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Historical Performance in Music

Music Treatises in the Conservatory Special Collections

The Oberlin Conservatory Library's Special Collections has an impressive collection of historical musical treatises. Examine a guide to these materials. Drawn primarily from the Frederick R. Selch Collection of American Music History, and the The Violin Society of America / H. K. Goodkind Collection, the materials highlighted here represent some of the most influential writings in the history of Western musical thought. They include foundational texts relating to organology and music theory, important works on the philosophy and iconography of music, and historical treatises pertaining to specific instrument types.

Many of the texts included here have been digitized and can be read online in full. Each title's link will take you to the catalog record, and from there you can click on the "Connect to resource" link; you can also browse all the digitized books from the Selch and VSA Collections on the Internet Archive's Oberlin Conservatory Library Special Collections page.

 

Thematic Catalogs & Research Guides by Composer

Browse the books with Con Ref ML134 call numbers in the Conservatory Reference Collection to find research guides about specific composers.  This call number area also contains thematic catalogs for specific composers, which can provide useful information about the sources and publication history for all known works by that composer.  The titles below represent examples of these types of books, but there are many more in the library than are listed here.

Research Guides by Topic