Volume 28, Number 9 · May 28, 1981
The Musicological Marvel
By Charles Rosen
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
edited by Stanley Sadie
Grove's Dictionaries of Music, Inc. (Washington, DC), 20 volumes pp., $1,900
The makers of dictionaries and encyclopedists in general have mixed, impure motives. The simple alphabetical order of the articles disguises other orders, more complex, less explicit. The editors of Webster's Third New International Dictionary, for example, wished to transform our notions of what was correct speech and to legitimize a whole series of popular American usages. Pierre Bayle's great Dictionnaire historique et critique of 1695-1720 was a covert attack on religious intolerance. His spiritual descendants, the editors of the famous French Encyclopédie, hoped to transform society and all the traditional institutions of Europe. The first edition of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians of 1877 was an extension of George Grove's activity as a promoter of concerts at the Crystal Palace in London. It was intended to educate and widen the potential audience, and to confirm its taste for what Grove considered the best classical music.
Review, 9647 words
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