News archive
Announcing the Second RISM Lecture: The Bach Collection of the Berlin Staatsbibliothek
The warm reception of the First RISM Lecture centered on the music collection of the Cappella Sistina has inspired us to continue our series. We are now pleased to announce that Professor Christoph Wolff who (among countless other accomplishments) was President of RISM from 2004 to 2013, and has since...
29 April 2021 – Events
Johann Michael Closner (1786–1860) and the historical music manuscripts and prints in the Trostberg City Museum
We have received the following from our colleague Helmut Lauterwasser (RISM Germany): One of the most important tasks for RISM is to catalog historical sources of music also in small libraries, archives, and museums. In extreme cases one encounters collections that contain very few historical music sources, sometimes only a...
21 April 2021 – Library collections
A Musical Dialogue from 1544
The Dialogo della musica by Antonfrancesco Doni (1513-1574) is not meant to teach but rather to entertain. The conversations are divided into two evenings with music. On the first evening, the characters Bargo, Michele, Grullone, and Hoste converse. No fewer than 13 four-part madrigals are sung by the other participants....
14 April 2021 – New at RISM
The 300th Anniversary of Joachim Gerstenbüttel’s Death
Gerstenbüttel is a locality in the district of Gifhorn (Lower Saxony, Germany) - but not only. The name Gerstenbüttel also stands for the composer and cantor Joachim Gerstenbüttel, who died on April 10, 1721 in Hamburg. Born in Wismar in 1647, he first studied theology in Rostock and Wittenberg, to...
8 April 2021 – Musical anniversaries
Maundy Thursday
Today, Maundy Thursday, marks the beginning of the Triduum Sacrum, the three holy days of the Lord’s passion, death and resurrection, and thus the climax of Holy Week. Traditionally, in the Roman Catholic liturgy, the organ plays for the last time in the Gloria of the Mass of the Lord’s...
1 April 2021 – Events
The 2020 Annual Report
The 2020 annual report for the RISM Central Office has now been published. You can read the report in its entirety on the RISM website. Here are some of the highlights: The year 2020 brought an important change for RISM: Klaus Keil, who had served as director of the Zentralredaktion...
30 March 2021 – New publications
The 150th anniversary of the death of François-Joseph Fétis
The following is by Hugo Rodriguez (KBR - Bibliothèque royale de Belgique - Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België) and originally appeared on the KBR website. It is published here with kind permission. The 150th anniversary of the death of François-Joseph Fétis In 2021, Belgium and the musical world are commemorating the...
26 March 2021 – Musical anniversaries
Sensational Discovery: Proofs for Orlando di Lasso's 'Magnum Opus Musicum' (1604) in the Archives of the Bavarian State
We have received the following from Gottfried Heinz-Kronberger (RISM Germany): An exciting discovery was made in the course of a scoping study of fragments in the Archives of the Bavarian State. This is not the first gem to be uncovered from the Fragment Collection. In 2018, parts of a sonata...
15 March 2021 – Rediscovered
The Library of the Landgravine Caroline Henriette von Hessen-Darmstadt (1721–1774)
We have received the following guest post from Beate Sorg: Goethe, who never knew her personally, called her “The Great Landgräfin.” Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, to whose entourage she belonged for a number of years, donated a marble urn for her grave in the Herrengarten in Darmstadt with...
11 March 2021 – Musical anniversaries
International Women's Day 2021: Women Composers in RISM
In 2017, on the occasion of International Women’s Day, we published a spreadsheet of all women composers found in RISM. Over the past four years, this number has grown from ca. 800 to over 1,000. That was more than enough reason for us to publish this new spreadsheet. In addition,...
8 March 2021 – Events
