To help you get started! Below are some reference resources that will help you get started on your research - handbooks, dictionaries and encyclopedias, and bibliographies.
Bayne, Pauline Shaw. A Guide to Library Research in Music. (Ref. ML 3797 .B29 2008)
Garland Composer Resource Manuals.
Series of individual titles on specific composers. Use quotation marks to search for “garland composer resource manuals” in OneSearch to bring up all the title in this series.
Gottlieb, Jane. Music Library and Research Skills. 2nd edition. (Ref. ML 3797 .G68 2017)
Routledge Music Bibliographies.
Formerly the Garland Composer Resource Manuals, with a widening of scope to include books on musical genres and music for specific instruments. Use quotation marks to search for “routledge music bibliographies” in OneSearch to bring up all the titles in this series.
Sampsel, Laurie J. Music Research: a Handbook. 3rd edition. (Ref. ML 113 .S28 2020)
Companion Web site (www.oup.com/us/musresearch) provides supplements and updates to the basic text.
Scott, Allen, Phillip Crabtree, Donald H. Foster, editors. Sourcebook for Research in Music. 3rd edition. 2015. (eBook)
Lists of resources in all areas of music study, with brief introductions to each area. Includes common music bibliographical terms, a breakdown of the Library of Congress Music Classification, and music-related journal article databases. Covers more recently published materials, as well as those considered as classics in the field.
Gammond, Peter. The Harmony Illustrated Encyclopedia of Classical Music: an Essential Guide to the World's Finest Music. 2nd edition. (Ref. ML 160 .G227 1989)
Includes chapters on the orchestra, the opera, the composer, chamber music, musical instruments, and choral and vocal music.
Gilder, Eric. The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music: A Listener's Companion. New, revised edition. (Ref. ML 113 .G4 1986)
Grove Music Online (available in Oxford Music Online)
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians began moving online in 2001 and has become Grove Music Online .
Kennedy, Michael and Kennedy, Joyce Bourne. The Oxford Dictionary of Music. 6th edition. 2012 (ebook available in Oxford Reference database)
Latham, Alison, editor. The Oxford Companion to Music. 2011 (eBook available in Oxford Reference database)
Comprehensive single-volume reference to the Western musical tradition. Hundreds of entries explore all aspects of music theory, genres, performance practice, composers, artists, instruments, works, notation, and more.
Sadie, Stanley, editor. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 2nd edition. 2001. 29 volumes. (Ref. ML 100 .N48 2001) (See also Grove Music Online, above)
The classic, basic English-language reference source for music.
Slonimsky, Nicolas, editor. Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. Centennial edition. 6 volumes. (Ref. ML 105 .B16 2001) (Also available online in the Biography (Gale In Context) database.)
Swain, Joseph P. Historical Dictionary of Sacred Music. 2nd edition. (ML 102 .C5 .S83 2016) (Also available as an eBook.)
Bent, Ian, editor. Music Analysis in the Nineteenth Century. 1st paperback edition. 2 volumes. (MT 90 .M88 2004)
Eisler, Paul E., editor. World Chronology of Music History. 6 volumes. (Ref. ML 161 .E4)
Detailed chronology of music history worldwide, including forms, styles, development of different theories, individual composers, and highlights of what was happening at the same time in other arts.
Gant, Andrew. O Sing Unto the Lord : a History of English Church Music. (ML 2931 .G36 2017)
A history of English church music, from the Latin chant of late antiquity to the great proliferation of styles seen in contemporary repertoires.
Glickman, Sylvia and Martha Furman Schleifer, editors. From Convent to Concert Hall: a Guide to Women Composers. (ML 82 .F76 2003)
Organized by time period from the Middle Ages through the 20th century. Contains chronological and geographical lists of women composers.
Hefling, Stephen E., editor. Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music. (ML 1104 .N56 2004)
Discusses the chamber music of several 19th-century composers. (Also available as an eBook.)
Kendall, Alan. The Chronicle of Classical Music: an Intimate Diary of the Lives and Music of the Great Composers. (Ref. ML 390 .K35 1994)
Basically a timeline, covering 1600 to the present, showing musicians' lives against the backdrop of contemporary world events. Profusely illustrated, with a biographical index of composers.
Lott, Marie Sumner. The Social Worlds of Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music: Composers, Consumers, Communities. 2015. (eBook)
Plantinga, Leon. Romantic Music: a History of Musical Style in Nineteenth-Century Europe. 1st edition. (Music Library Ref. ML 196 .P6 1984) (Also On Reserve for MUST 564.)
Raeburn, Michael and Alan Kendall, editors. Heritage of Music. 4 volumes. (Ref. ML 160 .H527 1989)
Illustrated essays on music history and analysis. Each volume covers a different time period, and each one also contains a short biographical dictionary of composers, but no bibliographies. Good for background information. Use volume 2, The Romantic Era and volume 3, The Nineteenth-Century Legacy.
Samson, Jim, editor. The Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Music. (ML 196 .C36 2001)
Comprehensive overview of music in the 19th century. Divides the century into two parts chronologically, each of which looks at the major repertoire of the period through essays on the intellectual and socio-political history of the time. Includes a detailed chronology. (Also available as an eBook.)
Taruskin, Richard. The Oxford History of Western Music. 6 volumes. (Ref. ML 160 .T18 2005)
Attempts to find connections between music and culture, and to explain music as part of a larger whole of life and history. Use volume 3, The Nineteenth Century. Volume 6 covers resources and includes Chronology: music, other arts and philosophy, history: 1200 B.C.E.-2003.
Baron, John H. Chamber Music: a Research and Information Guide. 3rd edition. 2010. (eBook)
Annotated guide to where to find answers about chamber music. Covers basic references, the history of chamber music, analytic studies, performance practice of chamber music, and performers of chamber music.
Detroit Studies in Music Bibliography.
Series of bibliographies of works on a wide variety of musical genres, specific composers' works, and works for specific instruments or groups of instruments. Use quotation marks to search for the phrase "detroit studies in music bibliography" in OneSearch.
Hoek, D. J. Analyses of Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Music, 1940-2000. (Ref. ML 113 .H695 2007)
Indexes more than 9,000 analyses of works by more than 1,000 composers of the 19th and 20th centuries. (Also available as an eBook.)
Parker, Mara. String Quartets: a Research and Information Guide. 2nd edition. 2013. (eBook)
Annotated bibliography of information sources on the string quartet.
Rangel-Ribeiro, Victor and Robert Markel. Chamber Music: an International Guide to Works and Their Instrumentation. (Ref. ML 128 .C4 .R3 1993)
Handy reference work to the published chamber music repertoire (about 8,000 compositions) as developed over the past 450 years. Limited to works for 3 or more instruments, up to 20, or for ensembles of diverse instruments, except for some compositions in the Renaissance and Baroque periods.
Sharp, Avery T. and James Michael Floyd. Church and Worship Music: an Annotated Bibliography of Contemporary Scholarship. (Ref. ML 128 .C54 S43 2005)