The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is a dictionary of music and musicians, generally considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject.
It was first published in 1878 as A Dictionary of Music and Musicians in four volumes edited by Sir George Grove with an appendix and index. The second edition, in five volumes, was edited by J. A. Fuller Maitland and published between 1904 and 1910. The third edition, also in five volumes, was edited by H. C. Colles and published in 1927. The fourth edition, also edited by Colles, was published in five volumes plus a supplement in 1940. The fifth edition, in nine volumes, was edited by Eric Blom and published in 1954. A supplementary volume followed in 1961.
When the next edition appeared in 1980, it was under the new name The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and was greatly expanded to twenty volumes, edited by Stanley Sadie. The second edition under this title (the seventh overall), edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell, was published in 2001. It contains:
- 5,623 entirely new articles
- 29,499 articles in total
- 20,374 biographies of composers, performers and writers on music
- 1,465 articles on styles, terms and genres
- 580 articles on ancient music and church music
- 805 articles on regions, countries and cities
- 2,261 articles on instruments and their makers, and performance practice
- 693 articles on printing and publishing
- 1,327 articles on world musics
- 1,221 articles on popular music, light music, and jazz
- 283 articles on concepts
- 89 articles on acoustics
- 174 articles on notation
- 96 articles on theatre directors
- 131 articles on sources
