News archive – Library collections
Stories from Special Collections: When did "Così fan tutte" go to Detmold?
The following is by Joachim Eberhardt and originally appeared on the website of the Lippische Landesbibliothek Detmold. It is reproduced here with kind permission. This mystery came to light through a question from a researcher: In our library, there is a set of handwritten score and parts for Mozart’s Così...
14 May 2018
New Watermark Digitization Project at the Bavarian State Library
We have received the following from Bernhard Lutz of RISM Germany: Indexing and digitization of watermarks in the music manuscripts of the Bavarian State Library up to the end of the 17th century The Bavarian State Library holds an internationally important collection of music manuscripts from the late Middle Ages...
2 May 2018
Downloading and Using Your Library's RISM Records
Sometimes libraries have their manuscripts cataloged in the RISM database but these records are not in the library’s local catalog. Did you know you can download your RISM records and import them into your library’s OPAC? The Moravian Music Foundation (MMF) did just this for over 900 records that were...
26 April 2018
New FONCA-RISM project in Mexico City | FONCA-RISM: Nuevo Proyecto en la Ciudad de México
We have received the following announcement from John Lazos (RISM Mexico/Canada): Dr. John Lazos, who has collaborated with RISM to catalogue over 500 music works from Mexico, just received a grant from FONCA (Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes). This grant permits Dr. Lazos to catalogue around 450...
25 January 2018
The secret garden of Pierre Bergé
The following originally appeared the blog of the Loeb Music Library (Harvard University) and is by Christina Linklater (RISM US). It is reproduced here with kind permission. The Loeb Music Library has just acquired three items previously owned by the French industrialist, arts patron and AIDS activist Pierre Bergé (1930-2017)....
22 January 2018
Music in the Convent of St Adalbert's Abbey in Staniątki, Poland
Marcin Konik (RISM Poland) has completed a project that investigated the music of the Benedictine Monastery in Staniątki, Poland (PL-STAb), resulting in 250 new records in the RISM database. The RISM records were entered by Ludmiła Sawicka. Here is a summary of a newly published article that reveals more about...
28 September 2017
Paweł Podejko - an author and his thematic catalogue
Paweł Podejko’s name is most closely associated with his thematic catalogue of the historic music collection of the Jasna Góra Monastery in Częstochowa (RISM library siglum: PL-CZ). Published in Kraków in 1992, Katalog tematyczny rękopisów i druków muzycznych kapeli wokalno-instrumentalnej na Jasnej Górze lists manuscript and printed music that is...
9 June 2017
Another Exciting Collection from Spitz an der Donau
We have received the following from Gottfried Heinz-Kronberger (RISM Germany, Munich Office): Soon after completing work on a collection of musical sources from Niederalteich in southwest Germany (RISM siglum: D-NATk), an unexpected offer arose to describe an additional collection that had recently come to light right in Spitz an der...
29 May 2017
Major Acquisition in Belgium: Fonds Toots Thielemans
We received the following from RISM Belgium: The Music Division of the Royal Library of Belgium acquired a new important collection in December 2016: the Fonds Toots Thielemans, named after the Belgian musician who passed away on 22 August 2016 at the age of 94. The collection consists of hundreds...
24 January 2017
A Contribution to the History of Military Music in the Kingdom of Hanover
A unique collection of music manuscripts in the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek (Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek), Hanover The well over 1,000 handwritten scores of the first and last Royal Hanover Army Music Director Johann Viktor Gerold (1808-1876) form one of the most extensive collections of nineteenth-century military music. In a circuitous fashion...
16 January 2017
