The music collection of Anton Ulrich, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Meiningen, at the Meiningen Museums

Andrea Hartmann

Thursday, April 23, 2026

The Max Reger Archive (RISM siglum: D-MEIr) forms part of the Music History Collection of the Meiningen Museums and includes musical collections of various provenances. One of these formerly belonged to Anton Ulrich, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Meiningen (1687–1763). During his sojourns in Vienna (ca. 1720–1740), Anton Ulrich had more than 100 lavish volumes compiled which nowadays constitute one of the most comprehensive collections of Baroque vocal music and preserve the musical repertoire of Viennese court music – including opera, oratorio, cantata, and serenade – through compositions by Antonio Caldara, Johann Joseph Fux, and Francesco Conti, among others. This collection was cataloged for RISM by Carmen Rosenthal between 2011 and 2013. In the meantime the manuscripts became available in digital form, therefore – thanks to the RISM Editorial Center – the RISM records could be updated with links to these digitized copies (cf. RISM Catalogue | RISM online).

Image: Johann Adolf Hasse, Alfonso. Drama per musica […], excerpts, 1738, Meininger Museen, Sammlung Musikgeschichte, Max-Reger-Archiv, Sign. F 529, p. 7. (Licensed under: Deed Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International).

Category: Library collections