THE INTERNATIONAL INVENTORY OF MUSICAL SOURCES Available to Purchase

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