Re: jewish music databases

[holden <holden...>]

Elliott wrote:

>We are very fortunate that librarians have been at this game quite a while
>and have over the years devised a system accepted--I believe--in most
>English-speaking domains. It is called Anglo-American cataloging rules, or
>AACR II, since its latest edition in 1988. In addition to AACR II, we all
>have publications continually updated from the Library of Congress and the
>Music Library Association.
>
>RE: Joel Bresler's astute comment on multiple titles: AACR has long had a
>provision to tackle this problem. They are called uniform titles. Uniform
>titles are universally accepted titles for a piece or work of music (or
>literature, etc.) that could easily have several. For instance, The Song
>of Songs could be referred to by that title or Shir ha-Shirim, Hohelied,
>Das Lied der Lieder, Canticle of Canticles, etc. The uniform title is
>something like: Bible. O.T. Song of Solomon. This uniform title is
>accepted and posted by the Library of Congress, and accepted by all
>participating AACRII institutions--most of the academic libraries in the
>U.S. It's a slow, tedious process, agreeing on these matters and many
>more, but such is the nature of developing and maintaining standards.
>

I agree with much of what Elliott said but I would like to make a few
points, without trying to make this a forum for professional music
cataloguers:

AACR2 is a good starting point, but as regards music cataloguing, and in
particular uniform titles, it is biased towards Western 'classical' music.
Nonetheless the rules can still be applied with a degree of success to the
cataloguing of many items of Jewish music with a "distinctive" title. (a
piece of music, such as a song with its own unique title). This is
relatively straightforward and even more so if the item is ascribed to a
particular composer and the original title given by the composer can be
established. The uniform title has to be the title in the original
language. Sorry guys, but in the interests of universality , it should be
romanised, using established transliteration tables. There are problems,but
they're not insoluble.

By far the greatest problems arise when considering  conventional
instrumental forms, equivalent  to, say, concertos in classical music.
There are a series of identifiers in the uniform title which, together with
the standardised form of name of the composer, identify a particular work
uniquely. Thus: Concerto, piano, no.2, opus 54, no. 3, D minor, (The
Swallow). But, one catalogues the item in hand. Hence an arrangement of the
concerto, say for piano and string quartet would have an amended uniform
title. These rules of course were devised, based on a tradition of notated
music. But they tend to be inadequate when one tries to apply them to music
with an oral tradition.

How does one catalogue say a traditional freylekh(?) which has been notated
and published simply as "Freylekh". Is it to be treated as a standard form?
If so, what identifiers can one sensibly apply to the uniform title? AACR2
doesn't fully recognise these sorts of problems. Once you get onto recorded
music the problems become even more interesting, Performers have the habit
of stringing together 2 or 3 pieces and giving the resultant medley a new
title. Is it a composition or an arrangement? At least it can be identified
by artist, but the catalogue entry should identify the original pieces.

 As regards the language of the uniform title there is little room for
manoeuvre here. Unique titles go in the original (transliterated) language.
Standard forms go in the language of the catalogue in which the catalogue
originates. But nowadays we should all be thinking in terms of publication
on the Internet (not invented when AACR2 was written). The official
language of the Internet is English, so let's not be parochial. Any
catalogue of Jewish music designed to benefit mankind (sorry I can't think
of the PC equivalent) as a whole has to be in English.

Music cataloguing is an entirely fascinating but complex subject. I have
only touched very briefly on a few of the problems. To the best of my
knowledge, there is no one, authoritative set of rules to guide one in the
cataloguing (for an automated catalogue) of Jewish music. If you are only
cataloguing for yourself or your own circle of readers: fine - devise your
own rules, perhaps based on something like AACR2. But if we seek a global
catalogue of the type envisaged by Geraldine in her recent communication,
then I would suggest that the only way forward should be to establish in
the first place a universally acceptable, detailed set of cataloguing
rules.

Paul Holden
Former Librarian, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London


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