(Last Updated: 20 August 2022)
[or click here to access the full discography – WARNING: large file, very slow to download]
|
|
This material represents an ongoing effort undertaken over many many years, starting as a 3"x5" card file index back in the early 80's, eventually migrating to databases in CPM, DOS, numerous versions of Windows... and now, finally, the possibility of offering it on the Web.
This discography was devised primarily to account for as many as possible of all documented early music recordings released and serve as a record of and pointer to them. It does not pretend to be a complete and exhaustive description of the contents of every recording, although, as more information becomes available, this is the eventual goal.
In an effort to continually update this information, I am constantly consulting countless sources, borrowing liberally from many other discographers, whose excellent work I would like to commend -- such as Todd Michel McComb and Nicholas S. Lander, along with their respective collaborators, among many others -- all of whom I invite to borrow whatever may be of use from my modest offering here.
The following are some of these sources:
Trevor Croucher, Early Music Discography, London: The Library Association, 1981
James Coover & Richard Colvig, Medieval and Renaissance music on long-playing records, Information Service, 1964
Todd Michel McComb, Early Music FAQ: www.medieval.org
Nicholas S. Lander, Recorder Home Page: www.recorderhomepage.net
Francis F. Clough & G. J. Cuming, The World's Encyclopædia of Recorded Music, London: Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd, 1952 [Supplement 1 – 1950-51, Supplement 2 – 1951-52, Supplement 3 - 1953-55]
The AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music: www.charm.kcl.ac.uk
These abbreviations are used in the "Citations" field of the discography to refer to some of the sources consulted:
PS-, AA-, AN-, ER-, LR-, EB- – Trevor Croucher, Early Music Discography [Plainsong, Ars Antiqua, Ars Nova, Early Renaissance, Late Renaissance, Early Baroque]
WERM[1, 2, 3] – Francis F. Clough & G. J. Cuming, The World's Encyclopædia of Recorded Music, 1952 [Supplement 1 – 1950-51, Supplement 2 – 1951-52, Supplement 3 - 1953-55]
charm – The AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music
The focus of the discography is on recordings of musical compositions dating from before approximately 1650, that is to say, primarily pre-Baroque material. The main exception has been the inclusion of early Latin American Colonial era Baroque works.
NOTES ON THE ORGANIZATION OF THE DISCOGRAPHY:
1) This discography is currently being developed in Paradox 9.0 as a fully relational database. Until such a time as it is possible to transfer this functionality to the web, it is being published in a flat-file format.
2) The recordings listed here are arranged alphabetically by Label name, and within those by manufacturer label number. Labels beginning with lower case or accented letters appear at the end.
3) Because of the whims of the recording industry's numbering schemes, in order to clarify some of the confusion, I have attempted to isolate the significant portion of the manufacturer's label number and separate it from what I call the Prefix, to avoid needless redundancy and duplications in the listing.
Take, for example, a Harmonia Mundi recording often listed as HMC 90234(CD), but also released variously as HMA 190234(CD), HMA 195234(CD), HMD 234(LP), HMU 234(LP), HMC 234(LP), HM 40234(Cassette), HMC 40234(Cassette), and so on. So, in this case, rather than make 8 separate entries for what is essentially the same recording, in this discography the recording has been treated as Harmonia Mundi label number "234", with "HMC 90" representing the Prefix of one of the CD releases: "HMC 90234". In the "Other Releases" field appear the alternate prefixes (e.g., "HMA 190", "HMA 195", "HMD", "HM 40", etc.) and media formats under which that recording has also come out in that label, along with rereleases in other labels and related recordings.
|
|