RISM: International Inventory of Musical Sources after 1600  

RISM: International Inventory of Musical Sources after 1600 (BiblioLine) 1600 - 1850     Save to del.icio.us

"Comprehensive annotated index and guide to music manuscripts produced after 1600. Fifty years of careful research and joint initiatives sponsored by RISM brings together among others more than 564,000 records by over 19,500 composers into one database which can be easily searched. The manuscripts are found in over 740 libraries and archives in 31 countries including: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, The Netherlands, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Russia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, Uruguay and USA." [Source: RISM Product Fact Sheet, accessed November 27, 2006.]

Detailed descriptions can include up to 100 fields. Among the most important are:

• Name of the composer, arranger etc.
• Title of work
• Music incipit (opening of musical text in musical notation)
• Provenance/Institution
• Source form (score, voice etc.)
• Location of manuscript and shelf mark

"The Music manuscript database is linked to three other databases providing additional information to specific content: Composer, Library Sigla and Bibliographic Citations. (Occasionally, these databases include information from other RISM series too.) The database can be searched from hyperlinks in the Music manuscript database, or directly from a database search menu." [Source: RISM Product Fact Sheet, accessed November 27, 2006.]