Large song dictionary

Cover of the first volume of the 1993 edition

The Great Singer Lexicon (usually briefly quoted as Kutsch / Riemens ) is the world's most extensive specialist dictionary on singers of classical music . The careers of singers in the fields of opera, operetta, oratorio and art song are traced.

content

The fourth edition of the reference work contains around 20,000 biographies of singers from the 16th century to the present day. The individual articles mostly contain "the artist and civil name, the vocal subject, the life dates as well as information on origin, education, biographically significant stations, places of activity and development of the repertoire ". In addition, “ family trees of widely ramified families of singers are [shown], important information about sound carriers with recordings of the artist and further references [...] as well as the date and cast of the premiere for numerous operas and operettas ”.

The lexicon was started by the general practitioner Karl-Josef Kutsch (* 1924), a collector of records and singer biographies, and the Dutch musicologist Leo Riemens (1910–1985). High school teacher Hansjörg Rost (* 1942) has been involved since Riemens' death , and has been co-editor since 1994.

The third edition (with the exception of the second supplementary volume) was also published as a CD-ROM with searchable full text. The fourth edition will be delivered as a print edition with an additional e-book.

expenditure

Immortal voices. Small lexicon of singers

• 1st edition. Francke, Bern and Munich 1962, 429 pp.
• 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Francke, Bern and Munich 1966, 555 pp.

Immortal voices. Singer lexicon

• 1st edition:
  • Main band. Francke, Bern and Munich 1975, ISBN 3-7720-1145-4 , 731 pp.
  • Supplementary volume. Francke, Bern and Munich 1979, ISBN 3-7720-1437-2 , 263 pp.
• 2nd, revised and expanded edition. Francke, Bern and Munich 1982, ISBN 3-7720-1555-7 , 782 pp.

Large song dictionary

• 1st edition
  • 2 main volumes (A – L; M – Z). Saur, Bern 1987, ISBN 3-317-01638-8 , 3452 Sp.
  • Supplementary volume 1. Saur, Bern 1991, ISBN 3-317-01763-5 , 2002 Sp.
  • Supplementary volume 2. Saur, Bern 1994, ISBN 3-907820-69-X , 1598 Sp.

• 2nd, unchanged edition:
  • Cardboard edition of the 3 volumes of the 1st edition published up to 1991: Saur, Bern 1993, ISBN 3-907820-70-3

• 3rd, expanded edition
  • 5 main volumes (Aarden – Davis; Davislim – Hiolski; Hirata – Möves; Moffo – Seidel; Seidemann – Zysset). Saur, Bern and Munich 1997, ISBN 3-598-11598-9 (hardcover ) and ISBN 3-598-11419-2 (paperback, 1999), 3980 pp.
  • Volume 6. Supplements. Saur, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-598-11418-4 , 679 pp.
  • CD-ROM of volumes 1–6 (= digital library . Volume 33). Directmedia, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89853-133-3 . Additional edition unchanged in terms of content: Directmedia, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-89853-433-2
  • Volume 7. Supplements 2. Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-11453-2 , 634 pp.

• 4th, enlarged and updated edition
  • 7 volumes (Aarden – Castles; Castori – Frampoli; Franc – Kaidanoff; Kainz – Menkes; Menni – Rappold; Rasa – Sutton; Suvanny – Zysset). Print edition with e-book. Saur, Munich 2003, ISBN 978-3-598-44088-5 (later taken over from De Gruyter, Berlin, with ISBN 978-3-11-915958-6 ), LIX, 5371 pp.
  • eBook : ISBN 978-3-598-44088-5 ( doi : 10.1515 / 9783598440885 )

Reviews

• Jutta Lambrecht: Review of the 3rd edition, in: Forum Musikbibliothek , 1999
• Jan David Schmitz: Review of the CD-ROM edition of the 3rd edition , in: H-Soz-u-Kult , April 17, 2003
• Klaus Schreiber: Review in: Informationsmittel für Libraries (IFB) , 8 (2000) 1/4
• Karl-Josef Kutsch, Leo Riemens: Large singer lexicon , review note for the NZZ from November 8, 2003 on Perlentaucher

Web links

• Book presentation of the fourth edition on the website of De Gruyter
• Operissimo - contains (not specially marked) articles from the 3rd edition 1997 (but without date and place of birth or death)
• limited preview in Google Book search

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Compare the book presentation at De Gruyter (see under the section web links )
2. ↑ Kutsch, Karl-Josef / Riemens, Leo / Großes Sängerlexikon , product presentation on buchhandel.de , last accessed on January 11, 2014
3. ↑ ^{a b} Information on the uni-regensburg.de page of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München , last accessed on January 12, 2014
4. ↑ Review by Jutta Lambrecht