Music

African/ American/ Asian/ Classical/ Composers/ Opera & Vocal/ Renaissance/ Women/ World/ HOME

Musiques d'Afrique: A wonderful site on African music which includes sound files from 100 CDs and is organized by country, musical form, and artist. Although the index is in French, the explanatory texts are both in English and French: http://www.mediaport.net/AfricArt/100CD/index_principal.html

American Music

Lester S. Levy Collection of American Sheet Music: An extensive collection at Johns Hopkins University of American sheet music and covers reproduced in facsimilies and searchable by categories, such as minstrel, presidential campaigns, Civil War: http://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu

Duke Ellington: This site, created by the Duke Ellington Society, includes essays on Ellington, an "audio study" (i.e. sound files) of Duke's great vocalists, and a good list of links to other Ellington sites: http://duke.fuse.net/essence/index.html

Blues

Blue Highway: A good listing of blues links and events; the categories "Real Audio" and "Blues Links" are organized by artist and provide background information and sound files on an array of performers: http://thebluehighway.com

Jazz

Jazz On-Line: A very commercial site, but it contains lots of audio samples (under "Fresh Reviews" an "Jazz 101" categories) with some interviews with artists, such as Dianne Reeves: http://www.jazzonln.com/jazz101.cfm

Asian Music

The Puppetry Homepage: This site features information and links for Bunraku and Automata, two Japanese puppetry forms, as well as Balinese and Javanese Shadow puppetry. It also includes forms of puppetry from other parts of the world, such as Greek marionettes: http://www.sagecraft.com/puppetry/definitions/index.html

Cambodian Music

Cambodian Music: A nice site that, along with historical background, includes an audio illustration of the Cambodian musical scale and audio explanations of melody: http://www.research.umbc.edu/eol/cambodia/music_bg.htm

Chinese Music:

Beijing Opera Page: This is a useful site, though not revised since 1997; it includes a lot of explanatory text, information on arias (with samples), a few opera synopses, and lists of famous actors and actresses: http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/Opera/8692/index0.html

Indian Music:

Classical Music of India: This site has whole primers to explain the music of various regions of India, lists of important ragas and performers, and links to commercial sites with samples of Indian music: http://www.aoe.vt.edu/~boppe/MUSIC/music.html

Japanese Music

Kabuki for Everyone: A wonderful compendium of information on Kabuki, including video clips and audio files, as well as a detailed exhibit on make up and background articles: http://www.fix.co.jp/kabuki/kabuki.html

Classical

All Classics: Download free MP3 files of classical music, especially piano and organ works; this site is organized by instrument and by composers, including Chopin, Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, Handel, Mozart, and Joplin: http://pmclassical.iicinternet.com

Classical Music Pages: This is a good general resource for music history, organized by epoch, musical form, composer’s name. Though created by an individual (Matt Boynick), the site is always listed among the best music links: http://igor.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/classmus.html

Composers

Classical Net: Composer Master Index: This site is useful in getting an overview of many classical composers. It’s organized alphabetically: for each listed composer, there is a brief bio, a portrait, a complete list of works, interesting reviews of many recordings, bibliographies, articles, and annotated links to other sites related to the composer: http://www.classical.net/music/mstrindx.html

Bach Central Station: A large directory of Bach sources on the web organized by biography, analysis, images, and audio files. Best to use this site when looking for something specific: http://www.jsbach.net/bcs/index.html

The Canons and Fugues of J. S. Bach: A wonderful site with much useful information on Bach's fugues and canons, created by a professor of music theory at Northern Arizona University. There are great analyses of the musical forms, as well as biographical information and audios: http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~tas3/bachindex.html

Ludwig Von Beethoven: This is a comprehensive and useful site on Beethoven, including music files, pictorial as well as thorough written biographies, "creation histories" on works such as the "Ode to Joy" (listed under "Research Projects"), and musicians' analyses of Beethoven: http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/Strasse/3732

The Beethoven Reference Site: This site includes a portrait gallery, some beautiful images of Beethoven's Vienna, quite a number of MIDI files, and some very thorough biographical chronologies. E. g., under "Miscellaneous," there's a description of Beethoven's daily routine, including his lunch preferences: http://www.kingsbarn.freeserve.co.uk/

Handel Home Page: This site includes a list of compositions, some Handel anecdotes (mostly praise from other musicians), and a basic chronology: http://www.intr.net/bleissa/handel/home.html

The Mozart Project: A thorough site with biography, lists of compositions, analytical essays, and reviews of books about Mozart: http://www.frontiernet.net/~sboerner/mozart

The Stravinsky Page: A great resource on Stravinsky with lists of compositions (annotated with biographical information and critical reception), biography, and sound files: http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/1807/strav.html

Opera and Vocal Music

Aria Database: This is an extensive collection of opera arias, searchable by opera, composer, and aria. The site has translations and MIDI files of many of the arias. This site makes it possible for students to listen to multiple arias by the same composer or multiple arias for the same voice. Created by a grad student at University of Colorado, it is recommended by several opera and chamber music magazines: http://www.aria-database.com/

Coordinated Opera Resources Pages: This page indexes opera listings on the Internet and is the best place to find libretti, synopses, and discographies for particular operas (over 300 listed)of biographies of composers (over 100 listed): http://operabase.com/corpus/operas.html

Public Domain Opera Libretti and Other Vocal Scores: This site, maintained at Indiana University, not only leads to many libretti on the Internet, but has links to on-line sites for vocal music in general, such as The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, The Jewish Song Database, The Anglican On-line Hymnal, The Lied and Song Texts Page, and The Hymns and Sermons of Martin Luther: http://php.indiana.edu/~lneff/librettim.html

Renaissance and Baroque

Renaissance and Baroque Music--Composers: This site, located at Acadia University, has extensive links to composers, alphabetically, and is categorized in many other ways, e.g., by scores, facsimiles, timelines, and biographies. This site is very well-organized with the sites for each composer broken down from general to specific. There are also links to Baroque history and art. A good place to browse as well as look for a specific piece of information: http://plato.acadiau.ca/courses/musi/callon/2233/composer.htm

Renaissance Consort: A small site where you can hear demonstrations of several Renaissance instruments, such as gambo; click on pictures of musicians and hear parts of Renaissance songs: http://www.hike.te.chiba-u.ac.jp/cons1

Women

Historical Women Composers: This site, at Abilene Christian University, is maintained by the International Alliance for Women Musicians. It lists, alphabetically, links to sites on women composers, including Sappho and Hildegard von Bingen, as well as more general sites: http://music.acu.edu/www/iawm/historical/historical.html

World Music

Musical Instruments of the World: This is a section of the International Music Archives that describes musical instruments--of Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, using sound files, photographs, and text: http://www.eyeneer.com/World/Instruments/index.html

Ceolas: The largest online collection of information on Celtic music, including descriptions of instruments, profiles of artists, and sound files: http://www.ceolas.org/ceolas.html

HOME