Finding Art Songs and Arias

Before You Begin Finding Scores Finding Recordings

Before you Begin

Before you start looking for a song in the Ithaca College Library, you should be able to answer the following questions:

  • Who is the composer?
  • Is the song part of a larger work or is it known by another title?
  • Does the song have an opus number or other catalog number?

If you don't have the answer to at least one of these questions, please see the Music Center Desk for assistance.

Finding Scores

Searching the catalog
Using the Library Catalog, do a title search on the title of your song (or larger work, if it's part of one). If you are unable to find it this way, type the title of your song in quotes and do a keyword search.

If your search returns too many results, you can click on the grey "Post Limit" button and limit the material type to "Music Score." This will filter your results so that only scores are displayed.

Using print indexes
Art songs and arias are often difficult to find by title because they are frequently published in a collection with a generic title, like Favorite Arias for High Voice.

If you can't find your song in the catalog, the next step is to look in some indexes to song collections. These list the contents of many printed collections of songs. After you use the indexes to find the title of a collection that contains your song, search the Library Catalog by collection title to see if the IC Library owns it.

Here are three of the most useful song indexes to try when looking for an art song or aria:

  • Literature for voice: an index of songs in collections and source book for teachers of singing by Tom Goleeke.
    MUS REF ML128.S3 G64 1984
  • Songs in collections: an index by Desiree De Charms.
    MUS REF ML128.S3 D37
  • Song index: an index to more than 12,000 songs in 104 song collections by Minnie Earl Sears.
    MUS REF ML128.S3 S31 1966

 

Search by composer
Your song might also be in a general collection of songs by the particular composer. Using the Library Catalog's Basic Search, type the name of your composer, last name first. Then do an author/composer -- sorted by title search. You'll find an alphabetical list of works by your composer. Scroll through the screens until you get to the composer's name followed by the word "Songs." Click on the link to see collections of songs by that composer. Note: you will find this only if the library owns a collection of songs by that composer.

Finding general song collections
If you just want to find a general collection of songs, you can search the Library Catalog by subject. Here are some possible subjects to search under when looking for art songs or arias (you do not need to enter the punctuation as shown below):

Songs (High voice) with piano
Operas -- Excerpts -- Vocal scores with piano 		Songs (Medium voice) -- Unaccompanied
Cantatas (Sacred) -- Excerpts

Finding Recordings

Searching the catalog
Using the Library Catalog, do a title search on the title of your song (or larger work, if it's part of one). If you are unable to find it this way, type the title of your song in quotes and do a keyword search.

If your search returns too many results, you can click on the grey "Post Limit" button and limit the format to "Sound Recording." This will filter your results so that only sound recordings are displayed.