YOU COULD LOOK IT UP : The 'New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians'.

With fitting hoopla, the second edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians has appeared. It replaces the previous edition, from 1980, with nine additional volumes, making for a total of twenty-nine. The price is hefty ($4,850), but by stretching from twenty-four hundred contributors and 16 million words in 1980 to six thousand contributors and 25 million words today, the New Grove's editors took a necessary lexicographical risk.

For those of us who find enjoyment and edification in dipping into Grove for all matters musical, this expansion increases the odds that we will find what we are looking for. Yet London's Daily Telegraph has charged that "Grove has grown too fat," as if a reference book were subject to our modern culture of Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig.

The Telegraph objected to the small group of new articles on pop and world music, but it neglected the work's backbone, thousands of articles by little-sung but highly capable and even eloquent writers on music. Most are from Britain, including Andrew Porter writing on the singer Cathy Berberian, Patrick O'Connor on composer Reynaldo Hahn, David Cairns on conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler, and Tully Potter on violist Tabea Zimmermann. And these are just the small articles; there are major new efforts like Cambridge University's Reinhard Strohm on the composer Heinrich Isaac, and French researcher Myriam Chimenes on Francis Poulenc. These are all helpful and reliable articles, gratifying to read. Articles of this quality were written mainly out of devotion, as authors' remuneration was poor, according to one report. The individual volumes are comfortable to handle.

Carping about dimensions also ignores the sensational news that now Grove is available online to libraries and individuals. Even the smallest college dorm room or divinity school library with Internet access may obtain the Grove's authoritative information on the composer, musical work, tradition, or form of choice, all for an annual, monthly, or hourly online access fee ($295 a year for an individual; for information: www.grovemusic.com).

Navigating Grove online is generally easy, although it is still a work in progress. Unfortunately, there are no online illustrations, and as yet only a few links to outside Web sites with musical examples. The Grove article on J.S. Bach, for example, is linked to a Web site with some fairly mediocre performances of the great composer's work. But as Grove continues its ongoing efforts toward online refinement, one can expect links to improve.

As for the online texts, there is the satisfaction of finding details that only a computer index provides. Three searches are available online: the article search, full-text search, and expert search. The first will bring up only references found in the titles of articles, so typing in "Catholic" results in an ample, if not strikingly innovative, article on the Roman Catholic church's relationship to music. A full-text search supplies every mention of Catholicism among the 25 million words of Grove. Finally, an expert search will give the reader a choice of what is meant by catholic, upper- and lower-case c. The reader may choose a preferred definition or just proceed with the search.

When proper names are entered, unexpected--and sometimes trying--results occur. When I attempt an expert search for the church composer and conductor John Rutter, for example, Grove online asked me if John means "a disciple of Jesus," "a prostitute's customer," or "a room equipped with washing and toilet facilities." Mr. Rutter's last name was read by the computer as "rut," with equally unfortunate choices of definitions. I finally did prevail by ignoring the definitions and carrying on to the search results.

With courage akin to Pasteur's when he vaccinated himself, I next entered my own name into the expert search. My first name was defined as "a balsamic resin obtained from certain tropical Asian trees," and my last name registered as "a battle (1590) in which the Huguenots under Henry IV of France defeated the Catholics under the duke of Mayenne." However, when I chose neither of these distinguished associations but pressed on with the search, Grove returned the mention of my book on Francis Poulenc in the bibliography following the article on the composer.

Despite some surprises, then, the online version can function well. I know of no other reference work that will tell you whether a name is mentioned among so very many words. Grove is not fat, it is limitless. Whether Grove is on the reference shelf or online, teachers, students, researchers, and the common reader will find it an abiding source of satisfaction.

Benjamin Ivry is the author of, most recently, Maurice Ravel: A Life (Welcome Rain Publsihers).