Music Manuscripts and Early Editions

A number of tools exist to help locate music manuscripts and early editions. The most important is Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM), but there are also books cataloguing the sources specific to a particular time and place.

The British Library Catalogue of Printed Music has recently become available via the general online catalogue and is a useful guide to their extensive collection. Music manuscript holdings are listed in the MS catalogue. The CPM and catalogue of the Boston Public Library are also available in hardcopy in the music library.

The Primmus system has recently been mounted on Buddy and provides an useful guide to the extensive Harvester collection of music manuscripts on microfilm, most of which is held by the Music Library.

RISM

• Description of series
• Understanding the entries

RISM covers musical material to about the year 1850. It is published in three series. Instructions on how to use the volumes are given at the beginning of each volume.

Series A contains prints and manuscripts containing works by one composer only.

• Series AI is published in book form and is devoted to printed music published up to 1800.
• Series AII is available online and on CD-ROM (via Buddy) and contains bibliographic records for music manuscripts written after ca. 1600 and, in most cases, before ca. 1850. Records include information in standard bibliographic categories as well as graphical images of music incipits. Although incomplete, it contains records of over 160 000 works by 8 000 composers.

Series B is devoted to manuscripts and prints which contain works by more than one author, and to theoretical treatises.

• Series BI lists anthologies published between 1501 and 1700.
• Series BII lists anthologies published between 1701 and 1800.
• Series BIII, in several volumes, lists manuscripts of theoretical works.
• Series BIV, in several volumes, lists manuscripts which contain works by more than one author. The volume number in the series is indicated by a superscript number.
• Series BIV 1 covers the 11th-early 14th centuries, Series BIV 2 covers c1320-1400
• Series BIV 3-4 manuscripts in black mensural notation of the 14th to 16th centuries
• Series BIV 5 covers Italian manuscripts from ca.1425to ca.1530
• Series BVI is only complete to 1400; only a fairly small percentage of manuscripts after this date have been included so far.
• Series BVI 1-2 lists printed theoretical works
• Series BVII lists lute and guitar tablature manuscripts fron the 15th to the 18th centuries.

RISM also maintains an online Libraries Directory, which identifies more than 5,500 libraries world-wide that hold music materials relevant to RISM series. All libraries are identified by name and RISM siglum. Other information provided can include: address, phone/fax numbers, links to relevant Internet resources, and literature about the library.

Deciphering RISM!

PRINTS

All RISM volumes which list printed material follow the same basic format:

[1] SENFL (SENFEL, SENFFEL, SENFL) Ludwig [2] Magnificat octo tonorum. -- Nürnberg, Hieronymus Formschneider, 1537. - St. [3] [S 2807] [4] A Wn(kpl.:S,A,T,B) -- B Br (fehlt B) -- D-brd Kl (fehlt A), Mbs -- D-ddr Rou

[1] gives the composer's name, together with variant spellings.

[2] gives the title of the work, publication details, and format. St = Stimmbücher = partbooks Chb. = choirbook, a single-volume format.

[3] gives the number assigned to the print by RISM

[4] lists sigla for libraries which hold copies of the print. A list of library sigla can be found is the RISM online Library Directory. The first element in the siglum is the country: A = Austria; the second is the city and the library within that city: W = Wien = Vienna; n = Österreichische Nationalbibliothek = Austrian National Library. The material in the brackets tells you whether or not the copy is complete: kpl. = complete; here the material after the colon tells you that a complete copy consists of 4 partbooks, the Superius, Altus, Tenor, and Bassus. All other copies are assumed to be complete unless stated otherwise (fehlt B = missing Bassus).

MANUSCRIPTS

All RISM volumes which list manuscript material follow the same basic format, and so a single example will help make this clear. Series B IV/5 contains the following entry:

[1] MILANO. Biblioteca Ambrosiana I-MA 519 = city. library. = RISM siglum

[2] Ms. Trotti 519 = number assigned to the manuscript by the library.

[3] bibliographical information on the manuscript, such as date, number of folios, type of material, size, foliation, type of notation, staves per page, whether or not the manuscript is complete (here, Partie de T seult. = tenor partbook only).

[4] scholarly data on provenance

[5] bibliography

[6] contents a 1. f. 1-3v [S: -4-2, 0+1] b [Carpentras] c Cantate domino canticum novum... d [4vx.] e CMM 58,V

a.number of work in MS. physical location in MS (folio numbers). musical incipit of superius by interval movement (initial note, then down 4, then down 2, etc).
composer (in square brackets as known from another source but unattributed in this MS)

b. text incipit (that is, the opening words of the text) c.

c. number of voices

d. a modern edition of this motet (found in volume 5 of Corpus mensurabilis musicae 58)

Other Tools for Locating Music Sources

Hamm, Charles, and Herbert Kellman, eds. Census-Catalogue of Manuscript Sources of Polyphonic Music 1400-1550. Renaissance Manuscript Studies 1. Neuhausen-Stuttgart: American Institute of Musicology, 1979-1988. 5 volumes.

This important work is a catalogue of all manuscripts containing polyphonic music written between 1400 and 1550. It thus supplements RISM. The composer index is found in volume 5, pp. 111-256. The manuscript sigla, for example MunBS 10, are listed alphabetically in volumes 1-4. The first part of the siglum (the first letter and the following lower case letters) tells you the name of the city in which the manuscript is housed: here 'Mun' = Munich. The next letters tell you the name of the library: 'BS' = Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. The rest of the siglum gives you an abbreviated call number of the manuscript in that library: '10' = Music Manuscript 10.

Daniel, Ralph T., and Peter Le Huray, comps. The Sources of English Church Music 1549-1660. Early English Church Music Supplementary Volume 1. London: Stainer and Bell, 1972. 2 vols.

An explanation of how to use the volumes and a list of sigla are given on pages vi-xix of Part 1.

Hofman, May, and John Morehen, comps. Latin Music in British Sources c1485-c1610. Early English Church Music Supplementary Volume 2. London: Stainer and Bell, 1987.

An explanation of how to use the volume is given on pages x-xi.

Brown, Howard Mayer. Instrumental Music Printed Before 1600: A Bibliography. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965. This is an invaluble and well-indexed bibliography of all instrumental music printed before 1600.

Primmus

This is an index to the Harvester microfilm collection of unpublished Music manuscripts from the great English collections.

Primmus allows you to search (by title, composer, keyword, MS no, etc) the manuscripts in the collection. It will give you a part number and reel number for a particular manuscript. A laminated sheet in the music library provides call numbers for each reel.

It is theoretically possible to access it from computers outside the Music Library, but installation is far from easy. You will need a password to access Primmus: it will be emailed to you automatically upon provision of your surname and library barcode.

A guide to Primmus is available on the Library website in pdf and Word formats.