Historical Dictionary of Baroque Music.

Justice, Andrew

Historical Dictionary of Baroque Music. By Joseph P Swain. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2013. [xxix, 363 p. ISBN: 978-9-81-087824-2-2 (hdbk) $105. ISBN: 978-0-13-878259 (e-bk) $99.99]

In the current climate of music research, the dictionaries that appear to generally receive the most usage are The Harvard Dictionary of Music, Baker's biographical dictionaries, and the Oxford/Grove coterie. Ubiquitous digital access to definitions and entries, along with more sporadic use of historical dictionaries and lexica like those by Tinctoris, Mersenne, Kircher, Brossard, Walther, Mattheson and so forth for period-specific evidence, has left modern demand for musical dictionaries in a precarious position. In this volume, Joseph Swain attempts to address that issue by providing an era-specific resource that is both introductory in its access to the terms, people, and concepts of Baroque music while offering a bit of context and citations to enable further study.

Prior to the publication of Swain's dictionary, perhaps the most comparable resource would have been Julie Ann Sadie's 1990 Companion to Baroque Music, a mostly geographicallyorganized anthology of entries about active musicians and other historical personalities followed by modest sections on forces, forms and specific issues (national styles, ornamentation, and authenticity). While Sadie's companion is clearly more focused on scholarship and research than defining terms or introducing concepts, it has proven itself a vital tool for quick reference when studying the history (and hence, performance practice) of the era. The introductory texts for each area and latter sections are filled with especially dense and useful prose, given time to unpack and contextualize their subject matter.

Swain, on the other hand, acknowledges in the introduction that his dictionary contains basic information intended for readers of all levels and diverse interests; hence, it may not seem at first glance to possess much value. However, this is not the case. It is entirely conceivable that a reader may need a simple, understandable definition for "cantus firmus" just as much as they require basic information about Giacomo Carissimi. Terms and names that possess entries themselves are bolded in the definitions, thus conceivably making it easier for the reader to navigate across the book. The fact that foot- or endnotes are not present to enable quick access to citations was initially disappointing; however, the bibliography is rather robust and logically more recent than Sadie's. Swain includes a chronology of the era that is predictably less involved than that of his predecessor, but again it does contain very useful (if basic) information that could be easily consumed by readers.

It comes as no surprise that this volume is part of a larger series of historical dictionaries, covering other areas such as sacred and choral music, jazz and opera: it seems that introductory music dictionaries from a historical perspective could be considered a movement within scholarly music publishing, and it isn't incredibly difficult to envision the patrons who would use them. Swain's dictionary, with its era-specific focus and broad if not deep coverage, enables readers' quick access to basic concepts of Baroque music while providing leads for further study for those so motivated.

Andrew Justice

University of North Texas