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The Cambridge Music Faculty recommends a start at one of two places: Royal Holloway and Bedford (http://www.sun.rhbnc.ac.uk/Music/Links/) and The American Musicological Society (http://musdra.ucdavis.edu/Documents/AMS/musicology_www.html). Royal Holloway's pages are a very rich though haphazard set of humanities links with a musical skew; the AMS pages are rather less chaotic, and very comprehensive.
Other fairly good links are at:
http://toltec.lib.utk.edu/~music/wwwclas.html
http://www.iat.unc.edu/technology/music/music.html
http://humanities.uchicago.edu/humanities/music/net.resources.html
The serious stuff, though (and please let us know if we're missing something obvious), is limited...
RISM
The Repertoire International des Sources Musicales (International Inventory
of Musical Sources) represents a worldwide effort to identify and describe
sources of music and writings about music from the earliest times through
ca. 1825. The RISM Home Page is a joint production of the RISM
Zentralredaktion at Frankfurt/Main, Germany, and the U.S. RISM Office at
Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A. and is located at
http://www.rism.harvard.edu/RISM/.
It hosts a number of databases, the directory to which is at
http://www.rism.harvard.edu/rism/DB.html.
Very useful and fully indexed is the database of music mss after 1600. Their
blurb: the RISM Series A/II Database contains bibliographic records for
music manuscripts written after ca. 1600 and, in most cases, before ca.
1850. Records include information in standard bibliographic categories as
well as graphical images of music incipits.
Others:
The RISM-U.S. Libretto Database contains bibliographic records for more than
11,000 printed and manuscript libretti for musical stage pieces from the
earliest manifestations through the beginning of the twentieth century.
Presently included in the database are records for all libretti in the
Albert Schatz Collection at the Library of Congress.
The RISM Libraries Directory identifies more than 5,500 libraries world-wide
that hold music materials relevant to RISM series. All libraries are
identified by name and RISM siglum. Other information provided can include:
address, phone/fax numbers, links to relevant Internet resources, and
literature about the library.
The RISM Bibliographic Citations Database contains references for all
thematic catalogues and other secondary sources cited in the RISM A/II Music
Manuscripts Database and the RISM-US Libretto Database. The database can be
searched from hyperlinks in those databases, or directly from a database
search menu.
DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS IN MUSICOLOGY ON-LINE
This is an excellent, and very comprehensive, searchable database, incorporating and continuing the American Musicological Society's published
listings: http://www.music.indiana.edu/ddm/.
UL MUSIC CATALOGUE
The new Cambridge University Library music catalogue contains ca. 12,000
entries for musical scores created since 1989, and includes nearly all music
manuscripts (except medieval liturgical and some other early mss). This is
its principal attraction. For instance, every one of the 239 intriguing
items in MS Dd.2.11 are separately entered, so the whole contents can be
browsed by a search on the classmark, and individual items can be pulled up
by their title. If you have a suspicion that there must be a number for
Willoughby, 'Willoughby's' in the title field will bring you 'My lord
Willougby's tune' from this ms. The catalogue can be browsed under 'other
catalogues' at ul.cam.ac.uk.
SIXTEENTH-CENTURY PRINTED TABLATURES
This seems a very professional job. Its blurb: Sixteenth-century printed
tablatures for the lute, vihuela, guitar, and cittern is a site offering an
experimental database of printed tablatures for plucked-string instruments
from 1500-1599. It is primarily concerned with bibliographical information
relating to Lute, Vihuela, Guitar, and Cittern tablatures; it also contains
information on three lesser-known instruments: the Bandora, the Mandora, and
the Orpharion. Each section contains basic information regarding a specific
instrument: brief organological descriptions, explanations of tablature, and
links to more detailed bibliographical and biographical information. This is
an ongoing project; eventually, each book will be analysed as to contents
and individual incipits of the pieces (in tablature) will be placed in a
searchable thematic catalogue. Visit this project at http://www.lib.duke.edu/music/lute/home.html.
THE CLASSICAL MUSIC PAGES
This web site [tells you that it] provides you almost everything you need
concerning classical music - its history, biographical information about
composers (with portraits and short sound examples), explanations of the
various musical forms and a dictionary of musical terminologies. Start at http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/classmus.html. This is an ongoing project, but already it offers a fairly comprehensive set of extracts from the New Grove, with hypertextual links; certainly useful, if you really don't want to leave your desk.
THESAURUS MUSICARUM ITALICARUM (TMI)
TMI is run by the impressive Computer & Letteren at Utrecht University. The aim of the project is to publish in hypertextual format a series of 16th and early 17th-century Italian music treatises, although it is still incipient. A very full prospectus is at
http://candl.let.ruu.nl/.
THESAURUS MUSICARUM LATINARUM This is a repository of Latin music theory texts, considerably more advanced: gopher://iubvm.ucs.indiana.edu/11/tml
LEXICON MUSICUM LATINUM
Prospectus for the printed volume, with
bibliography and links relating to Medieval music theory; a German site:
http://www.badw.de/musik/lml.htm.
THEMA: (Music) THEory of the Middle Ages
At present, this database
comprises hypertext transcriptions of 18 manuscript copies of 14 Latin
theoretical treatises related to musica mensurabilis of the thirteenth
century. A little beyond our brief. http://www.uga.edu/~thema/.
GREG LINDAHL
Greg Lindahl has a personal but not unuseful set of pages, with an especial
liking for ballads and Thomas Ravenscroft; much is scanned in, so facsimiles
of entire volumes can be printed off. For the main page, go to http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/home.html; for ballads, try http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/ballads/ballads.html. He provides an early music bibliography at http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/articles/music_bibliography.html.
JEFF LEE
Jeff Lee has a similar set of music pages, with MIDI files of Coprario's
'Funeral Teares' and links for lutenists: http://www.gate.net/~shipbrk/music.html. His scary homepage includes a link to a fun set of 'rules for children to
write by' from 1611, with pictures of good and bad pen posture: http://www.gate.net/~shipbrk/.
LULLY WEB Project
The University of North Texas LULLY WEB Project, a multimedia thematic
catalogue of the University's Lully collections, is at: http://www.library.unt.edu/projects/lully/lullyhom.html.
CARNEGIE MELLON
The trusty Carnegie Mellon English Server has some stuff: http://english-server.hss.cmu.edu/music/.
HNH
HNH, the umbrella company for NAXOS, provides composer's biographies with
surveys of their output, as well as a glossary of musical terms, with links
to information on Naxos recordings. Information depends on a record being
there to support it, so there is no Ferrabosco or Eccles; the glossary is
limited: no 'melisma', but 'modal' is useful enough. Not bad despite the
filthy mercantilism: http://www.hnh.com/hnh.htm.
TRANSCRIBING AND READING WHITE MENSURAL NOTATION
A labour of love from another muso punter, this site gives a multimedia tutorial in Renaissance music notation from the mid-16th century: http://listen.to/early.music.
THE ENGLISH DANCING MASTER
A project to enter Playford's first edition
(1651) is underway at: http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/org/sca/src/contributed/pc2d@andrew.cmu.edu/dance/playford.html. It includes audio and visual illustrations and is nearly finished. A parallel project by Jeff Lee seems further on: http://www.gate.net/~shipbrk/playford/index.html.
ENGLISH LUTE MANUSCRIPTS AND SCRIBES 1530-1630
One of the most impressive finds was the gobsmackingly vast 1994 Oxford
D.Phil. of Julia Craig-McFeely, ENGLISH LUTE MANUSCRIPTS AND SCRIBES
1530-1630, which one can download in its entirety, piece by piece, thanks to
the author's generosity. The files are under the aegis of a fellow lute
lover, who must have done the converting to html, no simple task:
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/julia/. It comes either in plain text or hypertext (with pictures). Try the
bibliography for starters, or the contents: http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/julia/toc.htm.
THE PURCELL PROJECT
Pleasant audibles on offer at: http://web.ftech.net/~honeyg/purcell.htm. Links to a basic multimedia biography and the BL's tercentenary Purcell exhibition (also multimedia) are at:
http://portico.bl.uk/exhibitions/purcell/overview.html.
MORE MIDI TUNES
Including a fair few Campion, Dowland, Byrd: http://www.bcpl.lib.md.us/~cbladey/guy/html/midis.html.
MEDIEVAL.ORG
Says little about itself but hosts a great deal of low-level
information, including Early Music frequently asked questions (FAQs), such
as 'what was the first opera?', the infinitely regressive equivalent of
'what was the first novel?'; the site also has links to huge amounts of
information on recordings, so a search on a composer will tend to take you
here: http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/.
MUSICA BRITTANICA
This is usefully listed by its publishers at
http://www.stainer.co.uk/musica.htm.
For those interested in lyric poetry and song, there is no on-line Doughtie or Fellowes, and the best thing in the meantime is to keep an eye on VERSIFICATION, as mentioned below in 'Internet Resources': http://sizcol1.u-shizuoka-ken.ac.jp/versif/Versification.html.
Again, one can start at Royal Holloway and Bedford's list of music journals: http://www.sun.rhbnc.ac.uk/Music/Links/journals.html. Or go direct to http://www.sscm.harvard.edu/jscm/Welcome.html for the JOURNAL OF SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY MUSIC. JSCM is published by the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music and provides a refereed forum for scholarly studies of the musical cultures of the seventeenth century. These include historical and archival studies, performance practice, music theory, aesthetics, dance and theatre. The JSCM also publishes critical reviews and summary listings of recently published books, scores, recordings, and electronic media. The journal is still working out its full potential, but already has hypertextual links within articles to illustrative examples, both graphical and audio. Clearly the on-line music journal is better placed than many WWW efforts to assert its superiority over traditional media.
The other place to go is MUSIC THEORY On-Line at http://boethius.music.ucsb.edu/mto/mtohome.html. This is the organ of the Society for Music Theory, and offers articles, reviews, book anouncements, dissertation listings, etc. with a theoretical skew but with no restrictions of period, so I learnt from here of a dissertation on the background to Morley's 'Plain and Easy Introduction', and a new book on German musica poetica.
A good list of lists, including med-and-ren-music and rendance (details for both of which are in the CERES Starter Guide) at http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/misc/lists.html.
EARLYM-L is worth a look. It is a very lively list, accommodating performers, listeners, musicologists, and is archived at gopher://olymp.wu-wien.ac.at/11/.earlym-l. Its home page is: http://www.wu-wien.ac.at/earlym-l/. Rather clearer information on subscription is at http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/misc/earlym-l.html.
In the meantime there are some very expensive applications which enable you to play with MIDI synthesisers, but very little devoted solely and sensibly to inputting text and notes. Some lists of software are available at: http://www.sun.rhbnc.ac.uk/Music/Links/software.html and http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~ara/notation.htm. Better, though, is the CTI's page: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/users/music/research/sware.html. This will take you to free software like Muzikator and Mozart; these tend either to crash or not to cope well with combining words and music (or even with managing 2 notes vertically on one stave in one case), as 'Calliope' does so beautifully, and as other less elegant but very expensive applications can. So as yet none receives a recommendation.
IHR
CERES strongly recommends the Institute of Historical Research's pages at
http://ihr.sas.ac.uk/ihr/ihr0101.html. The IHR provides links to on-line resources for historians on separate pages for London, the U.K., Europe, and world-wide. So from the London list one can take a trip to the PRO via http://ihr.sas.ac.uk/ihr/source.lon.html or http://www.pro.gov.uk.
The Historical Manuscripts Commission is also accessible at http://www.hmc.gov.uk/.
THE NATIONAL REGISTER OF ARCHIVES AT HMC
The NRA (http://www.hmc.gov.uk/nra/nra.html) is a computerised database of information on the nature and locations of manuscript sources for British history. The information is
taken from nearly 40,000 catalogues of manuscript collections as well as
published guides to collections and from the HMC's own correspondence with
owners and custodians of manuscripts. If you have a telnet program running
underneath your web browser, you can access the NRA directly from the web
page. Otherwise, telnet to public.hmc.gov.uk; log in as 'public'; easy
search methods include personal and family names, corporate names, place
names, and location of records.
EXHIBITIONS AT THE BRITISH LIBRARY
Information and the odd picture, and, for the following, full presentations with
startling graphics and audios:
AEMILIA LANYER WEB SITE
A useful site, perfect for students or your own hasty preparations,
providing a full biography, comprehensive bibliography, text of the poems,
and support for the Lanyer Listserv (see also the CERES Starter Guide):
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~kari/lanyer.htm.
VERSIFICATION
An interdisciplinary journal of research in literary prosody.
'Versification is a refereed electronic journal dedicated to advancing
interdisciplinary research into literary prosody. Versification publishes
material relevant to the study of prosody in all its many-faceted complexity
and provides an international forum for scholars, students, critics and
writers from many different fields to explore the role of sound in poetry.'
The current issue is 1.1, and a reference archive of introductory material
is in the making. Versification is at http://sizcol1.u-shizuoka-ken.ac.jp/versif/Versification.html.
SHARP WEB
The website for the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading &
Publishing provides a rich set of links to bookish places, and support for
SHARP conferences, past and impending: http://www.indiana.edu/~sharp/.
COMPUTERS AND TEXTS
Computers & Texts 14 is now available on-line. Computers & Texts is the
journal/newsletter of CTI Textual Studies. The issue includes a review of
LION (Literature on-line) by Don Fowler. Start at http://info.ox.ac.uk/ctitext/publish/comtxt/; for the review, see http://info.ox.ac.uk/ctitext/publish/comtxt/ct14/fowler.html.
SHAKESPEARE DOCUMENTS
A [purportedly] complete list of documentary evidence concerning the actor
William Shakspere is at: http://fly.hiwaay.net/~paul/positive.html. It has pictures of the documents. This is part of a Baconian site whose name does not bear repeating, but is 'Shake'n'Bacon'.
SHAKESPEARE WEB
If you want more Shakespeare links, try http://199.233.193.1/shakes.html. But you don't.
ELH ON-LINE
The last few issues of English Literary History are available on-line to
institutions subscribing to Project Muse, the on-line arm of the Johns
Hopkins University Press. Information and a free sample issue at
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/elh/index.html.
PERSEUS PROJECT (as reported in Harvest I.vi)
The Perseus Project is planning a library of electronic Renaissance source materials to
supplement and in some cases consolidate texts already on-line from various
sources. A new version of the list is available at:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Renaissance.html. They are keen to hear about major sources that can be readily entered and have not yet been included.
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