The Music Printing History Online Museum
Monday, March 12, 2018
We stumbled upon this interesting online museum: Music Printing History. It details different technological aspects concerning printing music and is richly illustrated.
You can see examples of the technology that brought about the historical printed music that RISM currently covers (to about 1800): woodblocks, movable type (image, left), and engraving. The virtual museum also dips into lithography and more modern technologies, such as photoreproductive processes and even music typewriters. These are all put into the specialized context of printing music. Brief narration guides you through the objects.
The museum is very clearly organized and its thematic structure offers quick reference to different aspects of printing history. People who are looking for an introduction to the topic will appreciate the background information and images, and an overview of any particular area can be quickly gained. The museum can be an ideal companion to specialized secondary literature on the topic due to the many photographs that illustrate the printing techniques.
The online museum was founded by Rosendo Reyna and draws on his own research and collection of objects, and additions are welcome. Material on the website is free to use.
We’ll leave you with one of our favorite videos that the site links to, a closeup view of music movable type from the venerable Plantin workshop in Antwerp:
Image: Movable type from Music Printing History.
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