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Music: Thematic Catalogs

What's a thematic catalog?

Most major composers' works have been cataloged and numbered by scholars. This information has been published in thematc catalogs (called "thematic" because they include the musical notation for the principle themes (tunes) of each work, to aid in identification).

It's from these catalogs that we get the opus numbers used to identify classical musical works. (Some composers' work numbers have become associated with the name of the scholar who cataloged his works -- for instance, "Koechel" numbers for Mozart).

Thematic catalogs also contain a lot of useful information on the primary sources (manuscripts, early editions) of a composer's works.

Thematic catalogs of major composers

 

Bach, J.S.

Cataloged by Schmieder (BWV numbers)

Call no.: MUS REF ML 134 .B1 S3 1990

 

Mozart

Cataloged by Koechel (K. numbers, "Koechel" numbers)

Call no.: MUS REF ML 134 .M9 K55 2006

 

Haydn

Cataloged by Hoboken (H. numbers)

Call no.: MUS REF ML 134 .H272 H6

 

Beethoven

Cataloged by Kinsky

Call no.: MUS REF ML 134 .B4 K5 1955

 

Schubert

Cataloged by Deutsch (D. numbers, "Deutsch" numbers)

Call no.: MUS REF ML 134 .S38 D48 1978 Ser.8 v.4

Anatomy of a thematic catalog entry

For any given work in a thematic catalog, you can expect to see the following data. (Many catalogs are in German, so German terms are given here, with translations):

Title and catalog number

Komponiert (date of composition)

For vocal music:

  • Text (source of the text)
  • Gedicht (the original poem; source of the text)
  • Dichter (poet/author of the text)

Music incipit (the first few bars of the music); or principle theme(s)

Descriptions of:

Autograph (the composer's original manuscript)

Abschriften (others' handwritten copies)

Erstausgabe / Originalausgabe (first edition)

Ausgaben / Nachdrucke (other early editions)

Gesamtausgabe / Samtliche Werke (collected edition of the composer's complete works)

Anmerkungen (notes, remarks)

Literatur (bibliography)

 

A thematic catalog may also have:

Anhang (appendix)

Register (index)

Finding composers' thematic catalogs

Search the Library's catalog using this subject heading:

[Composer's name] -- Thematic catalogs.

 

If we don't own it, you can use the same search terms to search WorldCat (a database of other libraries' catalogs, available on the Library's homepage under "Databases"), then place an interlibrary loan request.