News archive
A New Elise? Discovery Sheds Light on Famous Beethoven Work
A recently discovered music manuscript dating from the early 19th century has musicologists from all over the world speculating whether they are one step closer to finding out the true identity of the dedicatee of Ludwig van Beethoven’s famous bagatelle Für Elise. The previously unknown piece, written for organ and...
1 April 2020 – Rediscovered
Karin Weißert: Internship report
As part of my bachelor’s degree in musicology at the Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main, one is required to work an internship that lasts 150 hours. For my internship, I resolved not to go to an opera house or concert hall to learn the organizational requirements of putting on events....
26 March 2020 – New at RISM
First RISM Siglum for Papua New Guinea
Part of our work at RISM includes creating new library sigla for any institution worldwide that holds material related to music research. We regularly receive requests from scholars, archivists, and librarians every month. In the course of our daily work, we also stumble upon institutions for which we have no...
23 March 2020 – New at RISM
Friedrich Hölderlin at 250
The German writer Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (20 March 1770, Lauffen am Neckar – 7 June 1843, Tübingen) was one of the most important lyric poets of his era. Rousseau, Klopstock, and Schiller, and the ideals of the French Revolution and Greek civilization were impressed upon him as a youth....
20 March 2020 – Musical anniversaries
RISM Central Office Temporarily Closed
As a precautionary measure due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), the RISM Central Office in Frankfurt has been closed since 19 March 2020. We are currently working in a limited capacity, so we thank you in advance for your understanding. We continue to be reachable through the usual ways, including...
18 March 2020 – New at RISM
Preview of New Records for Polish Music in RISM
We have received the following from Marcelina Chojecka (RISM Poland, Narodowy Instytut Fryderyka Chopina): Between August 2019 and January 2020, the Fryderyk Chopin Institute has catalogued 771 manuscripts and autographs by Polish composers in the RISM database: • Józef Elsner (1769–1854) – 58; • Mieczysław Karłowicz (1876–1909) – 38; •...
16 March 2020 – Library collections
RISM and Beethoven and the 19th Century
Ludwig van Beethoven is certainly the most prominent of the 2020 musician anniversaries. But his birth year of 1770 was unlucky for him in the early days of RISM. As many in the RISM community know, many RISM projects traditionally stopped at the year 1800, excluding much of Beethoven’s oeuvre....
12 March 2020 – Musical anniversaries
"In Frankfurt a/m zu haben bey Musikus Ludwig": Identifying the Copyist Johann Wilhelm Ludwig
By fortunate coincidence, a short while ago we were able to identify the previously unknown “Musikus Ludwig,” who produced custom-made manuscript copies of Italian and German vocal music at the beginning of the 19th century in Frankfurt am Main. Starting with an advertisement in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (AmZ), we...
9 March 2020 – Rediscovered
New Imported Records from France
After receiving a batch of records from the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris and after an intensive period of technical preparations, we gained some experience and found some ways for an automated data conversion. In fall 2019, ca. 19,000 records for handwritten musical sources were then transferred to the...
5 March 2020 – Library collections
The 2019 Annual Report
The 2019 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: New Board of Directors: President: Prof. Dr. Klaus Pietschmann, Mainz Vice President: Prof. Dr. Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl, Salzburg Secretary: Dr....
2 March 2020 – New publications
