Großes Sängerlexikon

Title page of the 1993 edition

Großes Sängerlexikon (Biographical Dictionary of Singers, literary: Great singers' lexicon) is a single-field dictionary of singers in classical music, edited by Karl-Josef Kutsch and Leo Riemens. It began as Unvergängliche Stimmen. Kleines Sängerlexikon (Immortal voices. Little singers' lexicon), published in 1962. The fourth edition of Großes Sängerlexikon was published in 2003. It is regarded as the most detailed single-field dictionary in the field worldwide.^[1]

The lexicon contains in its fourth edition around 20,000 biographies of singers from the 16th century to contemporary.^[2] The articles usually list names, voice part, data of life and death, family, education, locations of singing and development of repertory.^[3] The third edition appeared also as CD-ROM.^[3] The fourth edition comes with an E-Book.

Editions

Unvergängliche Stimmen. Kleines Sängerlexikon

• 1st edition. Francke, Bern and Munich 1962, 429 p.
• 2nd edition, revised and expanded. Francke, Bern and Munich 1966, 555 p.

Unvergängliche Stimmen. Sängerlexikon

• 1st edition:
  • Main volume (Hauptband). Francke, Bern and Munich 1975, ISBN 3-7720-1145-4, 731 p.
  • Supplementing volume (Ergänzungs-Band). Francke, and Munich 1979, ISBN 3-7720-1437-2, 263 p
• 2nd edition, revised and expanded. Francke, Bern and Munich 1982, ISBN 3-7720-1555-7, 782 p.

Großes Sängerlexikon

• 1st edition:
  • 2 main volumes, (A–L; M–Z). Saur, Bern 1987, ISBN 3-317-01638-8, 3452 p.
  • Supplementing volume 1. Saur, Bern 1991, ISBN 3-317-01763-5, 2002 p.
  • Supplementing volume 2. Saur, Bern 1994, ISBN 3-907820-69-X, 1598 p.

• 2nd edition, unchanged
  • Kartonierte Ausgabe. Saur, Bern 1993, ISBN 3-907820-70-3

• 3rd edition, expanded:
  • 5 main volumes (Aarden–Davis; Davislim–Hiolski; Hirata–Möves; Moffo–Seidel; Seidemann–Zysset). Saur, Bern and Munich 1997, ISBN 3-598-11598-9 (geb.) bzw. ISBN 3-598-11419-2 (kartoniert, 1999), 3980 p.
  • Volume 6, supplements. Saur, München 2000, ISBN 3-598-11418-4, 679 p.
  • CD-ROM of volumes 1–6 (= Digitale Bibliothek vol. 33). Directmedia, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89853-133-3. Also: Directmedia, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-89853-433-2
  • Volume 7. supplements 2. Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-11453-2, 634 p.

• 4th edition, expanded and updated
  • 7 volumes (Aarden–Castles; Castori–Frampoli; Franc–Kaidanoff; Kainz–Menkes; Menni–Rappold; Rasa–Sutton; Suvanny–Zysset). Print and E-Book. Saur, Munich 2003, ISBN 978-3-598-44088-5 (also De Gruyter, Berlin, ISBN 978-3-11-915958-6), LIX, 5371 p.

Reviews

• Jutta Lambrecht: Karl-Josef Kutsch und Leo Riemens: Großes Sängerlexikon in: Forum Musikbibliothek, 1999
• Jan David Schmitz: Rezension zur CD-ROM-Ausgabe der 3. Auflage, in: H-Soz-u-Kult, 17 April 2003
• Klaus Schreiber: Großes Sängerlexikon in: Informationsmittel für Bibliotheken (IFB), 8 (2000) 1/4
• Karl-Josef Kutsch, Leo Riemens: Großes Sängerlexikon, NZZ, 8 November 2003, Perlentaucher

References

External links

• Kutsch, Karl-Josef / Riemens, Leo / Großes Sängerlexikon / (Biographical Dictionary of Singers) De Gruyter
• Operissimo – contains articles from the third edition, but without locations of birth and death
• Großes Sängerlexikon, Volume 4 at Google Books