News archive – Musical anniversaries
400 Years of the Florilegium Portense
Strictly speaking, the number in the title above only refers to the second part of the collection of motets published by Erhard Bodenschatz (ca. 1576-1636). The first part appeared in 1618 and contains 115 motets for four to eight voices. A further 150 motets by over 50 composers, from Agostino...
18 February 2021
500th Anniversary of Erhard Öglin's Death
We have received the following from Nicole Schwindt (Chair, RISM Germany): The turn of the year 2020/2021 marks the 500th anniversary of the death of the first printer to print mensural music with movable type in Germany. The Augsburg-based printer Erhard Öglin published a music book only six years after...
21 January 2021
Composer Anniversaries 2021
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 the RISM catalog. We are listing not only composers in RISM, but also librettists, performers, and dedicatees, or also people who are...
14 January 2021
Music for a while… for more than 325 years!
The following is a joint post between the RISM Zentralredaktion and the British Library: When Henry Purcell died (on 21 November 1695 - 325 years ago this past Saturday) he was probably one of the best-known composers in England – honoured with a burial at Westminster Abbey no less. But...
23 November 2020
Hindemith 2020
The following is a guest post from Susanne Schaal-Gotthardt (Director, Hindemith Institute, Frankfurt am Main): Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) was a careful archivist during his lifetime: starting in his student days he kept catalogs of works in which he recorded information about the work, its creation, and its publication. Later, he...
16 November 2020
Happy 253rd Birthday, Bernhard Romberg (1767-1841)
The following is a guest post by one of our current interns, Daniel Kneer: Bernhard Heinrich Romberg was a German cellist and composer. He was born into a musical family on 12 November 1767 in the northern German town of Dinklage. Romberg received his first cello lessons from his father...
12 November 2020
The Reopening of the Vienna State Opera in 1955
The following post is by one of our current interns, Julius Rüttger: There is a musical anniversary that we can celebrate today: Exactly 65 years ago, the famous State Opera in Vienna reopened after World War II. The opera house, which originally opened on 25 May 1869 with Mozart’s Don...
5 November 2020
Jenny Lind at 200
The famous Swedish soprano Jenny Lind was born 200 years ago, on October 6, 1820. In the RISM database, Lind is not only named on sources as a singer (such as in the Swedish song “Der Hirt” by Isak Berg) but also as a dedicatee, former owner, and even copyist....
5 October 2020
Isabella Leonarda at 400 (1620-1704)
Isabella Leonarda was baptized 400 years ago yesterday, on 6 September 1620. The very thin documentary evidence tells us that the composer joined the order Collegio di Sant’Orsola in Novara at the age of 16 and lived there until her death. The young Ursuline sisters also received music instruction. Gasparo...
7 September 2020
A Royal Library: King Ludwig II's Music Collection
One of the people with a major birthday in 2020 is King Ludwig II of Bavaria, who was born 175 years ago on August 25, 1845. (Here’s a song to celebrate him.) King Ludwig is a figure who probably needs no introduction: his fairy-tale castles belong to the itineraries of...
17 August 2020
