News archive
The German Musicological Society supports the preservation of Ukrainian cultural assets
Since the devastating Russian attacks on Ukrainian cultural assets such as historic churches, theaters, cultural centers, museums, libraries and archives, have been going on for almost two years and no end is in sight, it is urgent to save these from total destruction and provide help if they have suffered...
22 January 2024 – In the news
Looking back on 2023
As in past years, we are using the beginning of a new year to take stock of the previous year and share what was most popular with our website readers. These are the year’s blog posts that were read the most often, according to our website statistics: ...
18 January 2024 – Events
Revival of a Baroque Mass from the Music Archive of Wilhering Abbey
On 8 December 2023, a baroque mass was revived in performance at Wilhering Abbey (Upper Austria) from the monastery’s own music archive. The “Missa Sancti Alani” was written by Franz Xaver Weinwurmb, who worked as an organist and composer at Wilhering Abbey around the middle of the 18th century (RISM...
15 January 2024 – Events
Musical Anniversaries in 2024
Happy New Year! As in past years, we are using the beginning of the year to look at significant anniversaries of birth or death for people found in RISM. We are listing not only our RISM composers, but also librettists, performers, dedicatees, or other people who are connected to a...
11 January 2024 – Musical anniversaries
For the New Year, according to old custom
Approaching the end of the year, it seems fitting to call your attention to a musical new year’s greeting from over two centuries ago. The precious collection of the Berlin Sing-Akademie (D-Bsa), which had gone missing during World War II, was rediscovered in 1999 by Christoph Wolff (later also president...
21 December 2023 – Events
More Italian Manuscripts Published from the ICCU Dataset
As early as September 2021 we published source descriptions RISM had taken over from the Italian union catalog maintained by ICCU. For details, see our report “ICCU and RISM: An Immense Number of Records”. This time we are happy to report on the publication of more than 16,000 records representing...
14 December 2023 – New at RISM
Autumn 2023 Update to RISM Online
We are pleased to announce a significant new update to the RISM Online service, bringing several useful and oft-requested features to our users. Perhaps the biggest change is that our users will now see results from the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music integrated in their search results. This enhances...
7 December 2023 – RISM Digital Center
In memoriam Gertraut Haberkamp (29 January 1937 – 5 November 2023)
On the same day as Dr. Harald Heckmann, long-time president of RISM, Dr. Gertraut Haberkamp, who stood for RISM’s work like few others and was also a leading authority on the sources of the Viennese Classics, passed away in Munich. Gertraut Haberkamp was born in Bochum, the middle of five...
30 November 2023 – In memoriam
The Cantata of the Last Things of Man by Ladislav Vycpálek
The following guest post is by Pavel Kordík (Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM), National Library Prague): Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the establishment of its Music Department (1923–2023), the National Library of the Czech Republic exhibits a printed edition of an important work by its founder, composer Ladislav Vycpálek...
23 November 2023 – Library collections
In Memoriam Harald Heckmann (6 December 1924 – 5 November 2023)
In Harald Heckmann, the world of music archivists and documenters has lost one of its most distinguished personalities. Those of us who had the privilege of working with him have also lost a wise mentor and fatherly friend. Born the son of an art historian and teacher in Dortmund, he...
16 November 2023 – In memoriam