Music 295: String Literature and Pedagogy

St. Olaf College Libraries use the Library of Congress classification system to organize its materials. The music classification table is literally 329 pages long!  If you know the exact piece you're looking for, it is always faster to look it up directly in Catalyst.

Catalyst is set up to show you online resources first. This is annoying when you are searching for musical scores, because you will see all the Naxos Music Library and Music Online results before the score results. Be sure to set the Material Type filter to "score" right away to save yourself lots of tedious scrolling!

The Library of Congress system separates music-for-performance from music-for-instruction. 

Music for performance uses call numbers beginning with M.

Both scores and recordings use the M sequence. This includes music like:

• J.S. Bach's cello suites (M52 .B3 2000)
• String quartet no. 3: "Mishima" by Philip Glass (M452 .G3 no. 3 score)
• Jennifer Higdon's Violin concerto (M1013 .L56 V5)

Music for instruction uses call numbers beginning with MT. 

This includes etudes, method books, and other pedagogical materials, such as:

• Samba Hanon: 50 exercises for the beginning to professional pianists (MT239 .D46 S36)
• David Popper's High school of cello playing (MT305 .P67 H6)
• Scales for viola by Simon Fischer (MT291 .F573 S3 2018)

Violin

• M40-M44 -- Solo repertoire
• M217-M223 -- Violin and piano repertoire
• M1012 -- Concertos, full score
• M1013 -- Concertos, keyboard reduction
• MT260-MT279 -- Etudes & method books
• MT760-MT778 -- Instructional pieces for children (doubles with viola repertoire)

Viola

• M45-M49 -- Solo repertoire
• M224-M228 -- Viola with piano
• M1014 -- Concertos, full score
• M1015 -- Concertos, keyboard reduction
• MT280-MT298 -- Etudes & method books
• MT760-MT778 -- Instructional pieces for children (doubles with violin repertoire)

Cello

• M50-M54 -- Solo repertoire
• M229-M236 -- Cello with piano
• M1016 -- Concertos, full score
• M1017 -- Concertos, keyboard reduction
• MT300-MT318 -- Etudes & method books
• MT785-MT798 -- Instructional pieces for children

Double Bass

• M55-M58 -- Solo repertoire
• M237-M238 -- Double bass with piano
• M1018 -- Concertos, full score and piano reduction
• MT320-MT334 -- Etudes & method books
• Library of Congress does not include a section for children's bass instructional works; I suppose because tiny hands do not play bass.

Chamber Music

Chamber music is organized by hundreds.  Duets are in the 200s, trios in the 300s, quartets in the 400s, etc.

• M452 -- String quartet

Scholarly Editions

The call number ranges shown above are for performance editions -- the kind of score you'd bring to your lessons. Halvorson Music Library also has scholarly editions and facsimile editions, which include background material that can be useful for research projects on specific pieces.

• M2-M3 -- scholarly editions and collected works (i.e., the collected works for Mozart)
  • NOTE: Catalyst will not list every individual piece in a multi-volume set of collected works. If you are looking for a scholarly edition of Beethoven string quartets, for example, run an author/creator search in Catalyst for Beethoven. In the results list, use the filters to limit to the location "St. Olaf Music Library Collected Works" to get the general call number of the collection (see image). Then, scan the volumes to see which on includes the string quartets.

• Facsimile editions are scattered throughout the collection. If you are looking for a facsimile, add the word "facsimile" to your Catalyst search.

 Interested in learning more about the differences between scholarly editions, facsimile editions, and performance scores? Watch the video below!

If you're the kind of person who'd rather scroll through slides at your own speed, here are the slides. You can read the script for each slide by dragging it up to reveal the "comments" section for the slide.