Bach Printed Music Database Search Techniques Explained

Main Features of Search Functions

Currently the search is case-insensitive, and will find the word or phrase irrespective of the match being complete word(s). This is particularly convenient in finding a German word, where many variants derive from a single, conceptual word.

Examples:

• Kantate(n)
• Leipzig(e/er)
• (Vor/Nach)Bemerkung(en)
• Geist(e/es/ige/lich/lichen/licher/liches)

Due to this feature, you may find many unexpected words extracted by the search if your input string was too short to be specific. For instance, the last quoted example "geist" will also pick up the following words as well:

Begeisterung, Begeisternde, Ensemblegeist, Formengeistes, Vergeistigung, Zeitgeist(e/es), Geistesgeschicht(e/liche), Geisteswegen, geistreichsten

The use of metacharacters

1. One-Letter Wild-Card

There is a wild-card (?) which proves to be useful in finding a German word in particular.

For example, the spelling of Handel (G. F.) differs slightly in German ("Händel"). So in order to find the references discussing about Handel in both languages, you need to type "h?ndel" as search string.

The wild-card is also indispensable when you cannot type accented characters in German from your keyboard.

Examples:

• sm?th (when you do not know the exact spelling of surname "smith" / "smyth")
• M?hlh?us (when you are searching for references discussing "Mühlhausen" and you cannot type the u-umraut; or you want to list the inflected word, e.g. "Mühlhäuser", at the same time.)

2. Markers for Start and End of Field

For example, when looking for the Journal Bach, you can type "^Bach$" to limit the search to the exact match, excluding other series that contain the word such as "BachJb".

Examples:

• ^Mf$ (in Series field to list the series entry "Mf" [Die Musikforschung] exclusively)
• ^1$ (in Volume field to list the volume 1 only; if you type 1, 11 and 21, etc., will appear together as they also contain the letter '1').