The thematic index: A computer application to musicology

Abstract

Of the various technical aids available to the musicologist, one of the oldest and possibly most useful is the thematic index. Making one by hand is a tedious investigative procedure involving the manipulation of thousands of cards and the development of filing schemes which hopefully will locate borrowings and duplications, identify anonymous works, and help in the dating of a composer's work. But when properly constructed and judiciously employed, it can provide fundamental information for the history of music. For example, in 1886, R. Schwarz, writing on the Libro Primo of frottole published by Petrucci, was able to note that "the superius of a Tromboncino piece also appears as the alto of a piece by Cara and as the bass of a piece by Michael." Schwarz probably was enabled to make this observation on the recurring frottola melody by the use of a thematic index on the classic set of cards. As it has served generations of scholars, the thematic index is simply a straightforward listing of the opening theme of each work by a particular composer, usually in chronological order. The most famous is the catalog of Mozart's works prepared by Ludwig von K6chel and published in 1862. K6chel was a mineralogist who set about his task as systematically as if he were compiling a descriptive index of minerals. The works are arranged in chronological order with a number assigned to each. The opening three or four measures are quoted, titles and/or first lines are given, and bibliographical information is supplied. Mozart's works are so commonly referred to by their "K" numbers that K6chel's monumental Verzeichnis must be revised every few years to keep it abreast of the latest research. Some other well known catalogs, used daily in any music library, are the Kinsky Beethoven, the Hoboken Haydn, the Deutsch Schubert, and the Kirkpatrick Scarlatti. The researcher in earlier music is interested in more, however, than a simple chronological listing of a composer's works with their corresponding incipits, or quotations of the opening themes. His work cuts across boundaries of composer, genre, or geography as he attempts to collate manuscripts, and search out borrowings of melodies from folk or popular sources or between composers. He strives to identify melodies whose roles have shifted from court