THE INTERNATIONAL INVENTORY OF MUSICAL SOURCES
Alec Hyatt King
‘Your name? your country? who gave you those clothes?’ These famous leading questions, uttered by the shrewd Arete on seeing much‐travelled Odysseus clad in garments belonging to her husband Alcinous, might have been echoed shade of Robert Eitner when confronted with recently published first volume International Inventory Musical Sources. For while would scarcely recognized principles his own Quellen‐Lexikon, he also amazed at their transformation and wondered how where it all happened. The format binding this are handsome, style twentieth century: threefold location symbols begin letter or letters denoting each country according international registration motor‐vehicles—a form transport unimagined Eitner. To tread footsteps, sixty years later, is clear that without inspiration great achievement probably taken much longer become a reality. Its origin must, therefore, be considered briefly relation its forerunner.
Journal of Documentation