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Doing Historical Research in Music: Oxford Music Online

Composers' worklists in Oxford Music Online

Complete listings of composers' works, including some basic information on the primary sources, can be found in Oxford Music Online (available on our “Databases” page).

To look up a composer's worklist in Oxford Music Online:

Enter the composer's name in the search box.

You may retrieve several entries for the composer. Select the one that says "Biography" and "Source: Grove Music Online." (Grove is the principle English-language encyclopedia of music.

Within the article, you'll see an outline in the left sidebar. Select "Works."

Anatomy of a worklist in Oxford Music Online

For each work, you can expect to see most or all of the following data:

Work number (opus, thematic, etc.)

Title

Key

Date of composition

Date of first performance

Publication date of the first edition

Remarks (revisions, dedicatee, etc.)

Volume in the composer's collected edition in which the work appears

 

More information about a given work may be found in the main text of the article, and in the bibliography at the end of the article.

Once you've gathered this initial data from Oxford Music Online, you may want to consult the composer's thematic catalog for more detailed information on the work's primary sources.

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