Brave old world
Peter Phillips
Idon't know whether it is quite proper to say I knew it; but it is certainly accurate to say I'm glad of it. For some time it has been obvious that Macmillan were not putting enough money into the Grove Dictionaries; and now they have announced that they intend to sell them off. My first thought was that an American publisher would buy them, but rumour has it that Oxford University Press are interested, which will mean less of an upheaval all round. If this sale comes to pass few people will remember that Macmillan ever had anything to do with it after a year or two.
This would be unfair, not so much because of the latest version, which has been underfunded from thc start with a burgeoning reputation for being a botched job, but for its predecessor. One forgets that Grove 6, issued in 1980, was the remarkable achievement, effectively coming, perfectly formed, out of the blue. It was really then, and not 20 years later, that modern standards were applied to Grove, in a way that made the enterprise both commercial and seminal. Much more of the material in 1980 was new than in the latest version, which instantly made 6 the state of the art music dictionary at the time. In fact so good was it that one is beginning to see how Macmillan might have thought it feasible to push much of it out again, while using all the newly available clever on-line extras, which they promised in abundance, as a kind of smoke-screen. Whether they ever had enough money really to make a success of Grove 7 and its wonderland of online delights nobody is saying, but whoever takes Grove on has a task as huge as it is potentially valuable. A great deal of the standard material — from articles as essential as the surveys of Beethoven and Palestrina — needs to be updated and expanded, while the public needs to be given an accurate idea of what can be expected from the online version. If this latest version of Grove has been a flop it is because we all have the 1980 edition, and there is not enough that is new in this one to justify the enormous cost of buying it, or subscribing to it.
A university press like OUP might well provide the right home for Grove, given that this term includes not only the Music dictionary but also the equally encyclopedic Art dictionary, which makes the responsibilities more broadly cultural. If anything, the colossal scope of the Art dictionary was an even more courageous undertaking than Grove 6 when it was first put together, involving more volumes, more staff and more words. I remember lecturing on a course for art students in Bruges, in the late Eighties, to find I was the only teacher present not to be involved in this enterprise in some way. One of my colleagues, who looked congenitally nervous, said he was responsible for overseeing the commissioning of 9 million words on Islamic artifacts. It was a brave world that Macmillan inhabited then.
Not so now. Their press release announcing the sale of the 'Grove reference products' is outstanding even in a world of upbeat dead-beat plasti-prose. Apparently,
The Macmillan Group has announced a new, tightly focused global strategy for its scholarly publishing businesses which has necessitated the divestment of the prestigious portfolio of Grore reference products in Art and Music. Following a strategic review of its global scholarly publishing businesses, the Macmillan group has decided to focus investment on its established areas of strength in Social Sciences, Humanities and Business, where it can derive benefit across textbook, monograph, journal and reference publishinv. It has been acknowledged that Art and Music, despite the enduring quality and development potential of the Grove stable, do not fit adequately with the rest of the groups scholarly publishing program.
Were the authors of this really hoping to make a success of something erudite? Macmillan has changed, but mercifully it need not concern us over much. What with their programs (sic), groups, stables, products, portfolios and global strategies which seem to exclude music and art, Macmillan are setting even the most benighted American university press a challenge. Whoever takes on Grove, American or English, will need money, determination and class.
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