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1994 |
94-3/4-511
Far from being (as the blurb claims) "one of a kind," this is a rather conventionally organized chronological succession of brief notes on individual works of music from the second century to the present--actually very similar in structure to Arnold Feil's recent Musik-Chronik (Metzler, 1993; cf. IFB 94-1-094). There is, however, a fundamental problem with the work, since it both fails to satisfy the needs of the scholarly researcher on the one hand--most descriptions are only ten lines long--while also failing to present complex musicological phenomena in a way an intelligent layperson could understand them. The introduction to individual epochs are, however, uniformly informative and reveal a profound understanding of each period. [rn/jg]
94-3/4-513
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Series D, Sonderbestände [Special Collections]. - ISBN 3-598-32180-5
vol. 2. Musiksammlung [Music Collection]. - 1994. - 310 p. - ISBN 3-598-32182-1 DM 398.00,
DM 368.00 (standing order price).
Volume one of this series was reviewed as IFB 93-3/4-157. This second volume devoted to German printed music and libretti of the Baroque inventories the holdings of the Wolfenbüttel collection. It actually contains fewer entries than earlier works published by Schmieder (1967) and Thiel (1970), and indeed most of the other information supplied in the present volume is also available to holders of the two earlier catalogs. New are the reproductions of title pages (though in a much reduced form, often legible only with a magnifying glass) and, at least according to the preface, a number of corrected author attributions. In sum, this latest volume of the series is of value chiefly as a supplement to the catalogs of Schmieder and Thiel. [rn/jg]
94-3/4-514
94-3/4-515
Oct. 1993 - 115 p. - ISBN 3-7657-1794-0 : included with CD-ROM
DNB-Musik CD-ROM, first issued in 1993, is a semi-annually updated database of sound recordings (including videotapes), scores, and music literature from the Deutsche Musikarchiv in Berlin. The database is in two sections: DMA - sound recordings and scores, and DML - music literature; They include entries from 1984 to the present. The accompanying user documentation is clear and comprehensive, and the installation program is included on the disc. In DMA, searches can be made from a German or an English menu. There a total of 20 different indexes, and each field is also searchable by keyword. Later editions will include indexes for publisher numbers and ISMNs. DML indexing and field tagging follow the pattern of the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie CD, and entries from 1986 on can be searched by keyword. Search response time is short even when using truncated searches. Although printed bibliographies of new sound recordings and music literature are published monthly by the Deutsches Musikarchiv, this CD-ROM provides cumulations and allows powerful, customized searching. In addition, in 1995 a retrospective CD will be published for DMA entries from 1976 to 1983. [bh/cmc]
94-3/4-516
1986/91. With additional citations from the Mozart-Bibliographie to 1985. - 1992. - 332 p. - ISBN 3-7618-1144-6 : DM 98.00
This bibliography of Mozart research covers the years 1986-1991 and is international in scope. It is the fourth volume in a series of five-year cumulations that the Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg has produced. For this volume a sixth year, 1991, was included because of the importance of that year, the bicentennial of the composer's death, for the scholarship on his life and works. It is very well organized and follows the pattern set by the previous volumes, with works listed alphabetically by author and with a full index apparatus that includes names, places, and subjects. Unfortunately there is little or no commentary to the individual titles (a problem for those titles that do not characterize the content), and titles are only infrequently translated into German (a problem for any work that is international in scope). These deficiencies aside, however, the bibliography is a welcome contribution to Mozart scholarship. [rn/rob]
94-3/4-518
94-3/4-519
Vol. 1. ABBA - Kay Kyser. - 1994. - 856 p.. - (... ; 26101 : ECON-Sachbuch). - ISBN 3-612-26101-0 : DM 19.90
Vol. 2. Patti LaBelle - ZZ Top. - 1994. - 857 p. - 1714. - (... ; 26102 : ECON-Sachbuch). - ISBN 3-612-26102-9 : DM 19.90
94-3/4-520
Because of their similarities the above three works were compared and assessed together in one review. The English-language Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music is of interest here because of its claim to be global in scope, and hence the question arises as to how well German popular music is covered. The other two works are German publications. With all three the primary issues are currency and coverage: in the pop music scene, by the time a book is published on the topic, a whole new group of artists has taken the public stage. In addition, one must question their claims of being comprehensive, as here too the subject matter is vast and amorphous: whole legions of hit-makers disappear from the public eye as quickly as they arrive. While all three are impressive in their breadth of coverage, they of necessity miss important artists. The four-volume Guinness publication is the most comprehensive internationally, and is the best of the three in the seriousness and quality of its entries. It includes discographies and bibliographies to the biographical entries. The primary coverage rests clearly in the Anglo-American music scene, and for other countries the coverage tends to be sporadic. For example, perhaps Germany's most vibrant and successful pop artist of the past few years, Herbert Gronemeyer, is not even mentioned. The other two works are more successful in covering the German pop music industry. The two-volume Rock und- Poplexikon, written by the well-known radio editor Frank Laufenberg, is, as one could expect, a very subjective and opinionated view of modern pop music history. Laufenberg's work for the most part covers post-war US, Britain, and Germany, but does so from an unabashed personal perspective. This makes for entertaining reading, but is weak on facts and objective assessment. In the last work, Das Lexikon des deutschen Schlagers, the coverage is much more inclusive and detailed for the German music scene, but since the entries include little more than names, dates, and the years of music hits, it is not much more helpful than Laufenberg's work in obtaining important facts on German pop music. For this one will find Rowohlt's Das neue Rock-Lexikon (1993) and the Pop-Archiv International (Ravenburg: Munzinger-Archiv) more useful reference works. [rn/rob]
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