Discography Weblinks
compiled by Peter Laszlo
The following links are provided in order to assist researchers to establish the scope of discographies that are available on the Internet as at the time of preparation. The list is organised around:
The search term 'discography' was generally used. It is noticeable that this term has generally come to mean ‘CDs available’ rather than any complete historical survey.
Mostly the list is organised around composers. There is a small number of links relating to instruments, genres and performers.
There are six main categories of link:
- Commercial sites, such as on-line stores, publishers or record companies
- University or other educational organisation sites
- Enthusiast or society ‘official’ websites
- Performers’ sites
- Composers’ own sites
- User-edited general sites, e.g. Wikipedia or Classical.net.
Most of these are concerned exclusively with CDs. For obvious reasons the commercial catalogues are concerned with currently available recordings and the on-line stores with recordings that are either current or may be available second-hand.
The initial research was carried out in 2005-6. The links have been re-verified in March-April 2008 (composers) and March 2009 (performers, instruments, genres). In the intervening years many sites have disappeared, notably some Central / Eastern European cultural sites. At the same time there has been a trend towards user-edited general sites, e.g. Wikipedia, which may be being used where people would previously have set up their own website dedicated to their specialism.
The greatest value to researchers will evidently be from discographies covering material that is no longer generally available. As with any Internet search, it is difficult to ensure any sort of completeness and it is hoped that anyone who knows of any discography relating to a composer (or indeed, in due course, to any Western Art Music category) will contact CHARM with details.