Program Notes - MUS 365 - History of Western Music III

Why Program Notes?

Resources that help in the writing of program notes also help focus research that is done about a particular composer and piece of music. This tab provides books and links to sources that will help with this kind of specific research.

Primary Sources

Remember to look for writings by the composer and for newspaper articles that were published around the date of the composition's first performance.

Some databases you might use include:

Academic Search Ultimate (EBSCO) @ EBSCOhost This link opens in a new window A comprehensive database containing full-text academic journals, magazines and periodicals plus reports, books and videos covering virtually every discipline. Includes thousands of English-language and native-language full-text journals from Asia, Oceania, Europe and Latin America.
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Gale Academic OneFile This link opens in a new window This database indexes and provides selected full text for thousands of scholarly journals and other authoritative sources across many academic disciplines. Subjects covered include the physical sciences, technology, medicine, social sciences, the arts, and literature.
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JSTOR This link opens in a new window An archive of more than 4,600 scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences from nearly 1,200 publishers. Thanks to both the Murphy Library Endowment Fund and UWL Student Differential Tuition for providing access to the JSTOR Arts & Sciences XV collection.
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Newspaper Source Plus (EBSCO) @ EBSCOhost This link opens in a new window 500+ U.S. newspapers including USA Today, The Washington Post, Star Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Wisconsin State Journal (Madison), Capital Times (Madison), Post-Bulletin (Rochester); 600+ international newspapers; news transcripts from ABC News (American), CBC (Canadian), CBS News, CNBC, CNN, MSNBC, PBS; Real-Time News from AP, CNN, PR Newswire, UPI
Gale Primary Sources This link opens in a new window
Gale's cross-search interface for 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers, 19th Century British Newspapers, Eighteenth Century Collections, Nineteenth Century Collections, Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers, The Sunday Times Digital Archive, The Times Digital Archive, and the Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive.
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection (Gale) This link opens in a new window Provides full-text access to the British Library's collection of the newspapers, pamphlets, and books (primarily published in London, with some English provincial, Irish and Scottish papers, and examples from the American colonies) gathered by Reverend Charles Burney (1757-1817).
Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers (Gale) This link opens in a new window Over 28 million articles of primary source newspaper content from the 19th-century, featuring full-text content and images from newspapers from a range of urban and rural regions throughout the U.S. The collection encompasses the entire 19th century, with an emphasis on such topics as the American Civil War, African-American culture and history, Western migration and the Antebellum-era. Newspapers from all 19th-century U.S. states and territories are included.
British Library Newspapers (Gale) This link opens in a new window Taken directly from the extensive holdings of the British Library, this collection includes London national newspapers, English regional papers, home country newspapers from Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, and titles in specialist areas such as Victorian radicalism and Chartism. Coverage: 1800-1900.

Online Resources for Writing Program Notes

Google can be useful if you construct your search carefully. Try searching for the composer's name, a word from the title, and "program notes."

You can also read many examples of program notes using Naxos. When you find a CD, look in the left sidebar for a Booklet link with a PDF symbol. These liner notes are usually find on the Naxos label, but some others have it as well.