Répertoire International des Sources Musicales

For the 150th anniversary of one of Mexico’s most prolific musicians

2026-07-09T00:00:00+00:00

Few musicians occupied as many roles in the musical life of 19th-century Mexico as José Antonio Gómez y Olguín (1805–1876). As composer, performer, pedagogue, editor, publisher, and cultural entrepreneur he belongs among the most influential figures of his time. The rediscovery and cataloging of Gómez’s surviving original sources have substantially expanded our understanding of an important period of Mexican musical culture, and have brought to light a repertoire that was largely unknown just a generation ago.

We begin with a portrait published in 1840, showing a well-dressed musician. It appeared as an illustration to a comprehensive biography – written in the third person and meant to introduce Gómez to the musical public of the Mexican capital. The metal engraving (rather uncommon in the region around that time) reflects his high social standing. The portrait presumably offers a close likeness of the young musician, and the emphasis on the details of his face and his clothing reinforces his socioeconomic status. Gómez was only 35 at the time.

Portrait of José Antonio Gómez published in Mariano Galván’s Calendario de las señoritas megicanas para el año bisiesto de 1840 (Megico: Librería del Editor, 1840), exemplar at the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León with shelfmark AY19 .C3 1840 available online.

Born in Mexico City in 1805, Gómez began studying music with his father at an early age. Known as el niño Gómez (“Gómez the boy”), he gained recognition with both his keyboard skills and his voice; in particular as a singer he was called for in various churches. By the age of 10 he was already composing music and attracting the attention of diverse contemporary observers, who praised his precocious musical talent.

A notable experience was Gómez’s encounter with the celebrated Spanish tenor Manuel García, who had inspired the role of Almaviva in Rossini’s opera Il Barbiere di Siviglia. García’s visit to Mexico City exposed the young Gómez, then in his early 20s, to professional musical networks and performance practices that would influence his later career.

By the 1830s and especially the 1840s, Gómez had established himself as one of the most visible figures in Mexico City. His pioneering activities ranged from private instruction and concert performance to publishing projects designed for the educated circles of Mexico. Among the most notable are the following:

1832 Gramática Razonada Musical
Although largely adapted from Federico Moretti’s earlier treatise, Gómez’s work remains significant as one of the earliest Mexican music-theoretical publications to incorporate printed music examples, illustrating the growing role of print culture in the dissemination of musical knowledge. A copy of Gómez’s treatise is preserved in the Rare Book Collection of the University of Toronto.

1839 Prospecto y Reglamento de la Gran Sociedad Filarmónica y Conservatorio Mexicano de las Ciencias y Bellas Artes
This publication promoted Gómez’s ambitious conservatory project, reflecting his belief that music education was essential for the cultural advancement of the nation. Unfortunately, his own conservatory was short-lived.

1840 Gómez’s above-mentioned biography

1841 Variaciones sobre el tema del Jarabe Mejicano
A set of variations based on one of Mexico’s most popular traditional dances, the jarabe, which was subject to censorship by the Spanish Inquisition in the late 18th century. Its lyrics often conveyed explicit criticism of the authority of the church, making it a powerful symbol of resistance during the Mexican War of Independence. The world premiere recording of this virtuosic work can be accessed online.

1843 Instructor Filarmónico. Nuevo Método para piano
Just as with his previous pedagogical publication, the theoretical section of this treatise is not entirely original: Gómez drew upon the work of Josef Joaquín de Virués y Spínola (1770–1840), a Spanish music theorist. Nevertheless, the work reflects Gómez’s efforts to foster access to musical education through print culture. A digital copy is available in the Internet Archive.

1843 Instructor Filarmónico. Periódico Semanario Musical
While editing and publishing works by other composers was common practice in Europe, in Mexico Gómez’s efforts had a special significance. The first volume presents a colorful musical repertoire to a society that showed an increasing interest in domestic music-making after the war. With this publication in particular, Gómez contributed to the emergence of a cultivated musical environment extending beyond the traditional ecclesiastical and professional settings. In the Internet Archive one can also study this publication.

1844 Instructor Filarmónico continued
The second volume further expands the musical repertoire. Of the 35 works included in total, 13 are derived from operas, while the rest comprises 9 waltzes, 4 cuadrillas (a traditional Spanish dance), 3 songs, 2 sets of variations, 1 jota, 1 rondo, 1 overture, and 1 barcarole. The selection exemplifies Gómez’s efforts to strike a balance between European repertories, especially Italian opera, and works by Mexican composers.

NATIONALITY	NUMBER OF WORKS	NAME	NUMBER OF WORKS
Italian	13	Donizetti, Gaetano	7
		Mercadante, Saverio	2
		Bellini, Vincenzo	2
		Rico, Luigi	1
		Bertini, Henri	1
Mexican	12	Gómez, José Antonio	7
		Gómez, Alejandro	2
		Baca, Luis	1
		Patiño, Pablo	1
		Covarrubias, Manuel	1
German	2	Strauss, Johann	1
		Prixis, Peter	1
Spanish	2	García, Manuel	1
		Cabrera, Paulina	1
French	2	Mussard, Philippe or Alfred?	2
Austrian	1	Herz, Henri	1
Of unknown origin	3	Lucrecia (?)	1
		Name unknown	2

1844 El Inspirador Permanente. Gran método de música vocal
Drawing on methods by Nicola Vaccai and Marco Bordogni, this treatise demonstrates Gómez’s continuing interest in vocal pedagogy and the spread of European teaching techniques across Mexico. A copy of this treatise can once again be found in the Internet Archive.

Collectively, these publications reveal how printed publications became an important instrument for shaping musical performance, education, and cultural identity in the decades following the successful War of Independence. Through pedagogical treatises, repertory collections, and educational initiatives, Gómez sought to broaden access to musical knowledge and strengthen musical culture in 19th-century Mexico.

And that is not all. Out of Gómez’s numerous sacred and secular compositions, we mention only two:

Pieza Histórica sobre la Independencia de La Nación Mexicana
A programmatic work offering valuable insight into the role of music in the construction of national identity. Gómez transforms a political narrative into a series of 52 brief movements and a concluding hymn that represent Mexico’s struggles to become an independent nation. The only complete printed copy currently known survives as a set of four bound parts at the Real Biblioteca in Madrid, Spain. Particularly striking is the opening movement, which omits bar lines and employs a free piano texture to reflect the uncertainty and anticipation of its military protagonist. One open question is presented by the printing plate marked “C. H. ♮” – an abbreviation yet to be identified.

Title page and the first page with music from the piano part of Pieza Histórica by Gómez y Olguín. Courtesy Real Biblioteca del Palacio (E-Mp), shelfmark MUS/978.

Partitura Originál | del Te Deum Laudamus | à 4, Voces, 2, Violines, 2, Violas, | oboé, 2, Flautas, 2, Clarinetes, | 2 Trompas, Fagot, Timbales, | Órgano obligado, Bajo | órgano y Bajo | continuo | Compuesto por | J. Ant.o Gómez. | En Mej.co Año de 1835.
The Te Deum illustrates Gomez’s ability to work under pressure on a large-scale ceremonial composition. He said that it had taken him “only two and a half days” to write this work to honor the President, who had been invited to the Mexico City Cathedral after winning a battle. The success of this work helped secure Gómez’s appointment to one of the principal musical positions at Mexico City’s Metropolitan Cathedral. It was performed again in a grand manner in 1840 for the ordination of the first Mexican archbishop – a solemn event described in detail in a 1842 letter by Calderon de la Barca, Frances Erskine Inglis Marchioness. This work has recently been revived also in a concert, providing modern audiences with a unique opportunity to listen to a major composition from Mexico’s early independent period.

One hundred and fifty years after his death, José Antonio Gómez y Olguín continues to emerge as a pivotal figure in 19th-century Mexican musical culture. His activities as composer, performer, pedagogue, editor, publisher, and institution leader contributed to the expansion of musical life in independent Mexico. Ongoing cataloguing, digitization, and dissemination of Gómez’s surviving works promise not only to shed light on the career of a remarkable musician, but also to enrich our understanding of Mexico’s musical past and its place within the broader history of 19th-century music.

Image on the top: Cover of the manuscript copy of Gómez’s Te Deum (1835), RISM ID 120000586 (RISM Catalog | RISM Online). Courtesy Archivo del Cabildo Catedral Metropolitano de México (MEX-Mc), shelfmark AM0843 [A-C]; A0825, available online.

Introducing the RISM Editorial Network

2026-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM) was officially founded in 1952, at the first meeting of a Commission mixte including delegates from the International Musicological Society (IMS) and the International Association of Music Libraries (IAML). This historic meeting took place in Paris, and it was there, in the Bibliothèque nationale, that the first RISM secretariat started its work the following year. However, the ambitious mapping of the sources that survived the war years required considerably more work capacity, and so in 1960 a RISM Zentralredaktion was established in Kassel, Germany. As the Paris office gradually faded out during the 1960s, the Kassel office became the prime mover behind the entire RISM project on an international level, as manifested in the nine thick volumes of the A/I series (Individual Prints before 1800) published between 1971 and 1981 (and further expanded with a four-volume supplement and an index volume later on). Nonetheless, while the headquarters of the project thus moved to Germany, the true foundation of RISM has remained – to this day – the wide international network of contributors who kept providing the editorial center with descriptions of sources in their own countries. It is their work in particular that allowed RISM to grow into the vast treasure trove of information that we know today.

Approaching the end of the intensive editing phase of the A/I volumes, the Zentralredaktion (nowadays mostly mentioned as RISM Editorial Center) could start focusing on the next major challenge: setting up the cataloging rules and the technical framework for the A/II series, meant to include “Music Manuscripts after 1600.” However, just as it had happened two decades earlier, a new effort of such dimensions required a more secure background which was eventually ensured by the admittance of the Kassel RISM office in the so-called Akademienprogramm of the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities. This program provides support from German state and federal funds specifically to long-term projects, and the Zentralredaktion (which in 1987 actually moved to Frankfurt am Main) was placed under the auspices of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz.

While the A/II project has kept RISM busy ever since, the past decades saw many important changes in the technical realm: the first microfiche edition of the A/II series (1984), the introduction of the program PIKaDo for the cataloging of sources (1990), the publication of the source descriptions on CD-ROM (1995), the launch of a first internet database as a joint project of the Editorial Center and the U.S. RISM Office at Harvard University (1997), or the switch from PIKaDo to Kallisto (2006). And crowning all these developments, in 2010 the RISM database became available – entirely free of charge – to the widest international community, when the RISM OPAC went online in cooperation with the Bavarian State Library of Munich and the Berlin State Library – a change that also allowed RISM to offer its data as linked open data a few years later.

Nonetheless, the last decade proved no less busy with the introduction of the Muscat cataloging software for the international RISM community (2016), the development of new cataloging templates specifically for printed music in cooperation with the SLUB Dresden (2018), the restructuring of the Swiss RISM working group (the core developers of Muscat) as a new RISM Digital Center (2021), which also resulted in the development of RISM Online as an alternative gateway to the international database.

Needless to say, all of the above is but a very rudimentary outline of RISM’s history to date – which among others ignores the dozens of publications in the B series (for the most part prepared by external experts rather than the staff of the Editorial Center). That said, even this brief survey demonstrates two points of central importance:

(1) Major changes in both structure and workflow have been inevitable throughout RISM’s history – exactly so that the original goals could best be pursued under the ever-changing circumstances.

(2) Cooperations – whether between musicologists and music librarians at RISM’s very foundation, or between the RISM Editorial Center and other like-minded partners in later years – have long helped RISM in crucial moments to reach goals that no institutional actor could have achieved alone.

It is these two lessons that one has to keep in mind as RISM now yet again arrives at a point of substantial change. While the support under the auspices of the Akademienprogramm could be prolonged several times, with the approaching end of the last extension, the Zentralredaktion – which has been the very heart of RISM for over half a century – closes its doors for good at the end of June 2026. Since the services of the outgoing Editorial Center (in the fields of data and authority curation, training, communication, and so forth) remain essential for RISM as a whole, but could not be taken over by any single institution, a few long-standing partners of the Zentralredaktion across Germany have decided to join forces and establish a RISM Editorial Network. The members of this new Network are (in alphabetical order):

Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur | Mainz
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München
Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek (SLUB) Dresden
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz

By dividing up the diverse duties of the Editorial Center, these partners agreed to secure all editorial services needed by those cataloging musical sources in the RISM database also in the future. The exact details of which partner takes responsibility for which task, should be of little relevance for the greater public, but over the past months we did our best to prepare all co-workers for their new duties, and we certainly hope that the transition will present RISM’s old and new cataloging contributors with but minimal inconvenience.

Overall, while throughout the past decades it was the prime responsibility of the Editorial Center to provide the intellectual background, as well as the technical infrastructure, for the international cataloging community, at this point we need to take a big step from a more centralized structure toward a network of cooperating institutions – a move which is in fact very much in keeping with RISM’s long history outlined above. As of July 2026, in a sense as a culmination of the gradual changes that already occurred over the past few years, the support of the global RISM community falls to two relatively new actors: the RISM Editorial Network (as the successor of the RISM Editorial Center) involving a handful of major institutions in Germany, and the RISM Digital Center (as a substantially redesigned successor of the former Swiss RISM working group) based in Bern. This is by all means a significant change regarding the overall structure of RISM, which requires us to come to terms with somewhat more complex workflows – while at the same time we dare hope that the increased internal diversity could in fact also prove a source of inspiration for RISM in the longer run.

With all of that in mind, please welcome the new RISM Editorial Network, and feel free to pose any further questions at contact@rism.info – our old contact address, which remains the same also after the change, just as in fact most of the things about RISM that should really matter.

The José Bernardo Alzedo Collection and more Peruvian sources now in RISM

2026-06-25T00:00:00+00:00

We have received the following from Giancarlo Carreño Arce (Universidad Nacional de Música, Lima, Peru), who started to contribute the first Peruvian manuscript descriptions to RISM in 2025 (Spanish below):

José Bernardo Alzedo (1788–1878) was a musician born in Lima, Peru. He began his musical education at a young age at the convent of San Agustín. Later, he studied with Fray Pascual Nieves at the Dominican convent, where he became acquainted with the works of classical composers such as Mozart and Haydn. He composed several sacred works in Lima before moving to Chile, where he developed most of his professional career as a cathedral musician, choirmaster, and composer. He also wrote music theory treatises, several patriotic songs and hymns, including the National Anthem of Peru (RISM ID no. 1001368991; RISM Catalog | RISM Online) in 1821. The José Bernardo Alzedo Collection is currently held by the Biblioteca Nacional del Perú.

Since late 2025, nearly 30 Peruvian sources have been added to RISM from two institutions: the Library of the Universidad Nacional de Música (Library siglum: PE-Lcnm; RISM Online | RISM Catalog) and the Biblioteca Nacional del Perú (Library siglum: PE-Lbnp; RISM Online | RISM Catalog). Highlights from the Library of the Universidad Nacional de Música include the Ñaupajñejen Mass (RISM ID no. 1001369897; RISM Catalog | RISM Online) by Ulises Lanao de la Haza (1913–1980), and two anonymous twentieth-century transcriptions of Hanacpachap cussicuinin (RISM ID no. 1001365628; RISM Catalog | RISM Online), the first printed polyphonic work published in the Americas in the seventeenth century by Juan Pérez Bocanegra. Both works include lyrics in the Andean Quechua language.

These sources are not only an important part of Peruvian cultural heritage, but also illustrate the cultural and musical syncretism that emerged as a result of the Spanish colonization of the Americas.

The process of incorporating Peruvian sources into RISM is still ongoing, and the current records are available to researchers around the world through RISM Online and the RISM Catalog. Digital copies of the Ñaupajñejen Mass and many other Peruvian manuscripts are accessible directly through the RISM records.

Images: The Biblioteca Nacional del Perú, and the main entrance of the Universidad Nacional de Música in Lima, Peru. Photos by Giancarlo Carreño, c2026.

La colección de José Bernardo Alzedo y otras fuentes peruanas ya están disponibles en el RISM

José Bernardo Alzedo (1788–1878) fue un músico nacido en Lima, Perú. Comenzó su educación musical a temprana edad en el convento de San Agustín. Posteriormente estudió con fray Pascual Nieves en el convento dominico, donde conoció las obras de compositores clásicos como Mozart y Haydn. Compuso varias obras sacras en Lima antes de trasladarse a Chile, donde desarrolló la mayor parte de su carrera profesional como músico de catedral, maestro de capilla y compositor. También escribió tratados de teoría musical, así como diversas canciones patrióticas e himnos, entre ellos el Himno Nacional del Perú (RISM ID No. 1001368991; RISM Catalog | RISM Online) en 1821. La colección José Bernardo Alzedo se conserva actualmente en la Biblioteca Nacional del Perú.

Desde finales de 2025, cerca de 30 fuentes peruanas han sido incorporadas a RISM desde dos instituciones: la Biblioteca de la Universidad Nacional de Música (Sigla de la Bibliotheca: PE-Lcnm; (RISM Catalog | RISM Online) y la Biblioteca Nacional del Perú (Sigla de la Bibliotheca: PE-Lbnp) (RISM Catalog | RISM Online). Entre los registros destacados de la Biblioteca de la Universidad Nacional de Música se encuentran la Misa Ñaupajñejen (RISM ID No. 1001369897; RISM Catalog | RISM Online) de Ulises Lanao de la Haza (1913–1980) y dos transcripciones anónimas del siglo XX de Hanacpachap cussicuinin (RISM ID No. 1001365628; RISM Catalog | RISM Online), la primera obra polifónica impresa publicada en América en el siglo XVII por Juan Pérez Bocanegra. Ambas obras incluyen letras en lengua quechua andina.

El proceso de incorporación de fuentes peruanas a RISM continúa en desarrollo, y los registros actuales se encuentran disponibles para investigadores de todo el mundo a través de RISM Online y el Catálogo RISM. Las copias digitales de la Misa Ñaupajñejen y de varios otros manuscritos peruanos pueden consultarse directamente a través de los registros de RISM (RISM Online | RISM Catalog).

Imágenes: Biblioteca nacional del Perú y Universidad Nacional de Música in Lima, Perú. Fotos de Giancarlo Carreño, c2026.

Franz Liszt’s Donaueschingen Ländler

2026-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

This text was inspired by a more comprehensive blog post by Wolfgang Seibold: “1843: Liszt in Karlsruhe,” published on the BLBlog on 11 March 2026.

In October 1843, after extensive concert tours in Switzerland, Italy, and especially France, the celebrated – though at times also demonized and caricatured – piano virtuoso and composer Franz Liszt embarked on a tour of southern Germany. His concerts were sold out, and the press effusively praised both his pianistic skills and the repertoire he played – mostly works by Liszt himself, although compositions by other composers, such as Ludwig van Beethoven or Carl Maria von Weber, were also performed.

On 23 November 1843, Liszt arrived in Donaueschingen, a residential city located on the edge of the Black Forest. The same day he hurried to pay a visit to the court and gave a short concert there “after tea.” A diary entry by the lady of the house, Amalie Christine zu Fürstenberg, records the works that Liszt performed on the evening of his arrival:

Carl Maria von Weber, Aufforderung zum Tanze. Rondo Brillant in Des-Dur, op. 65
Liszt, Fantaisie des motifs favoris de l’opéra La sonnambula (LW A56)
Liszt, Ständchen (“Leise flehen meine Lieder”), Nr. 7 from “Schwanengesang” (LW A49)
Liszt, Erlkönig, Nr. 4 of “Lieder von Schubert” (LW A42)
“pleasant waltz from Ems” (which cannot be identified with any certainty)

On the side, the tenor Luigi Pantaleoni, who joined Liszt in his concerts several times, sang two Italian songs.

The following morning Liszt was busy rehearsing for a concert to be held in the evening at the palace. As was characteristic of the time, the program included a rather mixed repertoire of both original compositions and arrangements (virtuoso pieces, songs, as well as orchestral works), and was performed not only by the evening’s main attraction but also by several other musicians – such as the aforementioned tenor Pantaleoni, the Donaueschingen Court Orchestra, and individual members of the orchestra who played both solo and chamber music.

On November 25, Princess Amalie noted that Liszt had once again played “during tea time,” to which “a few people” had been invited. Furthermore, she made mention of a “Ländler” that Liszt had composed especially for her. In fact, the piece in question is only a few bars long. The princess kept the manuscript – a single sheet written on both sides – and through the Donaueschingen Fürstlich Fürstenbergische Hofbibliothek, this source eventually found its way to the Badische Landesbibliothek in Karlsruhe (RISM online | RISM Catalog). The Badische Landesbibliothek is making this precious trace of Liszt’s brief Donaueschingen sojourn available to the public in digital form. Incidentally, Liszt left the city early in the morning on November 26, headed for Karlsruhe, in pursuit of even more success.

Image: Franz Liszt, Ländler - Don Mus. Autogr. 39 : pf; A|b; RaaL 34 / Franz Liszt. (S.l.), 1843 (1843); source: Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe, Don. Mus. Autogr. 39 https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bsz:31-20486 | Public Domain Mark 1.0

RISM at the 2026 IAML Congress in Thessaloniki, Greece

2026-06-11T00:00:00+00:00

This year’s annual congress of the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres will take place in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Please look at the IAML Thessaloniki page on our website for the RISM events during the week: a RISM session, meetings of the Coordinating Committee, Commission Mixte, and RISM Consortium, and a two-part Muscat cataloging workshop.

On Tuesday, 30 June, we will hold an introductory workshop to Muscat, the cataloging program used by RISM. The workshop is geared toward any potential RISM contributors as well as anyone interested in gaining insight into RISM’s cataloging methods. After attending both morning sessions of the workshop, participants will be ready to start their own RISM projects and contribute directly to our database. There is no charge for Congress attendees but space is limited. Please register by sending an e-mail to contact@rism.info. Participants must bring their own laptops.

We are looking forward to seeing you all in Thessaloniki!

Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of Carl Maria von Weber’s death

2026-06-05T00:00:00+00:00

Carl Maria von Weber died on 5 June 1826, at the age of 40 in London, where he had premiered his final opera, Oberon, König der Elfen, at the Haymarket Theatre just a few months earlier. The original English title was actually Oberon, or the Elf King’s Oath, and librettist James R. Planché described it as “a romantic and Fairy opera.” The work indeed exemplified the “fairy opera,” a typically English genre in which – in addition to the music – spectacular stage machinery, magic scenes, dance, and pantomime all played an important role. As Weber himself observed in a letter to his librettist: “The cut of an english opera is certainly very different from a german one” – a fact that made it rather difficult for the work to gain popularity outside of England. To this day, Oberon unfortunately remains much less popular and is performed less frequently than the Freischütz, Weber’s best-known opera. Despite its dramaturgically clumsy libretto, however, it is considered as one of Weber’s most significant music-dramatical works, and some of its excerpts, such as the overture or Rezia’s grand scene and aria – recorded even by the famous Maria Callas – are still frequently heard today.

The RISM database contains a total of 274 sources related to Weber’s Oberon, including autograph sketches, performance materials for the entire opera, as well as numerous arrangements, variations, and potpourris based on individual numbers, for a wide variety of instrumentations. The image above shows one of the numerous autograph sketches that once belonged to the composer’s family and are now preserved in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz. The sketch of Huon’s prayer “Ruler of this awful hour” (RISM ID no. 1001192984; RISM Catalog | RISM Online) was penned by Weber on 10 April 1826.

Anyone interested in the genesis of Weber’s last opera, the circumstances of its London premiere, or accounts of its reception is welcome to run searches on the website of the Carl Maria von Weber-Gesamtausgabe, a project producing a complete edition of the composer’s works and supported, like RISM, by the Academy of Sciences and Literature | Mainz. Here you can explore Weber’s entire correspondence, his diaries, as well as his published writings. A search for the term “Oberon” yields a total of 1,297 results, including 86 diary entries alone.

Image: Carl Maria von Weber, sketch for Huon’s preghiera “Ruler of this awful hour” from Oberon, London, 10 April 1826 (excerpt), Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, music collection, shelf mark: Mus.ms.autogr. Weber, C. M. v., WFN 2 (2). Image source

Private collections and libraries - Part 3

2026-05-28T00:00:00+00:00

In the final part of our news series on private collections and libraries, we would like to call your attention to a new feature in the search for private collections. When you search among the institutions on RISM Online, you can select the “Private collection” option in the “Type of institution” section by checking the corresponding box. Next, click the “Show search results” button in the top-left corner. This will display a list of all 651 private collections currently documented in the RISM database. The vast majority of these (precisely 635 of them) has an individual RISM siglum. The 16 entries without a siglum are provenances that are marked as previous owners in the source records.

Among the RISM sigla associated with private collections and libraries, there are many older entries that provide no contact information. Since the RISM team does not have sufficient capacity to regularly check whether the information about certain collectors and libraries might have changed, we have to rely on the active cooperation of our users. If you happen to notice changes in the information regarding this or that siglum, please let us know at your earliest convenience, so that we can keep our data as up-to-date as possible. As described in the two previous news items on this topic, private collections tend to present more complex challenges than other types of institutions. When owners move, sell an entire collection or just parts of it, or pass away, the corresponding RISM entries should be adjusted accordingly.

Part 1 of this text can be found here, while Part 2 here.

Image: Music prints from the private collection of Martin Bierwisch (with kind permission).

The month of May in music

2026-05-21T00:00:00+00:00

“In the beautiful month of May” – thus goes the first line of a well-known poem by Heinrich Heine, which Robert Schumann set to music to open his song cycle “Dichterliebe.” This Lied is arguably one of the best known of its kind and would certainly rank among the most popular, if someone were to compile a “top ten” list of musical references to the month of May.

But the RISM database has much more to offer in connection with the month of May. A search for compositions related to this topic can start right from the header of our homepage, for example, by entering the term “May” in any of the various languages represented in RISM (“Mai,” “Maj,” “Maggio,” etc.). By using the wildcard character * at the end, the search can also be expanded to include derivatives of this word, such as the old English “maying” (as in Thomas Morley’s famous madrigal “Now is the month of maying”), or compound words such as the German “Mainacht” (the title of a poem by L. C. H. Hölty, set to music by Johannes Brahms, among others). Depending on which button you click after entering the search terms on our website, the list of results is displayed either in RISM Online or in the RISM Catalog, each of which offers a set of further options.

In both interfaces, you can refine the list of hits through filtering. In the RISM Catalog you find various suggestions on the left-hand side, such as “Genre” (e.g., Lieder or arias), as well as composer, source type, scoring or publisher. In addition, RISM Online also offers the option to select the language of the text or specify the date of origin, among others. If you already have a more concrete idea of the composition you are looking for, you can also use the “Advanced Search” of the RISM Catalog, which offers a variety of search fields (title, composer, genre, music incipit, liturgical festival, etc.). In RISM Online you have the option to create a customized query, through which you can also combine different categories or multiple languages and, for instance, search among the titles for the German, English, and Italian equivalents – “Mai”, “May”, and “Maggio” – simultaneously.

Given that certain terms have a variety of meanings in different languages, your hit list may include titles that have no relevant connection to the month of May. For example, using the search term “maj” inevitably yields titles where “Maj” is simply an abbreviation for the French key indication “Majeur,” while “may” is also an English modal verb, and the spelling “mai” frequently appears as an Italian negation implying “never.” Thus, when reviewing the search results, one needs a bit of springtime energy and should be open to unexpected discoveries – such as the chanson “La rousé du moys de may” by the Flemish composer Johannes de Crespel (RISM Online | RISM Catalog).

Image: Johannes de Crespel, La rousé du moys de may, in: Recueil des fleurs produictes de la divine Musicque a trois parties, par Clemens Non Papa, Thomas Cricquillon, et aultres excellens Musiciens. Tiers Livre (Louvain 1569), fol. xxiii; provided by Österreichische Nationalbibliothek

The “Bußpsalmencodex” of Albrecht V exhibited in Munich on 20 and 21 May

2026-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

It is too large to be considered a typical devotional book. Too precious to be used in church services. Too sophisticated in its illustrations to serve merely as a representative work, and too unsystematic in its presentation of knowledge to meet the standards of an encyclopaedia. (Andrea Gottdang in her preface to Andacht, Repräsentation – Gelehrsamkeit: Der Bußpsalmencodex Albrechts V., Wiesbaden 2020)

Image: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Mus.ms. A I(1, p. 183 (Detail). Public Domain Mark 1.0 Universal

The “Bußpsalmencodex” of Albrecht V, also known as the “Mielich Codex,” is a choirbook magnificently illuminated by Hans Mielich, which Albrecht V, Duke of Wittelsbach, had commissioned between 1558 and 1570. Today it is kept in the Bavarian State Library as one of its most precious treasures. The two-volume codex contains Orlando di Lasso’s musical settings of the seven penitential psalms, and as a final treat also his motet “Laudes Domini.” The first volume of this unique codex will be on display on 20 and 21 May 2026 at the Bavarian State Library in Munich.

Cataloged in RISM as part of the Choirbook Project between 2012 and 2015, the first volume has been extensively restored and digitized since 2015, and has been available online since 2018. The restoration of the second volume (RISM Catalog | RISM Online) is also nearing completion, and its digitization is scheduled to begin around the middle of this year.

Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Mus.ms. A I(1, p.183 (Detail). Public Domain Mark 1.0 Universal

As the work was classified ‘musica reservata,’ implying exclusive use by the Duke, Lasso could not publish his penitential psalms at the time; the first edition appeared only after the Duke’s death (RISM Catalog | RISM Online). As for the enormous cycle of illustrations by the Munich painter Hans Mielich (1516–1673), which comprises several thousand individual scenes, the recent digitization can be viewed as its first publication. Never before have these miniatures been made available to the public in their entirety and in colour.

For more illustration and detailed information (in German) about the exhibition as well as the “Bußpsalmencodex,” see the website of the Bavarian State Library.

Two born-digital thematic catalogs

2026-04-30T00:00:00+00:00

Two work catalogs, for composers Francesco Pollini and Luigi Cherubini, have recently been completed as born-digital publications. They supplement the growing number of digital versions of traditional thematic catalogs that can be accessed through RISM Online. These catalogs are directly linked to the RISM database that includes descriptions of musical sources, thereby establishing direct connections between works and their sources. This allows users to explore the contents or the performance locations, and to interact with the musical heritage cataloged internationally. The two born-digital thematic catalogs were created by using Muscat, RISM’s cataloging software. The essential data contained in the database is supplemented by its historical and musicological context as presented on a separate website.

The first catalog is dedicated to Francesco Pollini (1762–1846), an amateur composer, tenor, pianist, and fortepiano teacher. Pollini was a prominent figure in the Milanese music scene from the late 18th century through the early decades of the 19th century. Born in Ljubljana, and after pursuing his early studies in Italy, in the 1780s he completed his training in Vienna, where he also met Mozart. In 1793, he settled in Milan, establishing himself as an outstandingly active teacher and composer. Pollini’s oeuvre comprises 262 catalog numbers across all genres, with a predominance of piano compositions. His reputation as pianist and composer was international, as testified by the praise of Glinka, Liszt, and Schumann.

The other catalog now published is a partial catalog encompassing the theoretical and pedagogical oeuvre of Luigi Cherubini (1760–1842). This includes works such as solfège and basso continuo exercises, which are not generally considered as “compositions” but are of great importance for fully understanding Cherubini’s views on the art of composition and the teaching of music theory. There is still no comprehensive thematic catalog of Cherubini’s works. The standard reference remains the catalog of Cherubini’s estate compiled by Auguste Bottée de Toulmon (1797–1850) in 1843. It is hoped that our partial catalog will provide a stimulus for the compilation of the long-awaited general catalog of Cherubini’s works.

The new catalogs presented here are the outcome of two research projects conducted at the Bern Academy of the Arts: Francesco Pollini and the Early Italian Piano Tradition and Luigi Cherubini and Composition Teaching at the Paris Conservatoire.

The catalogs created with Muscat rely on a large-scale, long-term international research infrastructure. The series Work catalogs in RISM Online was developed in accordance with FAIR principles and with an eye to long-term sustainability. In this sense, these first two publications serve both as tools for studying the works of these composers and as models for exploring the future of thematic catalogs in a digital environment.