News archive – Library collections
RISM at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The following is by David Floyd, Binghamton University and Kirstin Dougan Johnson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Kirstin Some of you may recall my presentation at IAML 2018 in Leipzig where I reported on the early findings of my institution’s work to inventory our holdings reported in RISM under...
5 May 2022
Conserving creativity—the case of Beethoven’s ‘Kafka’ sketch miscellany
The following originally appeared on the British Library’s Music blog (© British Library Board, Creative Commons Attribution Licence). In this blog post we look at a recent conservation project involving an important Beethoven manuscript known as the ‘Kafka’ sketch miscellany (Add MS 29801). How did the manuscript come to be...
28 April 2022
Music Manuscripts from the Święta Lipka Collection (Poland)
Our Polish contributors at the University of Warsaw have recently finished cataloging the collection of Święta Lipka (Województwo warmińsko-mazurskie), known historically in German as Heiligelinde (East Prussia), which is preserved at the Bobolanum in Warsaw (RISM library siglum: PL-Wb). The descriptions of the sources have now been published in the...
7 April 2022
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
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
First Recording of a Rebay Sonata for Guitar by Luiz Mantovani at Stift Heiligenkreuz
We have received the following from P. MMag. Roman Nägele OCist, director of the music archive at Stift Heiligenkreuz: Over 600 works from the archive of the Austrian composer, pianist, and conductor Ferdinand Rebay (1880-1953) can be found at the music archive of Heiligenkreuz Abbey. They are also listed in...
3 February 2022
Caspar Neumann. Souls and Funds. The Book of Births and Funerals for the City of Wrocław
We have received the following from Grzegorz Joachimiak (RISM Poland, Wrocław): Caspar Neumann (1648-1715) is a unique figure in the history of Wrocław in the context of science and art, especially concerning demographic statistics and the fascination with death. Throughout history the idea of vanitas has most often increased its...
15 November 2021
Matteo Capranica: A Composer from Rieti
Angelo Fusacchia has devoted a long time to researching musicians who were from or active in the Italian province of Rieti. He has cataloged the Archivio musicale del Duomo di Rieti (I-RId) for RISM. Matteo Capranica is an almost completely unknown composer today. He must have been somewhat famous at...
11 November 2021
Three Venetian Manuscripts: Originals or Forgeries?
The Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice (I-Vnm) preserves three beautifully designed manuscripts containing solo songs and arias: Cod. It. IV, 740 (=10313) (RISM ID no. 850699985), Cod. It. IV, 742 (=10318) (RISM ID no. 850701873), and Cod. It. IV, 743 (=10317) (RISM ID no. 850702408). The works are by 17th-century...
28 October 2021
Digitised music manuscripts update at the British Library
The following is by Chris Scobie (Lead Curator, Music Manuscripts) and was originally published on the Music Blog of the British Library (Creative Commons Attribution Licence): Following our recent blog post about newly digitised material from the Royal Music Library, we thought it might be useful to provide an updated...
18 October 2021
