Music 242: Music History and Literature II

Before we begin - What is an M2 and M3?

You've probably been informed that you can use Oxford Music Online, also known as "Grove," to "find M2s and M3s." But before we dig into the searching process, let's go over what M2s and M3s are first.

These weird code-like terms come from the Library of Congress Classification System (click here for the Music classification system). This is a call number system that allows a library to organize the many books and scores in a collection! M stands for music, and is used for all music-related materials.

As you see in this screenshot of the Library of Congress Music classification system, M2 and M3 each stand for something specific.

M2s (M2 through M2.3, specifically) = Musical sources. These are collections of works by a variety of composers, but all of these works have something in common, like a musical era, geographic area, etc.

M3s (M3 through M3.3, specifically) = Collected works of individual composers. Unlike M2s, where a number of composers can appear in a given volume, M3s are dedicated to one specific composer. So there's an M3 for Beethoven, an M3 for Fauré, an M3 for Mozart, etc.

What makes M2s and M3s so special:

Scholars and researchers spend many years consulting a variety of manuscripts, facsimiles, piano rolls, letters, memoirs, and more, to put together a version of a composition that is closest to the composer's original intentions. M2s and M3s will not only contain this scholarly version of a work, but also historical context and critical commentary about the work and composer, any errors or discrepancies discovered, bibliographies, even facsimile scans! These are gold mines of knowledge, and we should take advantage of them whenever possible!

Step 1: Search in Grove for the composer

Now that we've covered what M2s and M3s are, let's talk about finding them!

Grove is a resource that we can use to locate specific works by a composer within an M2 or M3. 

Using Grove to find M2s and M3s might seem a tad daunting at first, but a little bit of practice will allow us to take advantage of this helpful and necessary skill for music researching!

The first step is to search for your composer on Grove, listed in the St. Olaf A-Z Database List as "Oxford Music Online". I'll be using Johann Sebastian Bach as an example as we walk through this process.

Open up Grove, and type the name of your composer in the search bar at the upper right-hand corner of the page. Hit the Return key, or click the magnifying glass button.

Step 2: Click the corresponding Grove article for your composer!

When you enter the search, you'll often see multiple results. Use details like birth and death dates to confirm that you're clicking on the right Grove article! (Your desired result may not necessarily be the first one you see)

Step 3: Finding the Works section of the Grove article

A Grove article can look very different from composer to composer. One thing remains in common; there are tabs on the left-hand side of the article which you can use to more easily navigate the page!

Click on "Works" to view a list of works by your composer. This is what you'll use to locate M2s and M3s.

Step 4: Find the M2/M3 abbreviations!

Each Grove article might present this information differently, but your composer article should have a list of resources of some kind (such as collected works, editions and catalogues) at the top of the "Works" section, followed by charts listing compositions and corresponding letters and numbers. Don't worry about the letters and numbers for now! We're going to interpret the enigma at the top of the Works section first.

For Johann Sebastian Bach, we see two items listed under "Editions" (see the red arrow), and two items listed under "Catalogues" (see the blue arrow). Let's talk in detail about each!

Step 4A: "Editions"

(Keep in mind that any abbreviations you see in the "Works" section are unique to that composer!)

We see two items listed under "Editions", the Bach Werke (represented by "BG") and the Bach Neue Ausgabe Sämtlicher Werke (represented by "NBA"). (See the red circles)

Note: The Critical Commentary ("CC") is additional commentary that the editors of the Bach Neue Ausgabe included as a supplement. Depending on the particular edition or collected work, critical commentary might be included within the collected work or edition, or exist as its own entity (which means abbreviations for these can vary as well). 

So in this case, I'll want to remember the following abbreviations (and what they stand for): BG, NBA, and CC. These abbreviations will be different for each composer! Pro-tip: write the abbreviations down so you don't have to keep scrolling up and down through the Grove article! 

[A handy-dandy tip for figuring out if something is an M2 or M3: we know that M3s are dedicated to one specific composer, so if the title of the edition includes only one composer, like the Bach Werke, we can use that knowledge to identify it as an M3!

On the other hand, M2s span a range of works by a number of composers, not just one composer. For example, Music of Fourteenth Century Italy (Call number is M2.3 .I8 P5 v1-5) covers music by more than one Italian composer who composed during the fourteenth century.]

Some German to English translations:

Werke = work

Neue Ausgabe = New edition

Sämtlicher Werke = All works

(So "Bach Neue Ausgabe Sämtlicher Werke" roughly translates to "the new edition of the collected works of Bach")

Step 4B: Catalogues

All right; we've found our M3s, so now it's time to figure out what the other items in blue are!

These two quirky characters are things called "thematic catalogues". A thematic catalogue is a system designed by either the composer themself or by a scholar, and is used to organize and order that composer's works. Important to note here is that they may not be in order of composition, like opus numbers. You've probably seen abbreviations like "BWV", "K" or "RV" next to the title of works (by Bach, Mozart, and Vivaldi respectively in these examples), maybe in orchestra or in piano class. Those abbreviations (and the numbers that follow them) correspond to that composer's thematic catalogue!

[Click here to learn more about thematic catalogues.]

Many, many composers have some kind of thematic catalogue, and some composers, like J.S. Bach (and a few others, like Beethoven), have more than one thematic catalogue. In this example I'm using, we see that there are two thematic catalogues: the Bach Werkverzeichnis ("BWV") and the Bach Compendium ("BC"). We can go ahead and write down the thematic catalogue abbreviations too.

[The Bach Compendium has an Anhang, or appendix, which is represented by the letter "A". I'll write this down too, just in case.]

Some German to English translations:

Werke-Verzeichnis = work catalogue

Anhang = Appendix

Step 5: Using the abbreviations to interpret the works list!

Now that we've written down our [many] abbreviations (in my case, "BG", "NBA", "CC", "BWV", and "BC"/"A"), we're feeling like detectives cracking some codes, and ready to tackle the works charts!

Each composer's works charts will look a little different. What most Grove articles do, however, is organize a composer's compositions by certain groupings (vocal, orchestral, chamber, solo, etc.). Within a group, the chart will list the work title, opus number/thematic catalogue number (this is where those quirky abbreviations come in!), instrumentation and/or some other information about the work, and then its location within an M2 or M3 (this is where the rest of those abbreviations come in!).

Let's say that I'm looking for Bach's cantata "Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein" ("Oh God, See From Heaven"). You'll notice in this image that this particular cantata is number 2 in the BWV catalogue, but "A 98" in the Bach Compendium (BC). (The "A" in "A 98" stands for Anhang, or appendix)

This chart gives information about the premiere, as well as the instrumentation, and then presents two very odd combinations of letters and numbers. Let's break down each.

First, we see under BG (Bach Werke) the following: "i, 55". Under NBA (Bach Neue Ausgabe): "I/xvi, 83".

Each M2 and M3 organizes their contents a little differently, but usually the letters will represent the series (uppercase) and volumes (lowercase), and the numbers will represent the specific book within a volume set.

We'll pretend that I want to view the cantata in the Bach Neue Ausgabe, so I'm going to write down "I/xvi, 83", which I'm interpreting as "Series I, Volume xvi, number 83". We'll need this information shortly when we go to find the M2 or M3 on the shelf.

Step 6: Find the M2 or M3 in Catalyst!

Now that we've found the corresponding M2 or M3 for the piece we need to look at, it's time to search for the M2 or M3 in Catalyst, our online library catalogue.

When searching, make sure to write out the name of the composer, as well as the title of the M2 or M3 in question.

Since I'm looking for the Bach Neue Ausgabe, I'll write that down in the search bar and hit the Enter key,.

Step 7: Use search limiters to limit results!

We may get a whole gaggle of results, which can be difficult to parse through.

Try clicking "St. Olaf Music Library" to limit results to just items in the Music Library, and limit the format type to "Books"!

To do these things, use the tabs on the left side of the page. (see the red arrow)

Step 8: Finding the right record

As we search for the right record, keep in mind that the item we're looking for should have a call number beginning with M2 or M3 (anything else is the wrong item). This result (see red arrow) looks like what we're hunting for. Notice that the call number begins with M3!

Step 9: Finding the right record, and beyond

If we click on the record, we see more detailed information about the item.

Try clicking "Map It!" to see its location within the music library on a map.

Note: Notice that the same item can be at multiple locations, like this M3, which is located both in Carleton and the Music Library at St. Olaf. Most importantly, notice that the call numbers are different! Be careful when writing down a call number - you don't want to write down the wrong one.

The final piece of the puzzle is finding the physical volume in the library!

Remember the combination of letters and numbers we talked about earlier in Step 5 and wrote down? This will come in handy when you look for a specific series, volume and number. Talk to a library staff member if you need any help locating the volume!

Happy Hunting!