Technology transforming music's bible

The next edition of New Grove may be the last printed and bound, all 145 pounds of it.

By JOHN FLEMING, Times Performing Arts Critic

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 14, 2000

One of the more piquant moments of the Music Critics Association annual meeting last month in Charleston, S.C., came when English musicologist John Tyrrell told the assembled writers that he'd really rather be someplace else. Namely, back in London, where Tyrrell was facing a tight deadline as editor of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, whose second edition is due out in November.

The New Grove is the bible of music scholarship, with a pedigree going back to George Grove's 19th-century original. The forthcoming edition will be weightier than ever, with 29 volumes (up from 20 in the 1980 first edition) that tilt the scale at 145 pounds. The statistics are awesome: 25-million words in 29,000 articles written by 6,000 contributors from 98 countries.

Some fascinating changes in musical thinking over the past 20 years will be reflected in the new edition. There are major new biographies incorporating the latest research on the likes of Verdi, Britten, Mahler, Stravinsky and many more. Contemporary composers such as Philip Glass, Henryk Gorecki and Arvo Part have much-expanded entries. There are articles on topics new to the encyclopedia such as post-modernism, gender and sexuality, gay and lesbian music, Nazism and Marxism. There are 700 new entries on composers and performers of pop music, ranging from Aerosmith to Guy Lombardo to Gil Scott-Heron.

But what surely is most significant about New Grove II is that it will, in all likelihood, be the last version to be published in print, because there is also an online version. That will include not only everything in the print edition but also specialized search capabilities and sound files and links to other music Web sites.

The digital age has come to musical lexicography, and this great, authoritative reference work will never be the same. For one thing, browsing just isn't the same on computer as with a book.

The online encyclopedia will be updated quarterly -- obituaries, new works and performances, corrections -- and there will be ongoing revisions of major subject areas and articles. It will involve some interesting choices that go to the heart of scholarship and publishing in cyberspace.

"That presents a lot of challenges," said Grove's longtime editor, Stanley Sadie, in an interview with Chamber Music magazine. "Obvious updates and changes -- like new death dates or corrections -- can very valuably be put into the electronic Grove. But when a composer writes a new opera, for instance, it may change the perspective on the whole career, and all that went before would have to be reconsidered."

Tyrrell, the leading non-Czech expert on Janacek, got a bit testy when he was asked to respond to rumors that the publisher might be cutting corners on the scholarship to get the encyclopedia out on schedule after seven years of work on the project. There has also been speculation that Sadie, 69, has been eased out of the editorial process.

New Grove II cost $33-million to produce. Naturally, Tyrrell said, the deadline pressures were intense -- thus, his irritation at having to be away from his desk for the publicity junket to Charleston -- and writers will always gripe about editors. He denied a report by Norman Lebrecht in the London Telegraph that Sadie had been taken off the job, but said the esteemed editor was slowed by health problems.

The print edition has a list price of $4,850, and the electronic version will cost $650 a year for individuals. For information: www.grovemusic.com.

BRIEFS - Stageworks' 13th annual foray into new work by Florida playwrights commences this weekend with five short (10 to 15 minutes) plays by William Gilmore (Curses), Ray Zacek (Folie a Deux), Craig Alpaugh (Lethal Death IV), Jeff Johnson (Kickback) and Gina Murray (Locked In) plus one by Chicago playwright Lisa Dillman (Chiaroscuro). Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday through July 30 in the auditorium of Hillsborough Community College, Ybor City campus, 15th Street and Palm Avenue, Tampa. Tickets are $10 and $12. Two full-length plays will receive staged readings: Elevator Music by Warner D. Conarton on Thursday and Desperados by Zacek on July 27. Both readings are at 7:30 p.m. at HCC, and tickets are $3 and $5. Call (813) 258-6757.

GORILLA -- Gorilla Theatre's 2000-01 season, recently announced, has several notable Florida premieres, including productions of Wallace Shawn's The Designated Mourner (Jan. 11-28) and David Marshall Grant's Snakebit (May 17-June 3). The season opens Sept. 7-24 with a Shaw double bill: The Man of Destiny and Don Juan in Hell. Also on the schedule are Theatre Hell by Craig Alpaugh (Oct. 19-Nov. 5), Isadora by David McElroy (Nov. 30-Dec. 17), Sex and the Single Woman, a musical revue by Gil Perlroth (Feb. 15-March 11); and The War of the Currents by Gorilla co-founder Aubrey Hampton (April 5-22). Call (813) 879-2914.

MUSIC - The Florida Philharmonic's "Beethoven by the Beach" festival features a concert version of Fidelio Saturday night at the Broward Center in Fort Lauderdale. Lisa Gasteen sings Leonore and Nicholas Loren is Florestan in Beethoven's only opera, with James Judd conducting. The festival, including performances of Missa Solemnis and the Ninth Symphony, continues through July 22. Call (800) 226-1812.

Another Florida orchestra is getting into the opera business. The Jacksonville Symphony will produce its first opera, Tosca, Feb. 3. Casting so far has Gitta-Maria Sjoberg in the title role. Music director Fabio Mechetti will conduct.