Looking back on 2025

Thursday, January 29, 2026

As in past years, we are using the beginning of a new year to take stock of the previous year and share what was most popular with our website readers. These are the year’s blog posts that were read the most often, according to our website statistics:
 
 
   

1. The Musical Public Domain in 2025: The 2026 version is here!

2. Musical Anniversaries in 2025: Be sure to see the 2026 version here.

3. RISM for Musicians

4. Popes in RISM

5. Goethe’s Muse and Co-Author: Marianne von Willemer

6. New Website for RISM Cataloging Guidelines

7. Finding Unica in the RISM Database

8. “Zoom In and Find Out”: How a ‘Smart’ Painting Reveals Two Piano Works From London 1806 by Sebastian Biesold

9. Historical Ornamentation Sources Catalog: A New Resource for Researchers and Performers by Javier Lupiáñez

10. Music prints and manuscripts from the Donaueschingen court library now fully accessible online by Gerrit Heim

Other stories were still widely read despite being somewhat older, including earlier reports on public domain music (see 2024, Dominik Rahmer’s post on Ferdinand David’s Concertino op. 4, The Project “RePIM – Repertorio della Poesia Italiana in Musica, 1500-1700” by Giovanna Casali, Chopin Heritage in Open Access from the Fryderyk Chopin Institute, and music for Archangel Michael.

Some of our social media highlights were:

• Organ works attributed to J. S. Bach
• Eleanor Selfridge-Field’s database “Venetian Opera Productions 1660–1760”
• The digital edition E-LAUTE for music written in German lute tablature between 1450 and 1550
• Volume 1 now online of the thematic catalog “The Music Manuscripts at the Diocesan Library in Sandomierz” by Magdalena Walter-Mazur, Karolina Kaźmierczak and Michał Wysocki
• Spotlights on RISM sources, especially for Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (RISM Catalog | RISM Online) and Ludwig van Beethoven (RISM Catalog | RISM Online)

We hope that your 2026 is already off to a great start. If you have news of your own that would be of interest to the RISM community, please do share it with us.

Image: From one of our most pope-ular posts in 2025. Papa Leo X., Cela sans plus et plus hola, Manuscript copy in D-Rp C 120, f. 26 (RISM ID no. 1001178203 - RISM Catalog | RISM Online). Available online (public domain).

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