# What books and internet resources do you use for classical music reference?



## bassClef (Oct 29, 2006)

What would you consider the best reference material for classical music - both books and internet sites. I'm interested in the history, biographies, a catalogue of all works, album reviews, recommendations and even a way to sample music online before I buy.

I just got this and it is pretty good, better than the title suggests.

And for those in the UK or Europe, who provides the best and most complete CD ordering service? Amazon?

Oh and, um, is this the best forum? Or are there better alternatives?


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## nickgray (Sep 28, 2008)

Google, Wikipedia


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Google, Wikipedia and Last.fm


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## bassClef (Oct 29, 2006)

I do know about those of course - I was thinking of sites dedicated to classical music.


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## PostMinimalist (May 14, 2008)

For Mahler http://www.mahlerarchives.net/ 
There are a whole bunch of sites dealing with individual composers like this one.
Google the composers name and parse the results for sites which look like dedicated pages. \

for example:
Bruckner
http://www.abruckner.com
Tchaikovsky
http://www.tchaikovsky-research.net
Beethoven
http://www.beethoven.com
Reger
http://www1.karlsruhe.de/Kultur/Max-Reger-Institut/en/index.php
Ohana
http://www.mauriceohana.com/

etc.....


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

In terms of _books_, my two standard references are the _Gramophone_ and_ Penguin_ CD/DVD Guides. Generally speaking, I find the reviews in the _Penguin Guide_ are closer to my tastes. I pick up cheap secondhand copies of older editions when I encounter them, but of course even the most recent editions date rapidly.

I have the _Rough Guide to Opera_, but I've been known to disagree with their assessments of particular recordings, and don't rely very heavily on their judgements. It provides a useful background and quick reference, though, and gives a useful idea of what's 'out there'. For the last few months, I've relied very heavily on the recommendations of jhar26 on this forum!

I buy most of my stuff through Amazon and find the service superb.


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## handlebar (Mar 19, 2009)

Groves set of encyclopedias as well as the above mentioned Gramophone and Penguin guides

Jim


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## Yagan Kiely (Feb 6, 2008)

www.imslp.org
Grove Music- uni + alumni
JSTOR - uni + alumni
Wikipedia, I look here initially as it is a great starting point (not an end point).
and I access all the other sites through Google.


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

This site has thousands of music reviews:

http://www.classicstoday.com


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

Another handy thing to have is the Naxos catalog, you can download a pdf from

http://www.naxos.com

There's an unbelievable amount of recordings.


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## handlebar (Mar 19, 2009)

I love the Naxos site. The ability to listen to the snippets really encourages one to investigate unknown composers and their works.

Jim


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