RISM-Opac

RISM- katalog över musikkällor finns nu online! Se nedanstående meddelande från IAML-L:

*New online music catalogue: over 700,000 references*

The new catalogue of the International Inventory of Musical Sources
(RISM) provides insight into treasures of music history inaccessible
until now.


A new music catalogue has been available free online since June 2010
under _http://opac.rism.info <http://opac.rism.info/>_. This database
offers around 700,000 mainly manuscript sources catalogued in detail
according to academic criteria. The manuscripts are currently stored in
hundreds of libraries and archives around the world. They pass down to
later generations the musical works of 30,000 composers. The catalogue
was made possible through cooperation between the International
Inventory of Musical Sources (Répertoire International des Sources
Musicales, /RISM/ for short), the Bavarian State Library (Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek) and the State Library of Berlin (Staatsbibliothek zu
Berlin).

Even though there has been music printing for 500 years, manuscripts
remained an integral basis of the musical legacy until well into the
19^th century and much - whether opera, symphony or sacred music – was
never printed. /RISM / has set itself the task of making this vast
fundament accessible for music research and practice, and its database,
compiled by researchers in over 30 countries, can now be accessed free
of charge on the Internet. Many of the stocks catalogued by libraries
and archives in these countries were recorded for the first time in the
course of this project and so are only now available to a wide public.

The catalogue entries comprise among other things information about the
composers (including dates of birth and death), title, instrumentation
and casting requirements of the works as well as references to them in
the specialist literature. The manuscripts themselves are described in
detail in respect of scribe, and place and time of origin. In addition,
practically every work can also be identified unambiguously by means of
a music incipit – ie the beginning of the most important parts in
written musical form.


The database provides information not only about the dissemination of
works by composers who are still well known today, but also a wealth of
knowledge about those many creative musicians who were highly regarded
in their day, but are currently either little known or even forgotten.
This makes the database invaluable for music historians, and also makes
it possible for performing musicians to “excavate” and rediscover many
things.

A variety of search fields makes it possible to investigate not only
according to particular composers, work titles or performance forces,
but also by place and time of origin or various people like librettists,
previous owners or dedicatees.

The catalogue on the Internet: http://opac.rism.info