About RISM

The RISM is an international collective undertaking with the aim of comprehensively documenting surviving music sources anywhere in the world.

The RISM keeps track of what is in existence and where it is kept.

In many countries, independent national working groups in libraries and archives catalogue historical music sources: music prints, music manuscripts and libretti as well as writings about music (of a theoretical nature). The results are coordinated, summarised and published by the RISM.

The online-catalogue offered here contains around 700,000 references almost exclusively to music manuscripts. These records pass on to posterity the works of some 25,000 composers. The sources are preserved in the libraries and archives of 32 countriues.

This online-catalogue contains data on Series A/II: Music manuscripts after 1600, which was previously published as a CD-ROM or an Internet databank.

RISM’s databank is the most comprehensive accessible documentation in the area of music manuscripts hitherto, and it will grow constantly through regular updates.