528A Assignment #3

name: Dimitrije Vasiljevic

1) Reach the Oxford Music Online website through Oxford Music
Online/Oxford Databases on the MPAL website. Check the box under
the search window for Grove Music Online. In the search window type:
John Coltrane. In your first results, you should find two different
biographies, both of which are published by Grove. List ten differences
between the two biographies. Consider, for example, authorship, types
of content, size and dates of the bibliographies.
1. Authorship (Barry Kernfeld; Lewis Porter)
2. Source (The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd Edition; The
Grove Dictionary of American Music, 2nd Edition
3. Availability of audio examples within the article
4. Selected recordings (one is more modest, while the other
one is fairly extensive)
5. Bibliography (different number of sources were used)
6. Availability of transcriptions
7. Availability of selected films and videos
8. Type of content (one is divided into Life, Music and
Influence sections, while the other is not divided into
sections)
9. Size (one is 17 paragraphs long while the other is 24
paragraphs long)
10.
Notated examples of Coltranes music are different

2) Repeat the search, using the term: ragtime. Are there any significant
differences between the two main subject entries?
The first two articles are the same except one has audio
examples available, while the other doesnt.

3) Another search: chanson. How many subject entry results do you

get in which the term chanson is in the name of the entry? Skim the
first entry. What time periods does the entry cover?
9 subject entries; Middle Ages and Renaissance
5) How many different cataloguing systems are there for the music of
Johann Sebastian Bach? List them. Hint: go to the Works section in
his main subject entry and carefully read the material up front and look

at the way the music is listed in the table that follows. Are there opus
numbers?

Church cantatas
Lost or incomplete
Doubtful and spurious
Secular cantatas
Lost
Latin church music
Passions, oratorios
Motets
Chorales, sacred songs, arias
Doubtful
Organ
Independent of chorales
Doubtful and spurious
Based on chorales: Orgel-Bchlein
Based on chorales: Other
Based on chorales: Doubtful and spurious
Other keyboard
Doubtful and spurious
Lute
Chamber
Doubtful and spurious
Orchestral
Studies in counterpoint, canons etc.

6) If you had an interest in Benjamin Brittens folk song arrangements,

what could you find about them in the works section in the Britten
subject entry in Grove? List five pieces of information that you could
discover here that would give you a general sense of this portion of his
creative activity (i.e. when did he compose them? for what groups of
performers? were they performed in his lifetime? are they published?
has anything scholarly been written about them?
- 1941-1976
- 1 or 2 voices with 1 or 2 instruments; solo voice with
orchestra; choral; solo vocal; instrumental ensemble; piano
- all of them have been published in the time span of 1943
2000
- they were performed during his lifetime

7) If you wanted to find out what has been written about Philip Glasss
operas, where would you find the most relevant bibliography in Grove?

8) If you were looking for information about an unpublished song by

George Gershwin, would the Works section of the main subject entry
for Gershwin in the The Grove Dictionary of American Music, 2nd
edition, offer you any useful information? If so, what?