Announcing the First RISM Lecture: The Fondo Cappella Sistina in RISM

Monday, January 11, 2021

The Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM) has long provided both musicologists and performing musicians with indispensable research tools. Currently, RISM’s freely available online catalog includes over 1.2 million records for musical sources held in diverse institutions around the world. Major additions to the database have oftentimes resulted from larger-scale projects targeting specific repertories, and including these in RISM should inspire and facilitate further, in-depth research.

The RISM Board of Directors is launching a lecture series in the hope of calling greater attention to such valuable collections and also to underscore RISM’s role as a mediator between the worlds of music researchers and librarians—in accordance with its double sponsorship by the International Musicological Society and the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres.

The inaugural RISM Lecture will be held online on Thursday, January 28, 2021 at 18:00 CET (17:00 UTC) and is dedicated to the unique collection of choirbooks preserved in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. After words of welcome by Klaus Pietschmann (President of RISM), Claudia Montuschi (Director of the Manuscript Department of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana) and Balázs Mikusi (Executive Director of the RISM Editorial Center), an introduction by Thomas Schmidt (Professor, University of Huddersfield) will give a brief overview of the collection itself, as well as of the detailed descriptions of the manuscripts which he generously provided to RISM. The central lecture will be delivered by Richard Sherr (Professor Emeritus, Smith College), the leading expert on the history of the Papal Chapel and one of the most distinguished scholars of these manuscripts. In his talk, “Reflections on 40 Years with the Fondo Cappella Sistina,” Sherr will allow us insight into his long involvement with the collection, offering many personal asides.

Please join us for this special RISM event, which is free and open to all. Register by sending an email to contact@rism.info. A Zoom link for the meeting will be sent to all participants in advance of the lecture. The lecture will be recorded and made available on RISM’s YouTube channel.

Image: Jacob Barbireau, Missa Virgo parens Christi, f. 2v (ca. 1513-1521). V-CVbav CS 160. RISM ID no. 857000143. Available online. © Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. Used with permission.

Category: Events