The Music Library has a rich collection of music resources that you can browse in person or look up online through our Library Catalog. We also have a number of databases and other online resources devoted to music. You will find guidance for all of these resources on this page and it's various tabs. If you have any questions or wish to see something added to these resources, please contact the music librarian.
Looking for a book or score in our music collection? All Holy Cross Libraries use the Library of Congress Classification System (LC) to organize our physical materials. All of our music materials are housed in the Fenwick Music library.
The Music section of LC Classification is broken down into 3 broad headings:
| M | Music (Scores) |
| ML | Literature on Music |
| MT | Instruction and Study |
In these headings, each item is assigned a call number. A call number is like an address: it tells us where the book is located in the library.
You can use these headings to browse the music collection for the topic you're interested in, or to help you locate a specific book using it's call number.
For a more detailed breakdown visit the Library of Congress Classification: Class M - Music
To understand more about call numbers and how they work, watch the video tutorial.
There's no need to learn every LC number, but knowing some key subheadings will help you find what you're looking for faster or browse within a particular subject interest.
If you are looking for authoritative editions of scores for reference, check the M2 and M3 section. These scores don’t circulate outside of the library, but they are a great reference and often contain detailed information about time periods, places, composers and individual works or pieces. You can also find offprints of these editions and more in the main circulating collection.
| M 2 | Collections of music with multiple composers [Denkmäler, Monuments, etc.] |
| M 3 | Collected works of composers (by last name) |
| ML 100-102 | Encyclopedias/Dictionaries |
| ML 134 | Composer Bibliographies and Thematic Catalogs (by last name) |
| ML 410 | Composer Biographies (by last name) |
| MT 5 | Music Theory General works/textbooks |
Within the score collection, you can use these call number groups to help you find what kind of music you're looking for.
All solo keyboard music is grouped based on instrument, and is further divided based on genre and use (sonatas, fugues, religious service music, etc.)
| M 6-19 | Solo organ |
| M 20-39 | Solo piano |
Chamber music can be tricky to browse if you are searching for non-standard ensembles. Broadly speaking, they are grouped by number of players, and then by instrument combination.
| M 200-299 | Duets |
| M 300-399 | Trios |
| M 312 | Piano Trios |
| M 400-499 | Quartets |
| M 452 | String quartets |
| M 500-599 | Quintets |
| M 600-699 | Sextets |
| M 700-799 | Septets |
| M 800-899 | Octets |
| M 900-986 | Nonets & larger |
Large ensemble music is grouped by ensemble and genre.
| M 990 | Early instrument ensembles |
| M 1000-1075 | Orchestral music |
| M 1001 | Symphonies |
| M 1002 | Symphonic poems |
| M 1004-1041 | Concertos |
| M 1100-1160 | String orchestra music |
| M 1200-1270 | Wind ensemble |
Vocal scores are divided into sacred and secular. For works with large instrumental ensembles, there are also different locations based on whether it is a full score or a piano-vocal score.
| M 1500 | Operas (full score) |
| M 1503 | Operas (piano-vocal score) |
| M 1620-1621 | Song (voice/piano) |
| M 2000 | Dramatic sacred vocal [Oratorios, passions, etc] (full score) |
| M 2003 | Dramatic sacred vocal (piano-vocal score) |
| M 2010 | Masses (full score) |
| M 2013 | Masses (piano-vocal score) |
| M 2147-2154 | Catholic liturgical music |
Inter library loan (ILL) is a completely free service where you can request books from other libraries to be delivered here for you to check out! Both physical resources and e-resources can be ordered through this system, and again it is completely free of charge. If you know the title of the resource you are in need of, Click on the link below to place a request. Otherwise, Watch the video below to learn more about how to search and place requests.
If you would like to search the music collections online, you may browse our online library catalog. Go to the library website and toggle the search bar from Cross Search to Library catalog. Then you can type in the name of the item you're looking for, or some keywords you're looking for. Once you get your list of results, you can use the filters on the right side of the screen to filter your results.
Pro Tip: You can filter your search results to only show items available in the Music Library under the location filter. Do this if you only want to see items we have available at the Music Library.
When searching the catalog or any online database, use keywords instead of complete titles, full names, or long phrases. Be as specific as you can, and take away one keyword at a time to get more results. Use whatever keywords you can think of, such as "johann bach organ wolff" to bring up resources on Bach's organ works edited or written by Christoph Wolff.
Possible keywords: Here are just some of the bits of information you can use as keywords in your search:
Opus/Catalog Numbers: If you know the opus number or thematic catalog number of the work you are looking for, use it in the search, but WITHOUT any preceding letters (no "op." or "BWV"). Not all catalog records will include this information, however, so if you are missing results, take the number out.
Use plurals: When searching generic terms, use the plural forms: works, symphonies, sonatas, toccatas, etc.
Use wildcards or truncate: If you use an asterisk (*) you can get all variants of a word. Searching symphon* will provide results of symphony, symphonies and symphonic- every word that starts with the letters before the asterisk. Using a question mark (?) in the middle of the world will return words that have any letter in that space: a search of wom?n will return both woman and women.
Use numerals: Don't spell out numbers: "Beethoven symphonies 5" NOT "Beethoven fifth symphony" Exception: If it is part of a proper title: "Four organs"
