RILM Music Encyclopedias

RILM Music Encyclopedias is a collection of dozens of music reference works from 1775 to the present, made available as an electronic resource by Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale. The collection expands every year by three to five titles.

Scope and Contents

RILM Music Encyclopedias (RME) was launched in December 2015 with 41 titles.[1][2] In line with RILM's mission to represent the world's writings of music, these stem from different countries, and also from different periods: The earliest, Jean Jacques Rousseau's Dictionnaire de musique, was published in 1775. There is also the first edition of “The Grove”, in an edition published by Theodore Presser in 1895.[3] The largest amount of titles date from 2000 onward.[4] Among them are Ken Bloom's Broadway, Lol Henderson and Lee Stacey's Encyclopedia of Music in the 20th Century, Peter Matzke et al., Das Gothic- und Dark Wave-Lexikon, and Richard Kostelanetz's Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes.[5] The comprehensive Handwörterbuch der musikalischen Terminologie, conceived between 1972 bis 2006, is also included.[6] RILM Music Encyclopedias holds important titles for ethnomusicologists, among them The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music and Eileen Southern's Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians, which is the first single comprehensive volume of its kind.[7] The collection expands annually with additions of four titles in average.[8] One of the titles, Komponisten der Gegenwart (KDG), is being regularly updated with new articles or additions to existing articles.[9][10] Stephen Henry mentions RME's “ability to provide access to some excellent European resources that might not otherwise be available to libraries with less than comprehensive collections.”[11]

Functionality

RILM Music Encyclopedias is accessible on EBSCOhost and RILM's platform Egret, where its functionality is being further developed to offer the most advanced search and browse capabilities. RME on Egret facilitates automatic translation of content to over 100 languages via Google Translate integration, user accounts where annotations and notes can be created, saved, and shared, cross references linking related content throughout RME, links to related content in RILM Abstracts of Music Literature and other resources, as well as an interface compatible with mobile and tablet devices. Librarian Laurie Sampsel asserts that “cross searching the full text of so many titles yields results impossible (or highly unlikely) to find using the print versions of these encyclopaedias.”[12]

Title List

At Launch (2016)

• Algemene muziekencyclopedie
• Annals of opera
• Band music notes
• Biographical dictionary of Afro-American and African music
• Biographical dictionary of musicians
• Biographical dictionary of Russian/Soviet composers
• Biographie universelle des musiciens
• Biographisch-bibliographisches Quellen-Lexikon
• Das Blasmusik-Lexikon: Komponisten - Autoren - Werke
• Broadway: An encyclopedia
• The Concise Garland encyclopedia of world music
• Conductors and composers of popular orchestral music
• Dictionary of American classical composers
• A dictionary of the avant-gardes
• Dictionnaire de la musique (Les hommes et leurs oeuvres)
• Dictionnaire de la musique (Science de la musique)
• Dictionnaire de musique
• Dictionnaire des oeuvres de l'art vocal
• Dizionario e bibliografia della musica
• Dizionario universale dei musicisti (Schmidl)
• Encyclopedia of American gospel music
• Encyclopedia of Music in the 20th Century
• Encyclopedia of recorded sound
• Encyclopedia of the American theatre organ
• Encyclopedia of the blues
• Garland encyclopedia of world music
• Das Gothic- und Dark Wave-Lexikon
• Großes Sängerlexikon
• Grove I: A Dictionary of music and musicians (1879)
• Handwörterbuch der musikalischen Terminologie
• Historical dictionary of the music and musicians of Finland
• Hollywood songsters: Singers who act and actors
• International encyclopedia of women composers
• Komponisten der Gegenwart
• March music notes
• Pangosmio lexiko
• The Paris opera 1-3
• Percussionists: A biographical dictionary
• Riemanns Musik-Lexikon (11th edition)
• Steirisches Musiklexikon
• Tin Pan Alley: An encyclopedia of the Golden Age

2017 Additions

• Československý hudební slovník osob a institucí
• Encyclopédie de la musique et dictionnaire
• Editori Italiani
• Opernlexikon by Stieger

2018 Additions

• Enciclopédia da música brasileira
• Il melodramma italiano 1861-1900; 1901-1926
• Neues Historisch-biographisches Lexikon der Tonküstler
• The20th century violin concertante

2019 Additions (theme: musical instruments)

• Diccionario biográfico – bibliográfico – histórico – crítico de guitarras y guitarristas
• Musical instruments: A comprehensive dictionary
• Real-Lexikon der Musikinstrumente, zugleich ein Polyglossar für das gesamte Instrumentengebiet
• The stringed instruments of the Middle Ages: Their evolution and development
• A survey of musical instruments

2020 Additions (theme: rock)

• The encyclopedia of Australian rock and pop
• Lexikon Progressive Rock: Musiker, Bands, Instrumente, Begriffe
• Sachlexikon Rockmusik: Instrumente, Technik, Industrie

2021 Additions (theme: North America)

• The Canadian pop music encyclopedia
• Country music
• Diccionario enciclopédico de música en México