It is among the world's most comprehensive encyclopedias of music history and musicology, on account of its scope, content, wealth of research areas, and reference to related subjects.
Friedrich Blume's work was supported by an editorial board, which in the early days included acclaimed musicologists Anna Amalie Abert and Hans Albrecht.
The original goal of the encyclopedia was "to reassure oneself (also) of the musical culture in an environment that was increasingly shaped by war and destruction.
"[2] In doing so, Blume argued, one should not shy away from accepting the "contradictions and problems [...]" as well as "ruptures [...] and continuities" as a consequence of postwar mentalities[3] and thereby also dare to start anew.
The title Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Music past and present) reveals the claim and scope of the new encyclopedia.
The formulation "past and present" used by RGG became integrated into MGG's title, with the addition of "encyclopedia" as a subtitle to distinguish it from purely lexical undertakings."
[5] As Friedrich Blume writes in the preface to the first volume of MGG1, the large scope of MGG1 was anticipated, and the selection of subject headings deliberately generous: In addition to common topics and personal names, numerous new keywords were chosen that had not been included in previous reference works.
These encompassed genres, cities, countries, theorists, areas of chant and medieval research, as well as lesser-known figures from the Middle Ages and the early modern period through to folk music.
In addition to the factual and logistical achievement and challenges, the project was characterized by continuities from the prewar and Nazi eras (palpable in the embellished autobiographies of musicologists such as that of Wolfgang Boetticher from 1952), but also by emphatic and new global approaches (notable, for example, in the evident determination to include émigrés, spectacularly so in Hanoch Avenary's 1958 monumental 60-column article on Jewish music).
Nevertheless, from the very beginning Blume aimed for an international and even global outlook, evident from the third volume onward and aided by gradually stabilizing communication channels.
The persons part includes over 18,000 keywords on composers, singers, performers, poets, music theorists, publishers, ensembles, instrument makers, librettists, philosophers, musicologists, and stage directors.
While MGG1 featured a table of contents and a list of the authors involved, which were appended to each volume (including photo credits), the commitment of the publisher's extensive network of advisors remained veiled.
It also attracted a great deal of attention outside the boundaries of music studies, as was evident from a series of extremely positive reviews.
[12] The publishers sought a partner experienced in digital musicology and eventually entered a partnership with RILM (Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale).
As with MGG1 and MGG2, the editorial board of MGG Online is based at Bärenreiter-Verlag in Kassel, while software development, sales, and marketing are managed by RILM in New York City.
[13] Similar to MGG2, the scholarly advisory board covers centuries, countries, and various specialized fields such as gender research, jazz, performers, and dance.
In addition, there are a large number of smaller changes (minor revisions), which are primarily visible in the continuous updating of life data on the site's landing page.