IMSLP Forums

Hi,

Last year around this time I started a Stravinsky list with the possibility that in due time it might be desirable to use the cataloging system on IMSLP. Carl advocated the idea of IMSLP cataloging numbers with Italian Baroque composers a while back, but I see no reason this same system can't be used also for more well-known modern composers who have no catalog already.

The main sources I used were Eric Walter White's list of works and Walsh's list of works. It was also reviewed by Richard Taruskin twice, who is an eminent Stravinsky scholar. (Needless to say he had his fair deal of correction).

The only problem is really that people may not be used to the catalog (obviously since it's new), and if there is a mistake that surfaces months later for whatever reason, it might be a lot of work to renumber everything and move all the page titles. I can do it if that happens though.

Thoughts?

This is a very worthwhile project. My thinking has been coming around to the idea that a number is just a number. In other words, now that there are things like sortable databases and even sortable tables, relating a number to an external factor such as work chronology (as Köchel and Deutsch did) or instrumentation (other systems) is not as important as it once was. This has the advantage of leaving the number unchanged with the sole exception being the discovery that the item in question was actually composed by someone else. My suggestion would be to put it all in a sortable wiki table and let the revisions be added as needed. The catalog number could go in the Opus/Catalog Number field in the General Information section - though I would stay away from adding it to the workpage titles for now (this can always be done later on, once the numbering system is in wide use).

There are literally countless composers who could benefit from such systematic organization and categorization. This is especially true for the earlier composers who tended to make heavy use of generic titles like Canzona, Sonata, Concerto, etc. I also like the notion of using some version of the composer's initials as a prefix, like the CD numbers employed by the Centre de documentation Claude Debussy for Debussy's works.