The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopaedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theory of music. Earlier editions were published under the titles A Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians; the work has gone through several editions since the 19th century and is widely used. In recent years it has been made available as an electronic resource called Grove Music Online, which has become an important part of Oxford Music Online.
A Dictionary of Music and Musicians
A Dictionary of Music and Musicians was first published in London by Macmillan and Co. in four volumes (1879, 1880, 1883, 1889) edited by George Grove with an Appendix edited by J. A. Fuller Maitland in the fourth volume. An Index edited by Mrs. E. Wodehouse was issued as a separate volume in 1890. In 1900, minor corrections were made to the plates and the entire series was reissued in four volumes, with the index added to volume 4. The original edition and the reprint are now freely available online.
The public source identifies “The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians” as encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Grove, Dictionary and Music.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1422837. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1879, 1880, 1883 and 1889.
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This entry incorporates text from “The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.