This is a specialised
book with a price to match. The subject
is the sources of information about
music. The book in part acts as a map
to information although its primary
aim is to inform you about how to find
the 'maps' and how they are organised
rather than giving access to the information
directly.
The editor, who also
contributes four of the chapters, could
hardly be better qualified: librarian
for 37 years ending with 11 years as
Chief Librarian at the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office. He reviews for various music
magazines (including Musicweb), note
writer for CDs, writer of musical obits
for The Independent and Honorary Senior
Research Fellow University of Birmingham
and the foremost mover and shaker for
the revival of British music of the
last two centuries. His dissertation,
written during the early 1970s, documented
the sources of information for the then
emerging interest in researching the
British Musical Renaissance.
The book is part of
a K.G. Saur series. The series documents
information sources for a vast range
with a book for such abstruse subjects
as Polymers and Plastics, Grey Literature,
Cartography, Environmental Protection,
Earth Sciences etc.
The volume in hand
is admirable in its approach and coheres
well across chapters from 21 contributors.
Many familiar names appear here including
Chris Banks (British Library), Jeremy
Dibble (Parry's biographer), Sophie
Fuller (author of the admirable Pandora
Guide to Women Composers), Matthew Greenall
(Director of the BMIC), Jacqueline Cavanagh
(the extremely helpful person in charge
of the BBC Data Archive at Caversham
Park just outside Reading), Ian Ledsham
(who rather like Ms Cavanagh was extremely
helpful to me in my researches into
the life and music of Holbrooke, Bate
and others), the ever generous Stephen
Lloyd (Dan Godfrey's biographer), Jürgen
Schaarwächter (whose book 'Die
britische sinfonie 1914-1945' should
most urgently be translated into English)
and Roderick Swanston.
The book is thoroughly
up to date with no misguided inhibitions
about the value of the internet and
with clear preferences for google as
the search engine of choice for the
serious researcher.
The chapter titles
give a clear idea of the span and grasp
of this book:
Introduction - Music
and its literature
Institutions - societies
and radio stations
Music Information Centres
The secondhand trade
Copyright
Computers and Music
Internet and Music
Women in Music
Early Music revival
Standard reference
sources
Musical periodicals
Music in newspapers
Theses
Foreign language material
Musical sources in
government publications
Music in American government
documents
Composer catalogues,
bibliographies etc
Music publishing and
publishers
Performance
New Music
Recordings as a research
source
Film and its music
Composer trusts
Music publishers
BBC Written Archives
Ephemera of concert
life
Pictures and picture
research
Lewis Foreman is an
occasional contributor of reviews and
other material to MusicWeb. It therefor
comes as no surprise that he and Melanie
Groundsell should make a well merited
recommendation of the site at pp. xii,
88 and 283.
A most valuable book
of help both to researcher, bibliographer
and librarians active in the field of
classical music and its sources.
Rob Barnett
