Speaking of Music: Music Conferences, 1835-1966 General editors: James R. Cowdery, Zdravko Bla£ekovic?, Barry S. Brook (New York: RILM, 2004)When Barry S. Brook, the pre-eminent American musicologist - professor at the City University of New York and a leading personality in the International Association of Music Libraries (IAML) - started the ongoing bibliography of RILM (Repertoire International de Litterature Musicale), he already foresaw that it would have to be supplemented by retrospective volumes that would cover topics left unexplored by previously published music bibliographies. He himself published the first volume of the retrospective series in 1972, a catalogue of thematic catalogues (Thematic Catalogues in Music, rev. 1997); in 1979, Jean Gribenski edited a catalogue of music dissertations in French (Theses de doctorat en langue francaise relatives a la musique); and finally, Meredith Alice McCutcheon's bibliography Guitar and Vihuela was also published as a retrospective volume in 1985.Professor Brook, however, was also keen on the idea of publishing a fourth retrospective volume, and he communicated that project with music librarians around the world in a letter written in 1978:In the next few days, we will be editing and indexing the next volume of RILM's retrospective series, Congress Reports in Music: An Annotated Bibliography. The work will have three phases: (1) a classified list of conference papers, with tables of contents; (2) abstracts of individual papers; and (3) indexes by author, topic, place, organizer, and year. Approximately 1500 abstracts are ready, and the indexing is underway.Brook was forced to witness delays in the realization of his magnificent project, and when he died in 1997, the material he had collected and organized in various boxes, was left unpublished at the City University of New York. Following his death, the staff of the International Center of RILM - in addition to continuing the timely publication of the ongoing bibliography - felt it their primary duty to edit, expand, and publish as volume 4 of the retrospective series the congress papers material left by Professor Brook. Thus, the volume was published two and a half decades later than originally planned, and its contents had grown fourfold. Brook might not have dreamed that the work would far exceed the domain of bibliography, and allow a glimpse into the history of musical thought of more than a century.Due to the popularity of travel and the activities of international societies, congresses and other meetings - especially since World War II - play a major role in musicology everywhere. It comes as a surprise, however, that such meetings were held in the 19th century as well, and it is logical to assume that these were occasions for the communication of substantial developments in scholarship. Information on these conferences is rather uneven, however. In some cases the papers given were published in their entirety, and they have become part and parcel of musicological literature, just as studies published in periodicals. Frequently, however, congress reports contained merely summaries of papers, and often the printed press published but the table of contents of meetings (i.e., names of the presenters and the titles of their lectures). It is understandable that even such partial information ought not to be overlooked, since it provides an impression of the topic of a conference, and can be an aid to further research into the literature as well.The volume Speaking of Music: Music Conferences, 1835-1966 is not without precedent. At its original conception, Barry Brook considered Marie Briquet's work, published in Paris in 1961, as its starting point; she had culled music-related material from international conferences held between 1835 and 1939. Similarly, data going back to the 19th century was provided by Winifred Gregory's bibliography, first published in 1938, then in 1980, covering the period from 1840 to 1937, but not focusing on music. …