Byzantine Music Archives join Muscat

Arsinoi Ioannidou

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

We have received the following announcement from Arsinoi Ioannidou on behalf of RISM Greece:

The Working Group of the RISM Office in Greece, Maria Aslanidi, Aris Bazmadelis and Arsinoi Ioannidou, is currently embarking on a nationwide project to document Byzantine music in Greece, using Muscat. However, although Byzantine music is the oldest, long-lived, and uninterrupted up-to-our-days music repertory in Europe, due to its peculiarities in terms of notation (usage of neums in campo aperto), modality (use of Octoechos and somevariations) and other symbols such as the martyria (key signatures), one cannotaccurately describe its sourcesin Muscat, which at present is tailored to document mainly Western Canon-related music archives.

The Greek Working Group of RISM consists of a three-member team of professional music librarians, with degrees in both domains (Music and Library and Information Science). The working group is currently working on a pilot project regarding the Νikolaos Mavropoulos Byzantine Music Archives owned by the School of Music Studies Library - Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (GR-THms).

The aim of this project is to integrate as accurately as possible all those Byzantine music-specific metadata that could not, thus far, be integrated, searchable and retrievable in Muscat. This challenging and exciting task presupposes expertise and skills a) in identifying and describing music archival resources, b) in music cataloging, c) in manuscript cataloging, d) in reading and analyzing Byzantine music manuscripts, and last but not least, e) in corresponding with user’s tasks.

Within this frame, the Greek working group is working closely with the RISM Office (Jennifer Ward) and the developers of Muscat (Lauren Pugin) so that current and future customization of Muscat allows for an optimum level of representation of Byzantine music-specific related metadata. Above all, the working group is focusing on ensuring that all participating parties understand thoroughly the importance of this project and its far-reaching positive outcome for all shared music communities, inside and outside of Muscat.

Image: Nikolaos Mavropoulos, Ἄξιόν ἐστιν ὡς ἀληθῶς μακαρίζειν σε τὴν Θεοτόκον, p. 1, School of Musical Studies, Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, Library (GR-THms) LMS NM 1. RISM ID no. 1001034415.

Category: New at RISM