Cataloguing Jewish music

[holden <holden...>]

Dear library colleagues

I am assisting in the setting up of the new library at the Jewish Music
Institute in London. In my professional capacity I have had a lot of
experience in cataloguing 'classical' music to AACR standards, but haven't
really tackled many of the interesting problems associated with cataloguing
Jewish music.

I would be very interested to hear from any other librarians on the list
with this sort of experience, to discuss how you have approached some of
the inherent problems. Unless you feel that this discussion would be of
general interest, it would perhaps be better to contact me off-list.

Occupying my attention in particular at the moment is the formulation of
uniform titles for conventional forms in printed music transcriptions. For
example, a volume containing several works titled 'Freylekh' (or variants
therof). If a distinctive title has at some stage been applied to a
particular freylekh, then this could be used as a distinguishing soubriquet
- but if there is none? I wouldn't feel comfortable in quoting the key as
written (except in the descriptive part of the entry), since a) there is no
guarantee that this is the original key and b) this is almost certainly a
transcription of a piece of music with an aural, rather than a
composed/notated history. Typically there is a numbered sequence of the
form in many collections (eg the Russian shers in the Stacy Phillips
Klezmer Collection) but this is merely a handy means of differentiation by
the publisher. Is there any other approach save to surrender and use the UT
'Freylekh', with as much about the provenance as possible in the
descriptive part of the entry?

I would be really interested - and grateful-  to hear how any of you have
tackled these problems. Also, is your catalogue - or any other
professionally produced catalogue of Jewish music - accessible on the
Internet?

Paul Holden
Formerly Senior Librarian
Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London


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