| Location | Frankfurt, Germany and worldwide |
|---|---|
| Origins | Robert Eitner |
| Key people | Klaus Keil, Director; Dr. Harald Heckmann, Honorary President; Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Christoph Wolff, President |
| Focus | Musical sources to ca. 1800 |
| Mission | To locate and document extant musical sources worldwide |
| Method | Working groups in 35 countries |
| Employees | 8 at the Central Editorial Office |
| Motto | Knowing what exists and where it is kept |
| Website | www.rism.info |
The Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (Abbreviation RISM, English International Inventory of Musical Sources, German Internationales Quellenlexikon der Musik) is an international non-profit organisation, founded in Paris in 1952, with the aim of comprehensively documenting sources of music surviving all over the world.[1] It is the largest organisation of its kind and the only entity operating globally to document written musical sources. Shortly after its founding, A.H. King called RISM "one of the boldest pieces of long-term planning ever undertaken for the source material of any subject in the humanistic field."[2]
The musical sources recorded are hand-written or printed music, writings about music and libretti. They are stored in libraries, archives, monasteries, schools and private collections. RISM establishes what exists and where it is kept. RISM is recognised among experts as the key place for documenting music sources all over the world.
The work of RISM in compiling a comprehensive index fulfills a twofold purpose: on the one hand, the musical legacy is protected from loss, and on the other, it is made available to academics and performing musicians.
Contents |
One or several RISM working groups in each of 35 countries take part in the project. Around 100 individuals from those working groups catalogue the musical sources preserved in their countries. They pass their results on to the RISM Zentralredaktion (Central Editorial Office) in Frankfurt am Main, where the entries are edited and published.[3]
RISM working groups are currently active in the following countries and cities:
The RISM Zentralredaktion and the working groups in Germany are a project of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz.[4] The other working groups are supported financially in their countries.
RISM publications are divided into the following series:[5]
In addition to these, the working groups conduct projects to document libretti surviving in their respective countries.
The RISM Series A/I Single Prints before 1800 is a catalogue of printed music from about 1500 to 1800. Over 78,000 prints of music by 7,616 composers from 2,178 libraries are documented in the nine volumes of the series (published 1971–1981). Four supplementary volumes appeared between 1986 and 1999, and in 2003 there followed an index volume listing publishers, printers, engravers and places of publication. All volumes of the RISM Series A/I were published by Bärenreiter in Kassel. The catalogue is arranged alphabetically by composer name and contains only individual prints, meaning printed music of works by a single composer. Collected prints (printed music of works by various composers) are published in the RISM Series B.
Each individual entry contains the following information:
A CD-ROM of the RISM Series A/I is planned for 2011. Apart from the stated intention of opening the way to the primary source for researchers and performers, this sort of catalogue provides attractive possibilities for other areas of interest and inquiry as well. For example, one can gain insight into many different topics while researching the reception of a piece. One way could be to find out how the music of a composer was regarded after his death; to find this out, it would be important to know how many and which of his works were reissued.
The RISM Series A/II Music Manuscripts after 1600 lists only handwritten music. They are described in detail according to a uniform scheme containing more than 100 fields and stored in a database at the RISM Zentralredaktion in Frankfurt. There are currently more than 734,000 entries on pieces by around 25,000 composers available (as of March 2011, and the number is constantly increasing). The total number of music manuscripts extant worldwide is many times that large.
The entries are currently from 900 libraries in 34 countries: Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Uruguay, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States. This makes RISM’s database by far the most extensive accessible set of records in the field.
The RISM database has been avalaible free of charge online since June 2010. Access to this online catalog is through the Internet via the RISM online catalog or the RISM website. The catalogue was made possible through cooperation between RISM, the Bavarian State Library (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek) and the Berlin State Library (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin). The CD-ROM version of the accumulated database produced and published by K. G. Saur in Munich was discontinued in 2008. The subscription database hosted by EBSCO (formerly by NISC) is still available.
The catalogue entries describe each piece in detail. Included are, among other things, information about the composer (including dates of birth and death), title, performing forces, as well as references to musicological literature. The manuscripts themselves are described in detail in respect to copyist, place and time of origin, librettist, previous owners, and dedicatees. In addition, practically every work can also be identified unambiguously by means of a music incipit, that is, the opening notes or measures from important movements or sections of a piece.
A variety of search boxes enables browsing and discovery through any of these fields. Specific questions can be answered by combining specific indices. For example, it is possible to immediately access all the information stored by RISM about masses by Joseph Haydn. A search by means of a musical incipit is a valuable research tool when trying to identify an anonymous piece or a fragment of a piece. To make use of this tool, the researcher keys in the first few notes of the work. 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.
The RISM Series B comprises a systematic series which documents a self-contained group of sources. The following volumes have been published by G. Henle of Munich (an English translation of the title appears in parentheses where necessary):
Under the title Directory of Music Research Libraries, RISM Series C lists in five volumes all the music libraries, archives and private collections which house historical musical materials. This index of music libraries is produced in cooperation with the Publication Committee of the International Association of Music Libraries (IAML). The special volume RISM-Bibliothekssigel. Gesamtverzeichnis (RISM Library Sigla. Complete Index), which appeared in 1999, has been available in a regularly updated version on the RISM website since 2006.[6]