gap between theoretical treatises and contemporary practice in the field of music theory.
Abstract: that map most closely onto contemporary practice are given priority. There is nothing inherently wrong with this approach; it is, after all, the basic imperative of a survey such as his. But this method also means that Walker will have a hard time grappling with disparities between theoretical treatises and contemporaneous music. In his conclusion, he suggests that it is only at the close of the baroque period, particularly in the work of Johann Joseph Fux and Mattheson, that “a gap can be discerned [for the first time] between [the] theory and practice [of fugue]” (p. 354). But this statement alleges far too close an overlap between the two realms, and, in any case, Walker himself is often at pains to undo such chimerical congruities. As he points out, even the venerable Zarlino’s framework of “fugue” and “imitation” was rather ill-suited to the task of coming to terms with the compositional procedures gaining dominance in the middle of the sixteenth century (p. 348). Because of his occasional blindness to these gaps, Walker accords the seminal Carissimi/Bertali manuscripts their status on account of their normative influence: he asserts that the information presented in their pages did nothing less than teach “the Germans exactly how to provide both diversity and coherence” (p. 351) in mature-baroque fugues. This certainly overstates the case for a treatise of which only three copies survive. And in any case, it seems more likely to me that plenty of North German organists had learned these things from other sources—and perhaps, or even most likely, not from treatises at all, but from Italian music itself. Theory is asked to do too much, and too little: by occasionally exaggerating the influence of theoretical writings on contemporary practice, Walker sometimes inadvertently reduces the importance of other aspects of these writings. Surely the veneration and safeguarding of techniques and the canonization of seminal writers (e.g., Zarlino) is as vital a part of the theoretical tradition as progressive thought. Take, for example, another of Walker’s notable theorists, Johann Theile, who wrote both intricate (and from one point of view, utterly useless) canons and appealing modern operas. One musical endeavor had very little, if anything, to do with the other. Music theory presents a parallel, not always a coterminous, history to that of purely compositional and stylistic change. By adopting a more heterogeneous approach, the historian of music theory can recognize and enjoy its variety and contradictions rather than marginalize them. This is not to say that Walker homogenizes, and his work is anything but bland. Rather, he recognizes, indeed embraces, the richness of the musical culture in which fugal theory figured so prominently. But because of the breadth of his study, he has little time to savor it. I have benefited enormously in my own work from Walker’s research in fugal theory, and I feel a little sheepish about criticizing his book at all, even while I am happy to be able to appreciate the real and lasting importance of his contribution.

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jun 2001-Notes
TL;DR: In this article, the authors place key works by Langlais in the broader context of his professional development and personal life, which is especially appropriate for a composer whose creative energies were often inspired by people, places, or events.
Abstract: balance, Labounsky writes compellingly about worthwhile but neglected pieces, while frankly admitting that others (unspecified) should have remained unpublished: “Langlais could not objectively decide what to throw away. . . . Instead of reworking sketches for months at a time, he usually sent them to the copyist as soon as they were finished, without a second thought” (p. 330). Labounsky’s decision to place key works by Langlais in the broader context of his professional development and personal life is especially appropriate for a composer whose creative energies were often inspired by people, places, or events. Sometimes the inspiration is obvious, as in the highly programmatic pieces bearing descriptive titles and clear thematic allusions. In other works, like those containing motives melodically encoded from names of family members, friends, and lovers, the author’s explanations are especially welcome, even though one is inclined to agree that in these pieces, “[t]he pleasure of discovering the name motifs and performing his music is sometimes greater for the performer than for the listener” (p. 330). While Labounsky’s presentation of Langlais’s organ works leaves open the question of whether the best of them will eventually be ranked with those of Franck and Tournemire, her assertion that “[a]bove all Langlais should be recognized as a significant composer of sacred music” (p. 331) is substantiated by generous and informative coverage of the prominence of chant melodies and modes in his compositions and improvisations. Moreover, several of Langlais’s important compositions (including some intended for concert performance) were—like the organ works of his friend and contemporary Olivier Messiaen —inspired by Roman Catholic liturgy and teachings. And even though opposed (philosophically, at least) to the Second Vatican Council’s pronouncements on church music, Langlais contributed an important body of music for use in the new rites. Thus the composer’s lifelong commitment to expressing his ardent Roman Catholicism through music may form his strongest link to the so-called SainteClotilde Tradition. Benjamin Van Wye Skidmore College


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jun 2001-Notes
TL;DR: Radomski as discussed by the authors argues that García's Quien porfia mucho alcanza, premiered in Madrid in 1802, consists of a blend of Spanish and Italian music, but he does not support his claim by pointing to specific elements of a Spanish style in the work.
Abstract: Française could mix into their discourse” (p. 250). He also comments on García’s improvisation, noting that the singer sometimes used it as a means to cover vocal difficulties rather than for musical reasons; García had trouble with his upper register on his very first line, and quickly inserted some ornamentation to move his voice to a more comfortable range. Before we reach these interesting points about performance practice, however, we are given two paragraphs that describe how the hall was filled to capacity, a point that could have been summarized easily in a sentence. García’s compositions might have been treated more thoroughly. Although Radomski’s focus is clearly biographical, his introduction stresses the importance of García’s music, thereby suggesting that it receives more attention in his study than it actually does. Radomski gives basic facts about the works, including their genesis and their reception by critics and audiences, but he says relatively little about their stylistic features. More attention to this matter, even in a cursory way, would have been helpful. Radomski argues that García’s Quien porfia mucho alcanza, premiered in Madrid in 1802, consists of “a blend of Spanish and Italian music” (p. 44), but he does not support his claim by pointing to specific elements of a Spanish style in the work. The music examples provided for other works, including two substantial extracts given in the appendixes, suggest that García’s ability to ornament melodies in performance was reflected in his compositions. Radomski might have drawn an explicit connection between García’s skills as a performer and his compositional style. Despite this flaw, Radomski’s book is an important addition to the study of performance history. Any student of earlynineteenth-century opera will want to have access to it.


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jun 2001-Notes
TL;DR: The Filmer Collection as discussed by the authors contains thirty-seven music manuscripts from the Filmer family at Yale University, including five unique basses not previously published or evaluated for their authenticity, which are the focus of the present essay.
Abstract: The thirty-seven music manuscripts comprising the Filmer Collection at Yale University, nearly all of English provenance, suggest that a lively musical culture existed in the homes of the Filmers of Kent, England, in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In a 1978 study in Notes, Robert Ford provided an overview of the collection, [1] and various Filmer manuscripts have subsequently been studied by Curtis Price, [2] Carl Schmidt, [3] Peter Holman, [4] and Ford himself. [5] My own interest in this collection developed in the process of writing a book with Robert Thompson about the manuscript sources for Henry Purcell's music. [6] I was especially drawn to some intriguing phrases in Ford's original study: for instance, in describing Filmer 21, a fragment from a Canterbury Cathedral partbook, Ford mentions the presence of a "seldom-encountered Purcell anthem" (this later proving to be only the second extant source for The Lord is King and Hath Put on Clorious Apparel), [7] and he notes that Filmer 8, a n instrumental bass partbook, includes a "suite of theater music by Henry Purcell. Aside from the Overture, these Purcell pieces are not known elsewhere." [8] This suite, which includes five unique basses not previously published or evaluated for their authenticity, is the focus of the present essay, but some general comments on the Filmer Collection are in order before proceeding to a description of the individual source and the music. THE FILMER COLLECTION AT YALE UNIVERSITY The booksellers Mellor & Balley of Anglesey, Wales, offered the Filmer music collection to Yale University in 1945, nearly thirty years after the death, in 1916, of Sir Robert Filmer, the last of a line of baronets. [9] Hugh Mellor records something of the recent history of the collection in his second letter to Donald Wing, then associate university librarian and head of accessions at Yale: Sir Robert Filmer--the last I understand of his line, died some little time ago and his Trustees sent the family library ... to Sotheby's where [it was] sold on Oct. 1st [1945]. There was no music sold there. His family deeds &c. he had left to Maidstone Public Library, near where the family lived for many generations. On going through the boxes, the librarian found one box not containing deeds, but this music. The trustees, wishing to settle affairs quickly, did not send it to Sotheby's but offered it to a dealer in London. Although out of his line, he bought it at the beginning of Oct. Not knowing much about it, he first called in someone from the British Museum and asked them [pounds]2,000 for the collection. Naturally, with their enormous collection it was of no interest to them but they wanted to buy two items. The dealer would not "split" the items and wrote to me-as one interested, as he knew, in old music. I sent a friend to make a preliminary examination and the rest you know. [10] The "rest" is that Mellor must have purchased the collection almost immediately for substantially less than [pounds]2000, because by the end of October he offered it to Yale for [pounds]900, a seemingly reasonable price considering that the collection included not only the thirty-seven manuscript items but several early madrigal prints as well.[11] The transaction was concluded in April 1946. Several inscriptions in the manuscripts can be connected with individual members of the Filmer family (see appendix 1), [12] and the serious pursuit of music seems to have been a long-standing Filmer tradition, going back at least to the time of Sir Edward Filmer, who was Sheriff of Kent, founder of the Filmer estate in East Sutton, Kent (acquiring it by marriage), and translator of French Court-Aires: With their Ditties Englished, published in 1629, [13] the year of his death. Several of the earliest items in the Filmer Collection, as it now stands, probably reflect the musical activities of Sir Edward. [14] Sir Edward's son Sir Robert, a prominent royalist during the Civil War (he was imprisoned for a time at nearby Leeds Castle), [15] wrote several tracts on political philosophy, most often remembered today in connection with the attacks of John Locke, though Filmer's Patriarcha, published posthumously in 1680, became a "mainstay of Tory argument against the exclusion of [James II] from the succession. …


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jun 2001-Notes
TL;DR: Musgrave as discussed by the authors provides brief biographies of individuals mentioned frequently in the text, and many of the footnotes provide further context, and there are some problems with this type of layout, and a student not already familiar with the general course of Brahms's life might have difficulties using this book.
Abstract: not address such issues as style or critical reception. In part because of the repeated use of the early biographies and because new primary documents have not surfaced, the story of the mature composer’s life has changed very little. That is not the case, however, with his childhood. The research of Kurt Hofmann (see, for example, his “Johannes Brahms in Hamburg,” in Brahms und seine Zeit: Symposion Hamburg 1983, Hamburger Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft, 7 [Hamburg: Laaber Verlag, 1984], 21–32) has significantly altered our view of Brahms’s formative years in Hamburg, painting a more positive picture of his experiences and his contributions to the family’s income. Despite the importance of this work, it has taken awhile for it to be reflected in subsequent English-language research, and even the most recent biography, by Jan Swafford ( Johannes Brahms: A Biography [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997]), does not mention it. Musgrave does include it, but he places it in a footnote (pp. 290–91), where an unsuspecting reader might not recognize its significance. To assist the reader, Musgrave provides brief biographies of individuals mentioned frequently in the text, and many of the footnotes provide further context. Nevertheless, there are some problems with this type of layout, and a student not already familiar with the general course of Brahms’s life might have difficulties using this book. Perhaps a time line of important events in the composer’s life, including details like the dates of his compositions, would have helped. Similarly, the index could have been more helpful, especially by including names of works. While this is not a life-andworks study and does not include any protracted examinations of Brahms’s pieces, there are a few passages that relate to specific compositions. For example, there is a description of Brahms conducting the DMinor Piano Concerto and a discussion of his attitude to tempos in the First Symphony, but neither of these works is listed in the index. Musgrave’s final section attempts an overview of Brahms reception in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There have been numerous complicated twists and contradictory interpretations of Brahms’s works and their relationship to the wider sociopolitical and intellectual developments of both centuries. Consequently, compressing all of this information into a single chapter was an imposing task. Nevertheless, Musgrave is able to trace the most important trends, and he concludes by offering insights into Brahms and postmodernism.



Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jun 2001-Notes
TL;DR: In short, although Finale may occasionally be difficult, it is exceptionally powerful, and its continual improvements speak of the ongoing commitment the authors can count on from the publisher.
Abstract: stand, with bad writing and poor organization. Here is one example: “The Automatic Barlines plug-in allows you to used to automatically set up barlines, matching the key changes in your document. In a high variety of music it is conventional to use a double barline when the key changes.” Indexing and organization are by tools and not musical issues. A problem I had recently illustrates this drawback. I wanted to have a first and second ending marked with brackets, but Finale drew the brackets over both systems. Searching the index for information on repeat signs, endings, and brackets yielded no answers. Then I discovered that the ending bracket is defined as a “Staff Attribute,” so information on this can only be found in the section dealing with the Staff Attribute Tool. The manual might benefit from a rewrite by both writers and musicians who know nothing at all about the program. Years ago I gave Finale telephone support a few tries, and was consistently frustrated to discover that they knew less about Finale than I did, and could never help me with the problems I had encountered. Consequently, I gave up completely on telephone support, and have not tried to contact them in more than a decade. I cannot say whether or not they have gotten any better, but they now have online support, including chat rooms. In preparation for this review, I made several unsuccessful attempts to login. I was repeatedly returned to the login page, even after being welcomed by name. I note that there are more than 20,000 postings listed, however, so there must be people who are successfully participating. Finale is now releasing Finale 2001, a demo of which I have examined. There are now sixteen default clefs and an improved Clef Designer. Text Blocks can be accessed in either view (although the Tool itself has not been improved), and some aspects of the page layout discussed above—most especially the relationship between measure groupings and the insertion of new measures, and the problem with selecting optimized staves to be shifted—have been improved. Finale 2001 also boasts the following selected new features: smaller files; web publishing; easier notation software; unlimited free support; forty plug-ins; and the free inclusion of Midiscan, making possible the scanning and importing of printed music into Finale. (Finale also claims to be compatible with Musitek’s Smartscore.) In short, although Finale may occasionally be difficult, it is exceptionally powerful, and its continual improvements speak of the ongoing commitment we can count on from the publisher.


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Sep 2001-Notes
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the bibliographical aspects (that is, the systematic arrangement, not the contents) of three serial music publications or music periodicals predominantly containing songs with guitar accompaniment, edited and published by Antoine Meissonnier from 1811 to 1827: Journal de lyre ou guitare, La lyre des jeunes demoiselles, and Le troubadour des salons.
Abstract: A salient feature of the growing music-publishing industry of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was the vast production of brief song sheets with simple accompaniment for piano, harp, or guitar. This fashion seems to have been particularly widespread among French publishers who produced such songs in the thousands for an apparently insatiable amateur market. The repertory, which mirrored the general bourgeois taste, consisted partly of arrangements of airs from the popular operas of the time, and partly of newly-composed romances, an extremely popular genre. Many publishers offered their commodities in series, often as a subscribable periodical ("Journal de musique") issued monthly, biweekly, or even weekly. Among the publishers producing song periodicals with guitar accompaniment, we find Baillon, Bouin, Bressler, Doisy, Cammand, Leduc, Lelu, Meissonnier, Momigny, Pacini, Porro, and Vidal. This study focuses on the bibliographical aspects (that is, the systematic arrangement, not the contents) of three serial music publications or music periodicals predominantly containing songs with guitar accompaniment, edited and published by Antoine Meissonnier from 1811 to 1827: Journal de lyre ou guitare, La lyre des jeunes demoiselles, and Le troubadour des salons. The object is to ascertain the arrangement and interrelation of these three periodicals, thereby providing a detailed apparatus for scholars and catalogers when dealing with Meissonnier's publications. Antoine Meissonnier was one of many music publishers who established a business in Paris in the early years of the nineteenth century. He was also a guitarist and a minor composer, and his publications include both his own works and those by other composers, of which music for guitar has a central part. Meissonnier served as Fernando Sor's main publisher in Paris from about 1815 until 1827. Several of Sor's works were issued in connection with the Journal de lyre ou guitare. Plate numbers can be of considerable help in determining the date of a printed edition of music. It is no secret, however, that the plate numbers of most French publishers of the early nineteenth century are of limited value because of their inconsistency or incomprehensible sequences. The publishers' addresses are generally more useful as dating tools since many French publishers changed addresses frequently: a new address could be the result of a physical change of domicile, but resulted as often from a post-revolutionary practice--partly ideologically-based--of extensive alterations or modifications of street names and house numberings. Antoine Meissonnier, for example, had six different addresses during the period 1811-25. The two-volume Dictionnaire of French publishers by Anik Devries and Francois Lesure provides copious information, including dated address lists, of all known French publishers from the earliest years of the trade until 1914. [1] The address lists are based on various archival documents and on advertisements or announcements in the press. There are, however, several difficulties in creating such lists. Advertisements appeared irregularly, in particular for the minor publishers. Furthermore, announcements or advertisements could be printed belatedly and therefore reflect an address already abandoned. In Devries's and Lesure's Dictionnaire, the correlation of address and date for some publishers has wide gaps. Antoine Meissonnier's address list is fairly complete, though not precise in all details, as we shall see later. [2] Each single item of an early-nineteenth-century music periodical usually had a caption title that included the name and address (imprint) of the publisher. Because of their regularity--monthly, in some cases weekly, issues--these periodicals are unique in reflecting the current address of the publisher at any given time, thereby providing a reliable source for a precise correlation of address and date. Nevertheless, there are good reasons for the hitherto general disregard of this source material. …

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Dec 2001-Notes
TL;DR: RIPM as discussed by the authors is an index to music periodicals published in Europe, Russia, and the United States between the late eighteenth and the early twentieth centuries, with a focus on music and culture.
Abstract: RIPM on the Internet. RIPM: International Index to Nineteenth-Century Music Periodicals. First edition. Baltimore: National Information Services Corporation (NISC USA), 2000. http://www.nisc.com/RIPM/ ripm_electronic.htm (information); http://www.nisc.com/RIPM (access via NISC BiblioLine). [Data licensed from Repertoire international de la presse musicale; H. Robert Cohen, founder and general editor; Richard Kitson, assistant editor. Updated every six months. Annual subscription base price $1,195; for 2-5 users add 50%; 6-10 users add 125%; 11-15 users add 200%; prices for 16+ users available upon request.] Since the appearance of the first publications of the Repertoire international de la presse musicale (RIPM), this invaluable research tool has occupied an important place among the four "Rs" of international bibliographic documentation, particularly RILM (Repertoire international de litterature musicale) and RISM (Repertoire international des sources musicales). Prior reviews (such as M. Elizabeth C. Bartlet, Journal of the American Musicological Society 43 [1990]:498-504, and Peter Ward Jones, Fontes Artis Musicae 36 [1989]:331-32) have praised RIPM for its indispensability to the research of music and culture between the late eighteenth and the early twentieth centuries. As these reviews have noted, RIPM facilitates the study of under-explored areas of reception, performance, and cultural history through a projected indexing of sixty-five key music and theater periodicals published in the musical centers of Europe, Russia, and the United States. Focusing on the nineteenth century, the generally cleft organi zation of a large amount of detailed information on composers, performers, writers, theaters, ensembles, instruments, and other elements essential to historical study saves researchers countless labor-intensive hours by eliminating the need to comb through periodicals page by page. RIPM print publications--which include annotated calendars, keyword/author indexes, and introductory studies of the periodicals--have increased production over the past decade, raising the count to over 120 published volumes by the time of this review. Recent additions include indexes to the important French periodicals La gazette musicale de Paris (1834-35) and La revue et gazette musicale de Paris (1835-80); the Spanish journals La zarzuela-Madrid (1856-57) and La espana artislica-Madrid (1857-58); three Polish periodicals from various decades, including Tygodnik muzyczny (1820-21); and two Russian publications of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including Muzikal'noye obozreniye: muzikal'naya gazeta (1885-88). Since January 2000, RIPM has increased its usefulness through the availability of both online and CD-ROM versions, as well as microforms containing the journals' full texts. RIPM on the Internet, the focus of this review, is overseen by general editor H. Robert Cohen and produced in collaboration with NISC (National Information Services Corporation). At present, it is a cumulative index of 380,000 annotated citations from all targeted periodicals, updated every six months. Most noteworthy among the advantages offered by the electronic format is the ease and speed of obtaining both a wide range of data and very specific information from all indexed periodicals at once, as well as the extraordinary flexibility and control possible in setting and refining search parameters. Researchers can easily expand their focus beyond individual periodicals, cities, countries, or narrowly circumscribed periods, but can also pinpoint information accurately. The RIPM online home page provides much background information: summaries of RIPM's scope and scholarly significance, a list of its editors, and updates on the status of its publications. Users' guides in thirteen different European languages are available online, or can be downloaded as Adobe Acrobat documents. Although these guides are for the print versions primarily, nonetheless they include important editorial information for the online user: title formats, spelling variants, punctuation and capitalization, explanatory citations, music examples, illustrations, and the denotation of reviews or advertising. …


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jun 2001-Notes
TL;DR: Meltzer as mentioned in this paper discusses the differences between black and white musicians in the 1930s and 1940s, focusing on the contrast between jazz commentators and jazz performers, regardless of racial background.
Abstract: (p. 148). Indeed, accounts by jazz musicians who were active in the 1930s and 1940s tend to support Scott DeVeaux’s observation that “personal relations between blacks and whites were more collegial than in perhaps any other professional sphere of the time” (DeVeaux, The Birth of Bebop: A Social and Musical History [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997], 168). Meltzer’s aim is to emphasize the differing perspectives of black and white writers, but what really emerges from these volumes is the contrast between jazz commentators and jazz performers, regardless of racial background. LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), for example, writes that “[b]ebop rebelled against the absorption into garbage, monopoly music; it also signified a rebellion by the people who played the music” (p. 183). But Dizzy Gillespie states, “It’s true, melodically, harmonically, and rhythmically, we found most pop music too bland and mechanically unexciting to suit our tastes. But we didn’t attempt to destroy it—we simply built on top of it by substituting our own melodies, harmonies, and rhythms over the pop music form and improvised on that” (p. 190). Thomas J. Porter writes, “It is very important to understand that music, like all art regardless of its form, is ideological. That is, it reflects or transmits certain political, class, and national interests” (p. 229). Evidently, pianist Mary Lou Williams was unaware of this the night “we ran into a place where Ben Pollack had a combo which included Jack Teagarden and, I think, Benny Goodman. The girls introduced me to the Texas trombonist, and right away we felt like friends. After work, he and a couple of musicians asked us to go out, and we visited most of the speaks downtown” (p. 136). Ortiz M. Walton writes, “The constant drive of the bop rhythm section, coupled with an inscrutable Afro-American ethos in soloistic playing, sharply delimited white competition. If one compares the recordings of whites with those of black players, musical differences are immediately recognizable” (p. 202). But Dizzy Gillespie recalls, “People noticed I had two white guys in the group—Al Haig, piano, and Stan Levey on drums. I guess because it seemed strange during the time of segregation. Almost everyone disregarded the fact that both cats were excellent musicians and devotees of the modern style. I didn’t hire them because of their color but because they could play our music” (p. 204–5). But readers may draw their own conclusions from the diverse writings found in this volume. Even if Meltzer’s underlying premise is fundamentally flawed, as I believe it is, this book’s value as an anthology remains firm. Containing much that is relevant but obscure, it will make a valuable addition to any reference shelf. Without question, Meltzer has succeeded in producing an essential anthology that is at the same time challenging and controversial.


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Dec 2001-Notes
TL;DR: The RIPM Online Music Literature Index (RIPM-RILM) as discussed by the authors is a search engine for the RILM Abstracts of Music Literature that allows the user to search for music examples, reviews, illustrations, and advertisements.
Abstract: sohn,” “Mendelssohn-Bartholdy,” or “Mendelssohn Bartholdy” are retrieved when any of the single or dual forms is entered, but only the entered spelling is highlighted. As in the print indexes, institutional name changes are not crossreferenced (e.g., entries for “Conservatoire national de musique et de déclamation” do not lead the researcher to the later “Conservatoire impérial de musique et de déclamation”). The editors note that fulltitle entries of compositions will usually bring up the abbreviated forms that most often appear in citations (e.g., Robert le diable for Robert), but hint that this may not always be the case. Singular and plural forms of a term or name can be retrieved by using the Automatic Plural Search feature, and words deriving from a common root can be found using the truncation feature. In the case of pseudonyms, authors’ full names (if known) are given only in the full record format, but not in the short citation. Many untapped areas of research will be aided by RIPM online’s extensive citing of music examples, reviews, illustrations, and advertisements, which offer evidence of wide-ranging reception and dissemination of a composer’s works in a particular year, decade, or over a greater expanse of time. As noted in the user’s guide, detailed contents of advertisements are not always given; some searches, however, retrieved citations of advertisements containing composers’ names and work titles, while others were listed under collective titles by publisher’s name (e.g., Schlesinger). Even fewer details are found in the indexing of news columns, such as Nouvelles or Varia. As in the print volumes, the contents are often not itemized, and the researcher must return to systematic scanning of individual periodicals for more detailed information. Although opinions on the comparative merits of the electronic and print versions of RIPM will vary, the most obvious advantages offered by the electronic format are its easy access to all the data, and the sophisticated ways in which a scholar can “fine-tune” searches, then sort, save, e-mail, and print data without having to retype, transcribe, or photocopy. While users of the print versions must coordinate the keyword/author indexes and the chronologically ordered calendar to obtain full bibliographic citations, the electronic user can view complete data more quickly. Of course false hits, such as the retrieval of “mas” for the name “Mas,” a French violist, are more likely online than in the print environment. The electronic format assists scholars whose research is not limited to a specific periodical, whereas the well ordered format of the print calendar, in which a journal’s “titling hierarchy” is clarified through indentation, is useful in other research contexts. NISC has now implemented the ability to search RIPM and RILM Abstracts of Music Literature simultaneously, providing access to both recent scholarly writings (from 1969 to the present) and documentation of nineteenth-century musical life. The search results from the databases appear in separate lists, but one click moves the focus from one result set to the other. The result can provide a quick and enlightening comparison of the shifting subjects of musical documentation and historiography. NISC’s version of RILM, as in RIPM, offers the combination of numerous indexes, and the ability to narrow searches to specific data types, such as reviews. As is true of the print index, realization of the potential strength of RIPM online as a research tool depends on its accessibility, along with access to the periodicals it indexes. When a greater number of libraries take advantage of one or more forms of the Index, as well as the microforms of the journals’ full texts, the impact and indispensability of RIPM resources to cultural and historical studies will be more truly felt.