One of the strengths of the Mills Music Library is its holdings of composers' collected works. The library continues to build on this strength by purchasing new editions of collected works as they are published. Recently, an edition of the works of Carl Maria von Weber began, and surprisingly, the initial volume is not an opera or a clarinet concerto, but rather sacred music, a genre which does not immediately come to mind when thinking of Weber. Look for this series at M3 W4 1998. Because the aim is completeness, collected works editions invariably takes years, even decades, to complete, and Weber no doubt will remain in process well into the next century.
The Weber edition comes on the heels of what was, seemingly, a banner year for collected works. The year 1996 witnessed the commencement of sets devoted to the works of Brahms (M3 B8 1996), Lully (M3 L92 1996), Mussorgsky (M3 M95 W8 1996), Rameau (M3 R38 1996), and Kurt Weill (M3 W42).
Composers' collected works, a concept first fully realized in the last century, have been an irreplaceable resource for music scholars and performers. A great surge of interest in historical music resulted, by mid-nineteenth century, in the initiation of collected works by Bach (1851), Handel (1858), Palestrina (1862), Mozart (1877), and numerous others in the following decades. Collected works, like other historical editions of music, are typically characterized by the highest form of musical scholarship. The aim, as the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians explains, is to present a composer's output in its totality and to base the edition on a critical evaluation of all known primary sources. Furthermore, editorial suggestions or changes are clearly indicated and distinguished from the source material. The result is an authoritative edition which faithfully and accurately represents the composer's intention, unclouded by publisher or editorial intrusion.
Bach Manuscripts
Music Library staff have often joked about discovering Bach manuscripts among the many donations it receives or in unopened boxes residing in the library's locked cage. That will never happen, of course, but we can report that a new microfiche set devoted to Bach manuscripts has been purchased by the library. Numbering over 350 fiche, the new set reproduces manuscripts of Bach, his sons, and his relatives from the rich collections housed at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. The call number is Microfiche 37, and there are two accompanying user guides located in the reference collection at ML 136 B5 S741 1997.
Arts Resources from Colonial America
New from University Music Editions in New York is The Performing Arts in Colonial American Newspapers, 1690–1783, a text database and index. This new CD-ROM product, available in the Music Library, includes "all references to theater, poetry, music, and dance as compiled in 50,000 colonial American newspapers." The publication embraces 500 distinct newspaper titles published in 50 different eastern seaboard cities. Citations are full text and also include those from German and French language papers. You can request this by asking for CD-ROM 29 at the Audio Facility.