The Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM) - International Inventory of Musical Sources - is an international, non-profit organization that aims to comprehensively document extant musical sources worldwide: manuscripts, printed music editions, writings on music theory, and libretti that are found in libraries, archives, churches, schools, and private collections. RISM’s over 1.5 million records can be searched at no cost through the RISM Catalog and RISM Online. RISM was founded in Paris in 1952 and is the largest and only global organization that documents written musical sources. RISM records what exists and where it can be found.

Upcoming events

IAML Deutschland conference in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 17-20 September 2024. Details here

Library Sigla

Search RISM’s abbreviations for libraries, archives and collections with historical music holdings

RISM for Libraries

Librarians, see here what RISM has to offer you

Muscat

All about Muscat, RISM’s specialized program for cataloging musical sources

News

Muscat Cataloging Workshop in Zagreb

The following has reached us from Lucija Konfic of RISM Croatia. Following several lectures on RISM cataloging offered to students in Zagreb and Varaždin, a public workshop about cataloging musical sources with the Muscat application was held in Zagreb on 11 and 12 October 2024. The event took place at...

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Bernard Huys In Memoriam

We have received the following from Marie Cornaz (Bibliothèque royale de Belgique - Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België): It is with sadness that we learned of the death on 12 October 2024 of our Belgian colleague and friend Bernard Huys (1934-2024), who served as IAML Vice-President from 1986 to 1989. He...

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Microfilms? Microfilms! 70 Years of the German Archive of Music History

On 1 October 1954 the Musikgeschichtliche Kommission, a free association of renowned musicologists and music librarians, laid the foundation stone for the German Archive of Music History (Deutsches Musikgeschichtliches Archiv, DMgA), which has been located in Kassel since its founding. With an eye to the substantial changes caused by the...

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Manuscript found in New York

The following article by Artur Szklener originally appeared on the website of The Frederik Chopin Institut and is published here with kind permission. On the 27th October, The New York Times reported on an unknown manuscript by Fryderyk Chopin found in the Morgan Library in New York. These revelations were...

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Music of Funerals, Death, and Mourning

In view of the upcoming religious festivals and holidays – such as Halloween, Reformation Day, All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day, as well as the Sunday of the Dead – it seems fitting to take a closer look at compositions related to the topic of funerals, death, and mourning. The...

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All the news

Upcoming events

IAML Deutschland conference in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 17-20 September 2024. Details here

Library Sigla

Search RISM’s abbreviations for libraries, archives and collections with historical music holdings

RISM for Libraries

Librarians, see here what RISM has to offer you

Muscat

All about Muscat, RISM’s specialized program for cataloging musical sources