Periodicals

Periodicals offer a variety of lenses through which to study Bernstein's career and impact, from popular magazines that target a general audience to peer-reviewed journals that provide scholarly analysis. This page highlights Bernstein's official newsletter, Prelude, Fugue & Riffs; magazine and journal articles included in digitized scrapbooks from the Leonard Bernstein Collection; and databases where you can search for Bernstein-related articles in scholarly journals.

Cover of Dance Magazine, January 1980. Scrapbook from the Leonard Bernstein Collection, Library of Congress Music Division.

Annette Turngren, author. "Young Maestro" article from Calling All Girls Magazine, February 1946. Scrapbook from the Leonard Bernstein Collection. Library of Congress Music Division.

Cover Musiques, Septembre 1979. Scrapbook from the Leonard Bernstein Collection. Library of Congress Music Division.

Cover of The Atlantic, November 1954. Scrapbook from the Leonard Bernstein Collection. Library of Congress Music Division.

Cover of Opera News, August 1983. Scrapbook from the Leonard Bernstein Collection. Library of Congress Music Division.

"Ballet Triangle: 'Facsimile' grapples with problems of both frustration and anxiety," article from Life Magazine, January 27, 1947. Scrapbook from the Leonard Bernstein Collection. Library of Congress Music Division.

Prelude, Fugue & Riffs Newsletter

Prelude, Fugue & Riffs is a newsletter of the Leonard Bernstein Office, and formerly of the Leonard Bernstein Society. The newsletter features articles and essays, announcements, and advertisements related to Bernstein and his creative work.

Prelude, Fugue & Riffs is available online via the Leonard Bernstein Office website:

Prelude, Fugue & Riffs: News for Friends of Leonard Bernstein

Additionally, the Library of Congress holds physical copies of certain issues. This title links to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to additional online content are included when available.

Prelude, fugue, and riffs
Call Number: ML410.B566 P74
Newsletter of the Leonard Bernstein Office, and formerly of the Leonard Bernstein Society.

Scrapbooks from the Leonard Bernstein Collection

It should be noted that the scrapbooks in the Leonard Bernstein Collection feature, among other types of material, excerpts from a variety of journals and magazines that discuss Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein gave 104 scrapbooks to the Library of Congress over the course of two decades, and Brandeis University gave five additional scrapbooks to the Library in 1973. All of the scrapbooks, dating from 1933-1986, have been preserved on microfilm because of their fragile nature; those microfilms have also been digitized and can be consulted and downloaded in the Leonard Bernstein Digital Collection.

Digitized scrapbooks from the Leonard Bernstein Collection

Highlighted Subscription Databases

The Library's Databases and E-resources page organizes licensed and recommended free databases, indexing and abstracting services, and full-text reference resources. The subscription resources marked with a padlock are available to researchers on-site at the Library of Congress. If you are unable to visit the Library, you may be able to access these resources through your local public or academic library.

RILM Abstracts of Music Literature External This link opens in a new window
International bibliography of scholarly writings on music and related disciplines from 5,200 journals in 202 languages. Citations are drawn from articles, books, conference proceedings, bibliographies, catalogues, dissertations, festchriften, iconographies, critical commentaries to complete works, ethnographic recordings and videos, and reviews. Covers from Western and Eastern classical to pop, folk, and jazz with original language titles and title translations in English.
Music Index External This link opens in a new window
Contains cover-to-cover indexing and abstracts of articles about music, musicians, and the music industry for more than 475 periodicals, as well as book reviews, obituaries, news, and selective coverage for more than 230 periodicals. Provides comprehensive coverage of the music field with topics covering every aspect of the classical and popular worlds of music, including musicological and organological topics, book reviews, record reviews, first performances, and obituaries.
Music Periodicals Database External This link opens in a new window
Music Periodicals Database is a music journal resource with more than 1.3 million articles, plus detailed abstracts and full text from 1874 to current, covering the scholarly to the popular. An unrivalled resource for music research, it t provides indexing and abstracts for more than 425 international music periodicals, plus full text for around 140 journals. No other individual resource has comparable index-plus-full text coverage.

The database currently includes over 1.3 million article records, the majority of which are journal articles from 1996 onward. Around 200,000 index records in the datavase are from the backfile (up to 1995) and much of this coverage commences at the first issue of the journal run, some starting as early as 1874.

IIMP Contains citations to articles in nearly 400 current international music periodicals from over 20 countries some citations as far back as 1874. Covers nearly all aspects of the world of music, from the most scholarly studies to the latest crazes, and also indexes feature music articles and obituaries appearing in The New York Times and The Washington Post.
JSTOR External This link opens in a new window
JSTOR is a highly selective digital library of academic content in many disciplines. The Library of Congress's subscriptions to JSTOR provide access to thousands of scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. JSTOR works with a diverse group of nearly 1,200 publishers from more than 57 countries to preserve and make their content digitally available.

Also provided is access to JSTOR Daily, which offers a fresh way for people to understand and contextualize their world. JSTOR Daily writers provide insight, commentary, and analysis of ideas, research, and current events, tapping into the rich scholarship on JSTOR. In addition to weekly feature articles, the magazine publishes daily blog posts that provide the backstory to complex issues of the day in a variety of subject areas, interviews with and profiles of scholars and their work, and much more.
Variety Archives External This link opens in a new window
Variety, a magazine for the entertainment industry, covers the worldwide media and entertainment marketplace and features the most current entertainment news, box office reports, and film and television production charts. 104 years of Variety and Daily Variety are now digitally available, allowing users to conveniently trace the history of the entertainment business and its biggest players. The weekly edition of Variety began publication December 16, 1905, while Daily Variety began September 6, 1933. Archived issues for Variety (weekly) begin March 18, 1906, however, the issues for March 29, 1932-June 14, 1932 are missing. Daily Variety is archived in its entirety. Variety and Daily Variety continue to be updated with new content. Issues for both appear in the Archives about a week after their publication dates.

Leonard Bernstein: A Guide to Resources at the Library of Congress