New RISM online music catalogue: over 700,000 references

The new catalogue of the International Inventory of Musical Sources (RISM) provides insight into treasures of music history inaccessible until now.

A new music catalogue has been available free online since June 2010 under http://opac.rism.info. This database offers around 700,000 mainly manuscript sources catalogued in detail according to academic criteria. The manuscripts are currently stored in hundreds of libraries and archives around the world. They pass down to later generations the musical works of 30,000 composers. The catalogue was made possible through cooperation between the International Inventory of Musical Sources (Répertoire International des Sources Musicales, RISM for short), the Bavarian State Library (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek) and the State Library of Berlin (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin).

Even though there has been music printing for 500 years, manuscripts remained an integral basis of the musical legacy until well into the 19th century and much - whether opera, symphony or sacred music – was never printed. RISM  has set itself the task of making this vast fundament accessible for music research and practice, and its database, compiled by researchers in over 30 countries, can now be accessed free of charge on the Internet. Many of the stocks catalogued by libraries and archives in these countries were recorded for the first time in the course of this project and so are only now available to a wide public.

The catalogue entries comprise among other things information about the composers (including dates of birth and death), title, instrumentation and casting requirements of the works as well as references to them in the specialist literature. The manuscripts themselves are described in detail in respect of scribe, and place and time of origin. In addition, practically every work can also be identified unambiguously by means of a music incipit – ie the beginning of the most important parts in written musical form.

The database provides information not only about the dissemination of works by composers who are still well known today, but also a wealth of knowledge about those many creative musicians who were highly regarded in their day, but are currently either little known or even forgotten. This makes the database invaluable for music historians, and also makes it possible for performing musicians to “excavate” and rediscover many things.

A variety of search fields makes it possible to investigate not only according to particular composers, work titles or performance forces, but also by place and time of origin or various people like librettists, previous owners or dedicatees.

The catalogue on the Internet: http://opac.rism.info

Contact persons:
k.keil@ub.uni-frankfurt.de
RISM-Zentralredaktion at the Johann Christian Senckenberg University Library
Sophienstr. 26
60487 Frankfurt am Main
Tel.: +49-69-706231

juergen.diet@bsb-muenchen.de
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Bavarian State Library)
Referat Digitale Bibliothek (digital library department)
Ludwigstr. 16
80539 München
Tel.: +49-89-28638-2768