Reference Works (digital)

The world’s premier online music encyclopedia, offering comprehensive coverage of music, musicians, music-making, and music scholarship.

Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (MGG) is a general encyclopedia of music. MGG is encyclopedic in the true sense of that term: it offers in-depth articles on every aspect of music as well as many related areas such as literature, philosophy, and visual arts. MGG Online contains the second print edition of MGG, published from 1994 to 2008, as well as current, continuous online updates and additions.

The Oxford History of Western Music is a magisterial survey of the traditions of Western music by one of the most prominent and provocative musicologists of our time. This text illuminates, through a representative sampling of masterworks, those themes, styles, and currents that give shape and direction to each musical age. Taruskin combines an emphasis on structure and form with a discussion of relevant theoretical concepts in each age, to illustrate how the music itself works, and how contemporaries heard and understood it.

Availability depends on your affiliation and/or personal subscriptions. 

Of special interest are the 22(!) volumes on Music and Theatre. 

They are accessible with a digital subscription of the National Library of the Netherlands (www.kb.nl) for only €15,= a year (students €7,50).