Finding Music Resources
Printed music and books on music have call numbers that start with M, and are located on the third floor of Beeghly.
Call numbers can be found on the book's spine labels:
Each item in the library gets a call number:
- Sheet music and items that *are* music have call numbers that begin with just M.
- Histories, biographies, and any works *about* music have call numbers that begin with ML.
- Instructional guides and books on *how* to teach music have call numbers that begin with MT.
When you find something in our catalog, use its call number to find it on the shelf. If you need any help finding an item please ask a library staff member to help!
For more on finding music resources in the catalog:
Catalog Search Tips for Music
Below are sample titles of early music resources at Beeghly Library, as well as links to the library catalog to help you start your search.
Medieval Music History
The following links are to subject tags used in the library catalog to identify resources on medieval era music. You'll be able to find print books, ebooks, and recordings with these links.
Class numbers that cover this era: ML169.8 through ML190.
The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Music by
From the emergence of plainsong to the end of the fourteenth century, this Companion covers all the key aspects of medieval music. Divided into three main sections, the book first of all discusses repertory, styles and techniques - the key areas of traditional music histories; next taking a topographical view of the subject - from Italy, German-speaking lands, and the Iberian Peninsula; and concludes with chapters on such issues as liturgy, vernacular poetry and reception. Rather than presenting merely a chronological view of the history of medieval music, the volume instead focuses on technical and cultural aspects of the subject. Over nineteen informative chapters, fifteen world-leading scholars give a perspective on the music of the Middle Ages that will serve as a point of orientation for the informed listener and reader, and is a must-have guide for anyone with an interest in listening to and understanding medieval music.
Call Number: ML172 .C32 2011ISBN: 9780521846196Publication Date: 2011-03-03
The Cultural Context of Medieval Music by
An urgently needed guide to understanding medieval music to be used as a text for the university undergraduate, graduate students in music and interdisciplinary medieval studies, and for the professional musicologist and medievalist. This book will also be appreciated by everyone interested in early music.
Call Number: ML172 .V78 2011ISBN: 9780275994129Publication Date: 2011-11-02
Composers at Work by
How did Renaissance composers write their music? In this revolutionary look at a subject that has fascinated scholars for years, musicologist Jessie Ann Owens offers new and striking evidence that contrary to accepted theory, sixteenth-century composers did not use scores to compose--even to write complex vocal polyphony.L L Drawing on sources that include contemporary theoretical treatises, documents and letters, iconographical evidence, actual fragments of composing slates, and numerous sketches, drafts, and corrected autograph manuscripts, Owens carefully reconstructs the step-by-step process by which composers between 1450 and 1600 composed their music. The manuscript evidence--autographs of more than thirty composers--shows the stages of work on a wide variety of music--instrumental and vocal, sacred and secular--from across most of Renaissance Europe. Her research demonstrates that instead of working in full score, Renaissance composers fashioned the music in parts, often working with brief segments, according to a linear conception. The importance of this discovery on editorial interpretation and on performance cannot be overstated.L Lhe book opens with a broad picture of what has been known about Renaissance composition. From there, Owens examines the teaching of composition and the ways in which musicians and composers both read and wrote music. She also considers evidence for composition that occurred independent of writing, such as composing "in the mind" or composing with instruments. In chapters on the manuscript evidence, she establishes a typology both of the sources themselves and of their contents (sketches, drafts, fair copies). She concludes with case studies detailing the working methods of Francesco Corteccia, Henricus Isaac, Cipriano de Rore, and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina.L L This book will change the way we analyze and understand early music. Clear, provocative, and painstakingly researched, Composers at Work: The Craft of Musical Composition 1450- 1600 makes essential reading for scholars of Renaissance music as well as those working in related fields such as sketch studies and music theory.
Call Number: Online ResourceISBN: 0195095774Publication Date: 1997-07-03
Renaissance Music History
The following links are to subject tags used in the library catalog to identify resources on medieval era music. You'll be able to find print books, ebooks, and recordings with these links.
- Music --15th century -- History and criticism
- Music -- 16th century -- History and criticism
- Music -- 17th century -- History and criticism
Class numbers that cover this era: ML169.8 through ML194.
Music of the Renaissance by
The Renaissance was not a spontaneous cultural explosion, but rather an evolution and cross-fertilization of artistic, philosophical, and scientific principles. This reference presents and examines the rich and varied world of music in Renaissance Europe. Giulio Ongaro offers an advanced technical knowledge of music, presented accessibly in a multidisciplinary approach. After an introductory essay on the cultural backdrop of the Renaissance, narrative chapters provide an overview of Renaissance music, recreate the lives of Renaissance musicians, describe the different genres of music, and explain the relationships between Renaissance music and dance. Coverage also includes musical instruments from the period and the business of music publishing during this period. These chapters synthesize music theory, history, and culture into a comprehensive narrative on music throughout Continental Europe and the British Isles. Illustrations, chapter bibliographies, a timeline, and a subject index complete the volume. In many ways, this is a companion volume to Music from the Age of Shakespeare in its accessible, interdisciplinary examination of music history. Ongaro's volume on Renaissance Music synthesizes music theory, history, and culture into a comprehensive narrative on music throughout Continental Europe and the British Isles
Call Number: ML172 .O54 2003ISBN: 0313322635Publication Date: 2003-11-30
Music in the Age of the Renaissance by
Music in the Age of the Renaissance, written by one of the country's leading scholars, brings to life the musical styles and genres that mark this humanistic period of artistic and scientific revolution. In his compelling treatment of how the music was developed and transmitted, Professor Leeman Perkins grounds his narrative firmly in political, religious, social, and cultural history, opening a window onto the lavish courts, magnificent churches, and thriving urban centers in which music played such a vital role. The latest, best, and most comprehensive survey of Renaissance music to appear in over forty years.
Call Number: ML172 .P47 1999ISBN: 0393046087Publication Date: 1999-04-17
The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Music by
The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Music seeks to provide the most up-to-date knowledge on seventeenth-century music together with a vital questioning of the way in which such a history can be told or put together for our present purposes. Written by a distinguished team of experts in the field, the chapters not only address traditional areas of knowledge such as opera and church music, but also look at the way this extremely diverse and dynamic musical world has been categorised in the past and how its products are viewed from various cultural points of view. While this history does not depart entirely from the traditional study of musical works and their composers, there is a strong emphasis on the institutions, cultures and politics of the age, together with an interrogation of the ways in which music related to contemporary arts, sciences and beliefs.
Call Number: ML194 .C23 2005ISBN: 0521792738Publication Date: 2005-12-22
Baroque Music History
The following links are to subject tags used in the library catalog to identify resources on medieval era music. You'll be able to find print books, ebooks, and recordings with these links.
Class numbers that cover this era: ML193 through ML195.
Music in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries by
The universally acclaimed and award-winning Oxford History of Western Music is the eminent musicologist Richard Taruskin's provocative, erudite telling of the story of Western music from its earliest days to the present. Each book in this superlative five-volume set illuminates-through a representative sampling of masterworks-the themes, styles, and currents that give shape and direction to a significant period in the history of Western music. Music in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries , the second volume Richard Taruskin's monumental history, illuminates the explosion of musical creativity that occurred in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Examining a wealth of topics, Taruskin looks at the elegant masques and consort music of Jacobean England, the Italian concerto style of Corelli and Vivaldi, and the progression from Baroque to Rococo to romantic style. Perhaps most important, he offers a fascinating account of the giants of this period: Bach, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. Laced with brilliant observations, memorable musical analysis, and a panoramic sense of the interactions between history, culture, politics, art, literature, religion, and music, this book will be essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand this rich and diverse period.
Call Number: Online ResourceISBN: 9780195384826Publication Date: 2009-07-27
A History of Baroque Music by
A History of Baroque Music is an exhaustive study of the music of the Baroque period, with particular focus on the 17th century. Individual chapters consider the work of significant composers, including Monteverdi, Corelli, Scarlatti, Schütz, Purcell, Handel, Bach, and Telemann, as well as specific countries and regions. Two contributed chapters examine composers and genres from Russia, the Ukraine, Slovenia, Croatia, and Latin America. The book also includes a wealth and variety of musical examples from all genres and instrumental combinations. Contributors are Claudia Jensen, Metoda Kokole, Rui Vieira Nery, and Ennio Stipcevic.
Call Number: ML193 .B76 2004ISBN: 0253343658Publication Date: 2004-11-23
Eighteenth-Century Music by
The eighteenth century arguably boasts a more remarkable group of significant musical figures, and a more engaging combination of genres, styles and aesthetic orientations, than any century before or since, yet huge swathes of its musical activity remain under-appreciated. The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Music provides a comprehensive survey, examining little-known repertories, works and musical trends alongside more familiar ones. Rather than relying on temporal, periodic and composer-related phenomena to structure the volume, it is organised by genre; chapters are grouped according to the traditional distinctions of music for the church, music for the theatre and music for the concert room that conditioned so much thinking, activity and output in the eighteenth century. A valuable summation of current research in this area, the volume also encourages readers to think of eighteenth-century music less in terms of overtly teleological developments than of interacting and mutually stimulating musical cultures and practices.
Call Number: ML195 .C35 2009ISBN: 9780521663199Publication Date: 2009-09-10
Composer Biographies
Composer biographies have a call number that starts with ML410, and is then alphabetized by last name.
Some key figures:
Bach by
The year 2000 has been declared a "Bach Year," marking the 250th anniversary of the great composer's death. Around the world, there will be major celebrations in honor of his astonishing body of work. This major biography of Bach, now completely revised and boasting 25% more material, ispublished to coincide with these events.In the new edition of this widely acclaimed study, biographical chapters alternate with commentary on the works, to demonstrate how the circumstances of Bach's life helped to shape the music he wrote at various periods. We follow Bach as he travels from Arnstadt and Muhlhausen to Weimar,Cothen, and finally Leipzig, these journeys alternating with insightful discussions of the great composer's organ and orchestral compositions. As well as presenting a rounded picture of Bach, his music, and his posthumous reputation and influence, Malcolm Boyd considers the sometimes controversialtopics of "parody" and arrangement, number symbolism, and the style and meaning of Bach's late works. Recent theories on the constitution of Bach's performing forces at Leipzig are also present. The text and the appendixes (which include a chronology, personalia, bibliography, and a completecatalogue of Bach's works) have been thoroughly revised to take account of the research undertaken by Bach scholars, including the gold mine of new information recently uncovered in the former USSR.An authoritative account of the life and work of Johann Sebastian Bach, this volume will be essential reading for everyone interested in the classical composers.
Call Number: Online ResourceISBN: 0195142225Publication Date: 2001-01-18
George Frideric Handel by
The life and career of George Frideric Handel, one of the most frequently performed composers from the Baroque period, are copiously and intricately documented through a huge variety of contemporary sources. This multi-volume major publication is the most up-to-date and comprehensive collection of these documents. Presented chronologically in their original languages with English translations and with commentaries incorporating the results of recent research, the documents provide an essential and accessible resource for anyone interested in Handel and his music. As well as being an outstanding musician with a successful career as a composer of Italian operas and English oratorios, Handel was a well-known figure in his own lifetime, with an international reputation. In charting his activities in Germany, Italy and Britain, the documents also offer a valuable insight into broader eighteenth-century topics, such as court life, theatrical history, public concerts and competition between music publishers. This volume includes family documents from Halle, then covers Handel's early career in Germany and Italy, followed by the period in which he became an established composer for London's Italian opera company while also writing the Water Music and the Utrecht Te Deum for the British court.
Call Number: ML410.H13 G367 2014 v.1ISBN: 9781107019539Publication Date: 2014-02-20
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