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Reviewed by:
  • The Violin: A Research and Information Guide
  • Michael J. Duffy IV
The Violin: A Research and Information Guide. By Mark Katz. (Routledge Music Bibliographies.) New York: Routledge, 2006. [x, 410 p. ISBN 0-8153-3637-3; ISBN-13 978-0-8153-3637-2. $85.] Indexes, references.

Surprisingly few examples exist of bibliographies about the literature for the violin. The most recent edition of Music Reference and Research Materials: An Annotated Bibliography by Vincent Duckles and Ida Reed (New York: Schirmer Books, 1997) lists only two examples of violin bibliographies. Of course, many lists of violin music have been assembled, but before the publication of Mark Katz's The Violin: A Research and Information Guide, there was only one notably substantial bibliography of the literature. The venerable work bearing this distinction is De Fidiculis Bibliographia: Being an Attempt Towards a Bibliography of the Violin and All Other Instruments Played With a Bow in Ancient and Modern Times by Edward Heron-Allen (London: Griffith, Farran, 1890–94; reprint, London: Holland Press, 1961).

Katz's bibliography of the violin is the first published attempt to achieve some measure of control over the literature of the instrument since Heron-Allen's day. In the introduction, Katz frames his work as "a comprehensive research guide to the violin," with the caveat, "By comprehensive, however, I do not mean complete" (p. 2). Katz does an admirable job of presenting a wide range of literature, an admittedly daunting task. Researchers beware the author's caveat! While including representative literature on many aspects of the violin, this work does not list everything and should be used as a guide only. Katz mentions many works about the violin in the annotations to his entries, either by the author of the cited work or by other authors, without listing those works as separate entries. Katz also serves the researcher by providing citations to reprints and translations of works in his entries. By no means, however, does he do this exhaustively. He generally acknowledges cases where he does not list all existing editions.

Katz's work contains 1,698 entries arranged by subject classification. The classification scheme groups works by chapter, and within each chapter, by headings and subheadings. Within the most specific level of classification, the entries are arranged chronologically, with the exception of the first ten entries, which are general reference sources. He explains:

There are just a few exceptions to the chronological ordering: entries 1–4, which cite general music reference works, are in order of their relative applicability, as I deem it, to the research someone using this book might conduct; and entries 5–10, all electronic resources, are in alphabetical order—because they are constantly updated a chronological ordering would be difficult and provide little useful information.

(p. 3)

Chapters include: "Reference and General Studies," "The Violin: Acoustics and Construction," "Violin Playing and Performance Practice," "Violin Music," and "Violinists, Violinist-Composers, and Violin Teachers."

The first chapter, "Reference and General Studies," after the above-mentioned first ten entries, includes headings for "General Violin Bibliographies,"—where Katz includes an entry on Heron-Allen's historic bibliography (entry 11)—"Discography," "Periodicals," and "General Studies of the Violin." In total, this first chapter contains fifty-six entries. All of the entries are annotated with short summaries ranging from a sentence or two to longer remarks of about half a page. Those consulting these annotations should be aware of some inaccuracies, however. In his annotation to the entry on JSTOR (entry 6), Katz writes, "the entire contents of these [sic] journals have been electronically scanned," but he does not mention anything about JSTOR's "moving wall," which determines JSTOR's currency (see "JSTOR: The Moving Wall" for more information, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/movingwall.html [accessed 31 May 2007]). Katz's annotation for OCLC WorldCat (entry 10) understates the number of libraries, "hundreds" (p. 7), included in [End Page 61] WorldCat's purview, which, as of 6 April 2007, was more than 57,000 (see "WorldCat facts and statistics," available at http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/statistics/default.asp [accessed 31 May 2007]).

The second chapter, "The Violin: Acoustics and Construction," contains entries 57–431...

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