Welcome

This guide is meant to serve as a starting point of Music History and is not meant to be exhaustive. Use the left hand navigation to review various resources owned and subscribed to from the WVC Library and free resources from the free web.

Finding Background Information

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Reference books, like bibliographies, dictionaries, and encyclopedias, can be good starting places when you're trying to find basic information. Below are the encyclopedias and dictionaries of Music History that WV library has.

Online Reference books

Grove Music Online (Oxford)
The world’s premier online music encyclopedia, offering comprehensive coverage of music, musicians, music-making, and music scholarship.
Credo
Reference database that provides access to a large number of biographical sources, atlases, and encyclopedias covering the arts, business, economics, history, literature, science, technology, religion, philosophy, politics, psychology, geography, country studies, and more.

eBook Reference books

Hutchinson Concise Dictionary of Music by Helicon
Call Number: eBook

ISBN: 9781859865477

Publication Date: 2006-01-01

Core information on composers and comprehensive works listings from the earliest exponents of polyphony to the present day.
Hutchinson Pocket Dictionary of Classical Music by Helicon Publishing
Call Number: eBook

ISBN: 9781859865637

Publication Date: 2005-01-01

Quick and easy reference to classical music.

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians by Stanley Sadie (Editor); John Tyrrell (Editor)
ISBN: 1561592390

Publication Date: 2001

The New GroveII presents the music, theory, instruments, and musicians that have helped to define music around the world.
The New Oxford Companion to Music by Denis Arnold (Editor)
ISBN: 0193113163

Publication Date: 1983

This complete encyclopedia encompasses music of all kinds from ancient times to the present day. Written by a team of 90 expert contributors, these 6,600 articles cover composers, and individual works; musical instruments; opera; music of different countries; Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Jazz, and popular music; definitions of musical terms; rudiments and theory of music; and standard forms and genres.