The Harvard Dictionary of Music is a standard music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

 reference book published by the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press

Harvard University Press

Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...

.

The first edition was published in 1944

1944 in music

-Events:*January 18 - The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City for the first time hosts a jazz concert; the performers are Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Artie Shaw, Roy Eldridge and Jack Teagarden....

, and was edited by Willi Apel

Willi Apel

Willi Apel was a German-American musicologist.Apel was born in Konitz, West Prussia. He studied mathematics from 1912 to 1914, and then again after World War I from 1918 to 1922, in various universities in Weimar Germany. Throughout his studies, he had an interest in music and taught piano lessons...

. The second edition, also edited by Apel, was published in 1969

1969 in music

-Events:Perhaps the two most famous musical events of 1969 were concerts. At a Rolling Stones concert in Altamont, California, a fan was stabbed to death by Hells Angels, a biker gang that had been hired to provide security for the event...

. A new editor, Don Michael Randel

Don Michael Randel

Don Michael Randel is a prominent American musicologist, the fifth president of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and a member of the editorial board of Encyclopaedia Britannica...

, took over for the third edition in 1986

1986 in music

This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1986.-January-June:*January 23 – The first induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame takes place...

. The book was retitled The New Harvard Dictionary of Music, and featured expanded coverage of twentieth-century

20th century music

20th century music is defined by the sudden emergence of advanced technology for recording and distributing music as well as dramatic innovations in musical forms and styles...

 and non-Western music, and including information on jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 and popular music

Popular music

Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...

 for the first time. For the fourth edition (2003

2003 in music

-January:* January – following an investigation by The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry and London detectives, police raids in England and the Netherlands recover nearly 500 original Beatles studio tapes, recorded during the Let It Be sessions. Five people are arrested...

, also edited by Randel), the book reverted to the earlier title.

Unlike some other standard music reference books, The Harvard Dictionary of Music includes no biographical entries. Biographical information may be found in a companion volume, The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music, published in 1996

1996 in music

This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1996.-January:* January – At the trial of two American teenagers, Nicholaus McDonald and Brian Bassett, for the murder of Bassett's parents and young brother, defense lawyers attempt to lay the blame for the murders on the fact...

, which contains approximately 5500 entries.