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The Violin: A Research and Information Guide.

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The Violin: A Research and Information Guide. By Mark Katz. (Routledge Music Bibliographies.) New York: Routledge, 2006. [x, 410 p. ISBN 0-8153-3637-3; ISBN-13 978-0-8153-3637-2. $85.] Indexes, references.

Surprisingly few examples exist of bibliographies about the literature for the violin. The most recent edition of Music Reference and Research Materials: An Annotated Bibliography by Vincent Duckles and Ida Reed (New York: Schirmer Books, 1997) lists only two examples of violin bibliographies. Of course, many lists of violin music have been assembled, but before the publication of Mark Katz's The Violin: A Research and Information Guide, there was only one notably substantial bibliography of the literature. The venerable work bearing this distinction is De Fidiculis Bibliographia: Being an Attempt Towards a Bibliography of the Violin and All Other Instruments Played With a Bow in Ancient and Modern Times by Edward Heron-Allen (London: Griffith, Farran, 1890-94; reprint, London: Holland Press, 1961).

Katz's bibliography of the violin is the first published attempt to achieve some measure of control over the literature of the instrument since Heron-Allen's day. In the introduction, Katz frames his work as "a comprehensive research guide to the violin," with the caveat, "By comprehensive, however, I do not mean complete" (p. 2). Katz does an admirable job of presenting a wide range of literature, an admittedly daunting task. Researchers beware the author's caveat! While including representative literature on many aspects of the violin, this work does not list everything and should be used as a guide only. Katz mentions many works about the violin in the annotations to his entries, either by the author of...

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