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Preliminary Reading List

History of American Music Printing and Publishing

D. W. Krummel


Preliminary Advices

Previous to the class, this very general background is expected:

1. American Music

Rather than specify a single source, let me suggest that you will want to have a very general picture of the field, such as can be provided by any of the following:

2. American Printing

I wish there were a better summary than parts II-III (pp. 63-419) of Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt's ancient The Book in America (Rev. ed., Bowker, 1951), but respected colleagues say there isn't. I'll need to cover much of this in class. The new History of the Book in America (Amer. Antiquarian Soc., Cambridge Univ Pr.; 5 vols. projected) may eventually help, although the first vol. in this series, Hugh Amory and David D. Hall, The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World (2000), however splendid, emphasizes publishing more than printing, and alas has next to nothing on music. Some background will need to be provided in class.

3. Music Printing in General

The essays by H. Edmund Poole and DWK in The New Grove Dictionary (either the 1980 ed., or the 2nd ed., which is also on line) present the basic background. (Much of the discussion of European topics, in the "Publishing" article in particular, can be skipped.) For further reading, the following items in the Bibliography are recommended:

4. American Music Printing