This text has been the standard guide to source literature of music and contains critically annotated listings of over 3,500 key sources. This comprehensive guide to reference sources is organized into chapters by category of source. The text's organization introduces students to a vast array of sources to include: Dictionaries and Encyclopedias; Histories and Chronologies; Sources of Systematic and Historical Musicology; Bibliographies of Music, Music Literature, and Music Business; Reference Works on Individual Composers and Their Music; Catalogs of Libraries and Musical Instrument Collections; Discographies; Yearbooks; Directories; Electronic Resources.

This index includes mainly composers of 'serious' music who are not to be found in any reference work, and others whose names have not appeared in any reference work since the last century.

"This reference classic has approximately doubled in size since its last publication 20 years ago, and the expansion involves more than the thorough revision and addition of articles about music of the past. More articles about 20th-century composers and composer-performers have been added, as well as topical articles about the gender-related, multicultural, and interdisciplinary ways that music is now being studied. Add to these changes that New Grove is also available online, making it a source that would have made its many-faceted creator Sir George Grove proud"--Outstanding reference sources, American Libraries, May 2002.