CHASE

READ ME - USER GUIDE

This article is intended to help you use this website, and it will be updated regularly in light of your feedback. If you have any problems finding your way around, or you think anything could be clearer, please email Clive Brown.

The navigation bar at the top of each page enables you to search, or browse, for music and for articles ranging from wide-ranging historical discussions to summary biographies of editors.

ARTICLES: these are grouped according to various categories. In many cases, music files are also linked to articles.

COMPOSERS: this gives an alphabetical list of all composers whose works are included here.

EDITORS and WORKS: this shows every editor, and work, included here. Each column can be sorted by clicking on the small arrow icons in the header row, and you can narrow the results by using the search box.

INSTRUMENTATION: displays a complete list of all instrumental combinations represetned here, such as string quartet, piano trio, and so forth. Each combination links to all works for that grouping.

VIEW ALL: displays every musical work in the database.

SEARCH: the first search box lets you enter any text, such as the name of an editor, or a composer. The further option of 'advanced search' enables more precise searching.

EXAMPLE:

Click COMPOSERS in the navigation bar
Click Johann Sebastian Bach
Go down the page to Solo Partita in D minor and click 'view work'
at the right hand end of the entry for Alard's edition, click 'view edition'
click the link under 'musical text(s)'

You should now be looking at Alard's edition of Bach's D minor Partita. Note that there are also links to discussion's of Alard's collection, Les maîtres classiques du violon, and to a list of all the other works in that series.

In the case of some music files, you may see red boxes of various sizes drawn around noteworthy features of the text. Click on these to read the annotation. Initials at edition level identify principal annotator. References to music texts in annotation boxes are by line(system)/bar/note (where note = notehead or rest). So, 9/10/2 = line 9, bar 10, note 2.

More detailed information:

How is this database organised? This database is organised round levels of information, thus: Composer - Work - Edition - Part.

Should I use umlauts, accents, etc.? Search terms need not contain diacritics - thus 'Grutzmacher' or 'Grützmacher', but, NB, not 'Gruetzmacher'.

Downloading music - Music files can be downloaded in PDF format by clicking 'Download PDF' and following the instructions. Note that in some cases such as files with an exceptionally large number of pages, of files which have been scanned in colour, the file size may be very large. The downloaded file will be at a higher resolution than the version viewed on the website, but it will not display the annotations in red boxes. Downloaded files may not be suitable for printing for use in performance.

How do I compare two texts? If you want to compare musical texts side by side, you can either open the website on several tabs, or download the files and then compare them. -

Navigation You can navigate around the website by using your browser's forward and back buttons, or via the links to composer, work and edition at the top of the page.

Can I search by opus number? In basic search, enter the plain number (e.g. '121'). To narrow results enter 'op.[space][number]' (e.g. 'op. 61').

Date Dates for published music are given with a margin of error (+/-1, +/-2 years). Where no margin is indicated the date is clear. The source of the date is generally given as: -

'estimate' - the least secure source, based on evidence such as approximate plate numbers, similarity to other sources, style of engraving, etc.
'plate number estimate' - based on plate number, where there is already considerable information about plate number sequences. This applies particularly to the major publishers such as Peters or Breitkopf & Härtel.
'Hofmeister - [month], [year]' - this gives the month and year of the relevant listing in the Hofmeister Monatsbericht. It has been generally assumed that publication will have taken place a few months prior to listing in Hofmeister. No systematic research has yet been done to establish the size of this gap.
'text' - the publication date is contained in the printed text (either given by the publisher, or in other forms such as a dated editorial preface).

To the best of our knowledge, none of the material on this site is within copyright; the material from Uppingham School and from the Bodleian Library, with extensive MS annotation, has been cleared for copyright purposes.

[GK]