News archive
Royal Library of Belgium acquires César Franck autograph manuscript
We have received the following from Marie Cornaz (RISM Belgium): Last December, the Royal Library of Belgium (KBR) acquired the complete autograph manuscript of the orchestrated version of the Messe for three voices in A major by the Liège composer César Franck (1822-1890), a work listed under the reference CCF...
30 March 2022 – Library collections
Maria Malibran
Maria Malibrán (1808-1836) was born on this day 214 years ago. The German Wikipedia page calls her the “first diva in opera history” but this gives an inadequate sense of the talents of this versatile musician. A few key biographical facts are striking. Malibran was a true European. As the...
24 March 2022 – Musical anniversaries
Rescuing Music Data: Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online (SUCHO)
Soon after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, it became clear to librarians, archivists, and other information professionals that the war was also a danger to digital collections stored on Ukrainian servers. Even as we wrote our blog post about projects of the Ukrainian RISM Working Group on March 2,...
22 March 2022 – Electronic resources
“One of the greatest geniuses I have ever known…”: The composer Joseph Martin Kraus
The following is by Wolfram Enßlin and originally appeared on the Carus Verlag blog. It is reprinted here with kind permission. “What a loss is this man’s death. I have a Sinfonie by him which I will preserve in memory of one of the greatest geniuses I have ever known.”...
17 March 2022 – New at RISM
Beethoven at the British Library – a list of online resources
The following is by Chris Scobie and originally appeared on the British Library’s Music blog (© British Library Board, Creative Commons Attribution Licence). The British Library is currently hosting an exhibition about Beethoven, which can be viewed until the end of April. Our Beethoven exhibition draws on the British Library’s rich collection...
15 March 2022 – Library collections
Newly discovered collection from Sennfeld (Franconia) to be cataloged
We have received the following from Gottfried Heinz-Kronberger (RISM Germany, Munich office): Jörg Wöltche (Church Music Director, Deanery of Schweinfurt) has committed himself to cataloging for RISM a collection of handwritten music material dating between 1788 and 1812 that was discovered in 2018. The trove of 149 church cantatas and...
10 March 2022 – Rediscovered
International Women's Day: Women Pianists in RISM
In 2018 we published a post about women pianists in RISM to celebrate International Women’s Day. Since then, the number of women pianists in RISM has grown from 250 to over 400. All the more reason to give you an update. Since RISM is a database that documents specific sources...
8 March 2022 – Events
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Embedded in a Worldwide Network: Projects of the Ukrainian RISM Working Group
Ukraine still features a number of music collections especially in the western part of the country, in venerable Lviv. The musical sources that are preserved in this multiethnic and multiconfessional trading town represent several music cultures. Besides the Greek Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox confessions, Lviv also has a Polish Catholic...
2 March 2022 – In the news
New People in the RISM Online Catalog 2021
Despite the limitations brought about by the pandemic, the growth of our online catalog was considerable in 2021. The number of new people named in RISM records grew by over 4,800 throughout the course of the year, in part through new records for musical sources and in part also through...
24 February 2022 – New at RISM
International Mother Language Day
For 22 years, 21 February has been celebrated as International Mother Language Day. On this day, the United Nations highlights the significance of native languages as a cultural asset because many languages are endangered. And since many languages do not have an online presence, multilinguialsim online can be strengthened. The...
21 February 2022 – New at RISM
