Research Sources

This page is under construction.

Publication and Publisher Information

Information on publishers of music and for dating publications and compiling work lists.

• Carl Friedrich Whistling, Handbuch der Musikalischen Literatur.... First issued in 1817 to list music then available in print and covering the period from about 1780 until 1815. Ten supplements were issued from 1818 until 1827. In 1828 a second edition of the Handbuch was issued. In 1829, Whistling issued a supplement to the 1828 edition and then started issuing monthly updates, the Monatsbericht, which was soon taken over by Hofmeister.

• Hofmeister Monatsbericht

Monthly publication 1829-1900 giving details of publisher issues of over 330,000 titles.

• Mirror ONB (Austria National Library) hosted - has scans of images of the pages of each(?) month of the published Monatsberichte from 1829 to 1947, without the search feature or text transcriptions of their official site but with greater range.
• Monatsbericht on IMSLP. Currently only volumes from 1829 to 1842 are available.
• Musikalisch-literarischer Monatsbericht. Links to volumes from 1901 to 1947 avaiable at the Internet Archive.
• Hathi Trust Digital Library currently has eight volumes of the Hofmeister Monatsbericht from the 1890s that are searchable. Additional volumes in their collection are non PD-US and support only a limited search.

• Friedrich Hofmeister, Jahresverzeichnis (Annual Index).

• Hathi Trust Digital Library currently has searchable volumes for the years 1858-1863, 1877-1888, and 1890-1908. Those that are non PD-US support only a limited search. Hathi Trust's PD-US volumes are available on IMSLP.

• Friedrich Hofmeister, Handbuch der Musikalischen Literatur. Individual volumes cover multiple years.

• Hathi Trust Digital Library currently has searchable volumes for the years 1845-1859, 1868-1885, 1892-1918. Additional volumes covering the years from 1919 to 1933 support only a limited search. Hathi Trust's PD-US volumes are available on IMSLP.

• Franz Pazdírek, Universal-Handbuch der Musikliteratur aller Zeiten und Völker. Produced between 1904 and 1910 the volumes serve as a listing of "music in print." Apparently, 34 volumes were produced but it seems possible that later printings combined volumes as some editions claim 13 volumes.

• Hathi Trust Digital Library has a searchable set of volumes 2 to 13.
• The Internet Archive appears to have a complete run of a 19 volume edition and 28 volumes from another edition.

• Belgian Bibliographical Resources. Page contains links to copies of various annual bibliographies published in Belgium and so can be useful for finding the publication date of works issued by Belgian and French publishers.

• Bibliographie de la France. Page contains links to copies of the BdlF at both Google Books and the Internet Archive. (Many more issues can be found scanned in at Gallica-Bibliothèque Nationale de France.) The BdlF is useful for finding the publication date of works issued by French (mainly Parisian) publishers as these were included in Hofmeister's Monatsbericht (and the Verzeichnis and Handbuch) rather infrequently, and even when so, often a number of years later than their first publication date in France.

• Catalogues of music publishers. Primarily catalogues issued in the period 1850 to 1920.

• British Music Publishers, Printers and Engravers. Covers the period of the late 1500s to the early 1800s.

• Journal typographique et bibliographique: ou Annonce de tous les Ouvrages (50th year, Google) - a journal that "announces all the" (publications?) ca.1802 ("an 10" of the French revolutionary calendar); probably still not as comprehensive and not music-specific (neither is Bibliographie de la France), but worthwhile (as are other earlier journals when one can find them, and early, middle and late issues of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung- also worth linking to here) for what it is/they are (which are often quite a lot).

• While Worldcat is generally useful up to a point and within limits, there are libraries it doesn't "catch" and others it gets only partially. For example when preparing a worklist for an Austrian composer (e.g. Robert Fuchs),
  • so be sure to check the Musiksammlung-Catalog of the ÖNB (Austrian National Library) (exact link seems to change occasionally; right now it's Go here, then click on ÖNB-HANNA-Catalog - sometimes, hundreds of items listed including rare scores and manuscripts in their possession that you may have to go directly to their website to find, not to Worldcat. Likewise LoC has an "old catalog" that's quite large and again not seen by WC.
  • SBN (SBN, Italian Libraries) contains, again, for Italian composers/fine artists of all kinds - a huge index of information, of names of works by this composer, of books by that author.

Biographical Information

• Musicsack.
• Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Copies of the first edition, the 1904 edition, and the 1920 American supplement are available.
• Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Copies of the second (1905) and third (1919) edition available.
• Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians. First edition from 1888 available.
• A Hundred Years of Music in America (1889)
• A Handbook of American Music and Musicians (1886). Includes biographies and histories of musical institutions and publishers.
• International Who's Who in Music and Musical Gazetteer (1918)
• Who's Who in Music (1913)
• Who's Who in Music in California (1920)
• James Duff Brown, Who's Who in Music and Drama (1913)
• Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (1886)
• Ernst Pauer, A Dictionary of Pianists and Composers for the Pianoforte (1895)

Information on Performances (?)

• The Musical Year-Book of the United States (1887-1890)
• The Musical Year-Book of the United States (1890-1893)
• The Boston Musical Year Book (1883-1887) Became entitled The Musical Year-Book of the United States in 1887.

Miscellaneous

• List of music periodicals. Includes links to digitized sources (mostly at Google Books and the Internet Archive).
• Catalogue of Manuscript Music in the British Museum (1906). vol.1, vol.2, vol.3.
• Alberto Bachmann, Les grands violonistes du passe (1913).