The Web Library of Seventeenth-Century Music

Monday, June 6, 2016

The Web Library of Seventeenth-Century Music (WLSCM) is a project sponsored by the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music. It is a free collection of peer-reviewed, scholarly publications of seventeenth-century compositions that are not commercially available in print and have not been posted online. A separate series, Monuments of Seventeenth-Century Music, is for anthologies or large collections of music, frequently drawing from multiple sources. Editions may be downloaded, printed, and performed in non-profit settings.

WLSCM’s catalog already contains 29 titles. Users can browse the collection or search by editor, genre, language, scoring, or composer. The library’s most recent edition is Zwölff Madrigalische Trost=Gesänge (1670/71) by Wolfgang Carl Briegel, edited by Gregory S. Johnston. The edition is based on a source at the Zentralbibliothek in Zürich (CH-Zz, AMS XIII 531), the only library that documents a complete set of parts according to the RISM online catalog (RISM A/I: B 4479, RISM ID no. 990007092). The introduction gives more information about the sources, as well as historical information about the composer a critical report.

Do you have a piece or a composer in mind that is not yet part of the Web Library of Seventeenth-Century Music? WLSCM welcomes submissions at any time. The RISM database can help you find manuscripts or printed music that are available online, and the availability of more than 100,000 records on historical printed music can help locate complete copies, compare editions, and bring long-forgotten music back to life.

Category: Electronic resources