In this guide, you'll find links to a number of reference books, databases, and other online music resources. Please feel free to get in touch with the music librarian, Cara Barker, if you need more assistance. You can also use the "Ask Us" chat box in the lower right corner to talk with a librarian right now.
For most of your encyclopedia and background information, I recommend using Credo Reference. You can search an entire encyclopedia library with a single search.
Article databases recommended by your instructor:
Make sure to set up an account on Music Listening Online using your WCU email. You will need to be logged in to the service before the playlist links posted below will work. If you use your phone to listen to playlists, I would make sure you are logged into the service on whatever browser you use.
Encyclopedia of the Renaissance
Leonardo da Vinci, Machiavelle, Cesare Boria, Elizabeth I, Shakespeare, and Juan de Herrera - figures great and small, famous and little known, all contributed to the outpouring of genius known as the Renaissance. This set of volumes treats the full period of the Renaissance, from 1350 to 1650, encompassing Italy and the rest of Europe in the context of the broader world. It contains topical entries and biographies, and alphabetically arranged articles on culture, literature, philosophy, religion, economics, politics, science, and the arts, - revealing how people thought, what they believed and how they lived."
Historical Dictionary of Sacred Music
This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Sacred Music contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 800 cross-referenced entries on major types of music, composers, key religious figures, specialized positions, genres of composition, technical terms, instruments, fundamental documents and sources, significant places, and important musical compositions.
Queering the Pitch by
When the first edition of Queering the Pitch was published in early 1994, it was immediately hailed as a landmark and defining work in the new field of Gay Musicology. In light of the explosion of Gay Musicology since 1994, a new edition of Queering the Pitch is timely and needed. In this new work, the editors are including a landmark essay by Philip Brett on Gay Musicology, its history and scope. The essay itself has become a cause celebre, and this will be its first full appearance in print. Along with this new historical essay, the editors are contributing a new introduction that outlines the changes that have occurred over the last decade as Gay Musicology has grown.
Women Composers of Classical Music by
As early as the 1500s, a surprising number of women have composed classical music. Many were successful, finding venues for both publishing and performing their music; others found the social barriers for women impossible to overcome. This book provides access to these composers, both well known and obscure. Arranged chronologically by era, the profiles are further divided into countries. For each female composer within a country, a brief biographical sketch is provided, as well as a description of her body of work. This text also includes an extensive timeline of operatic works by female composers.
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