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Finding Music Scores

Guide to finding music scores at the Louise Hanson-Dyer Music Collection, located at the Southbank Library.

Collected Editions, Historical Sets & Monumenta

Collected editions are scholarly compiled editions of musical scores which present the output of particular composers and genres from the 12th to the 21st centuries.

Collected editions are for library use only and cannot be borrowed.  They are marked in the library catalogue with the location UniM Southbank CE.

The major collections in the Southbank Library:

  • Composers Series - A-Z - browse the shelves at CE 780.81
  • Historical Series - browse the shelves at CE 780.9 onwards;
  • National Series - browse the shelves at CE 780.941 onwards;
  • Music Forms & Principles - browse the shelves at CE 781 onwards;
  • Opera & Vocal Series - browse the shelves at CE 782 onwards;
  • Instrumental Series - browse the shelves at CE 785 onwards.

For an overview of the richness of these materials, consult the following introductory articles:

  • Editions from Oxford Music Online (restricted - University of Melbourne only) 
    A summary of the modern history of collected editions followed by a list of editions of music, subdivided into three parts: 
    1. Editions of the complete works of a single composer
    2. Multi-volume editions devoted to unified musical repertory
    3. Anthologies of selections and excerpts from a variety of musical sources.

     

    Or in print at  The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians / 2nd. NewYork: Macmillan, 2001.

    1. v.7 pp.895- "Editions, Historical " an introductory article
    2. v.28, pp.169- "...a comprehensive guide to collections of past musical repertory"
      Includes: 1. Single-composer complete editions ; 2. Other collected editions ; 3. Anthologies.

Locating Works within Collected Editions

Use keyword searches as per the Search tab in this guide.

Try using a composer's name work "work" or one of the other language variants such as "werk', "gesam", "sammlung", "ausgab" or "oeuvre". Similarly, if looking for an edition of a specific musical form such as motet, foreign variants may be applied or use truncation (in this instance): "motet*" which will also yield results for "motetta"

Many composers have series of Collected Editions dedicated to their works. These are located at CE 780.81 followed by the first four letters of the composer's name. This can be easier than using catalogue searches in some cases.

Some composer entries in Oxford Music Online include details regarding the Collected Edition for specific works. An explanation of the editions and series is included at the beginning of the works list.

 

Useful resources include:


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