News archive
European Capitals of Culture 2025
Each summer we are happy to seize the opportunity offered by the European Capitals of Culture to call attention to a few special musical events or the characteristic musical culture of the regions in question. In 2025 the cultural world is focusing on Chemnitz in Germany and the city of...
12 June 2025 – Events
New Contact Page for RISM
We enjoy hearing from our users. Your feedback and expertise help improve the RISM database for users worldwide. The RISM website now has a new page to make contact between our audience and RISM even easier. Please visit RISM’s Contact page to see how to get in touch, whether through...
5 June 2025 – New at RISM
Popes in RISM
On 8 May 2025, Robert Francis Prevost was elected the 267th head of the Roman Catholic Church. The new pope chose the name Leo XIV, and celebrated the inauguration mass of his pontificate on May 18. Of the approximately 150,000 personal names in the RISM database, composers tend to receive...
28 May 2025 – New at RISM
RISM at the 2025 IAML Congress in Salzburg, Austria
This year’s annual congress of the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres will take place in Salzburg, Austria. Please look at the IAML Salzburg page on our website for the RISM events during the week: a RISM session, a meeting with the Coordinating Committee and the Commission...
22 May 2025 – Events
Private collections and libraries
The following contribution presents the first part of a two-part news item meant as a first introduction to private collections and libraries. RISM currently (as of 13 May 2025) lists 9,122 library sigla. Of these, 637 refer to private collections or libraries, i.e. just over 7 % of all our...
15 May 2025 – New at RISM
Antonio Salieri 1825-2025
The following is a guest post from Elena Biggi Parodi (professor of music history and historiography at the Conservatorio “A. Boito” in Parma) May 7, 2025 marks the bicentenary of the death of Antonio Salieri, the last royal imperial Kapellmeister of the Habsburg court in Vienna. Thanks to his prestigious...
7 May 2025 – Events
Finding Unica in the RISM Database
The ability to trace the distribution of musical sources is one of the strengths of the RISM database. Music manuscripts are by their very nature unique, while any given printed edition potentially exists in multiple copies. Finding those printed editions that have only survived in a single known copy has...
2 May 2025 – New at RISM
How to Cite RISM
Many publications, whether online or in print, use their own style guides. However, citation styles frequently do not capture the nuances of historic music manuscripts and printed editions, making it difficult to identify the item with absolute clarity. RISM has recommendations for researchers and librarians when citing musical sources, including...
24 April 2025 – New at RISM
The Paul Hirsch Music Collection
The following was originally published on the Music Blog of the British Library (Creative Commons Attribution Licence): The Paul Hirsch Music Collection at the British Library is one of the most outstanding discrete collections of printed music held within the Library.[1] It is accompanied by the Paul Hirsch Papers, which...
17 April 2025 – Library collections
Woelfl-Haus Bonn: A Center for Music and Research
A catalog of Joseph Woelfl’s works, listing no fewer than 620 compositions, was first published in 2011 (RISM short title: HaiW - RISM Catalog | RISM Online). Its second edition will be made available online at the end of 2025, as well as in print the following year. In 2022,...
10 April 2025 – Library collections
