Cataloging Music

Tuesday, January 19, 2021

The Dresden office of RISM Germany commenced a project in December 2020 to catalog the music manuscripts in the Rostock University Library (D-ROu). The collection comprises ca. 950 manuscripts from the 16th to 19th centuries.

The first batch of manuscripts that arrived in Dresden for cataloging contains the music collection of Crown Prince Friedrich Ludwig of Württemberg-Stuttgart (1698-1731) and his daughter, Duchess Luise Friederike of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1722-1791).

Manuscript copies of parts for instrumental chamber music can be traced back to the collecting activities of the Crown Prince himself. The collection includes pieces by composers such as Sebastian Bodinus, Giuseppe Brescianello, Johann Jacob Krebs, Johann Christoph Pez, Theodor Schwartzkopff, Johann Friedrich Fasch, Johann Joseph Fux, Johann Adolph Hasse, Johann David Heinichen, and Georg Philipp Telemann. The bulk of these originated in and around Stuttgart. The collection of the Duchess includes a large number of lute tablatures and a significant amount of contemporary Italian, French, and German vocal literature. It was put together in Stuttgart, Schwerin, and Ludwigslust, among other places.

In the second phase of the project, vocal compositions from the 16th century, mostly secular, from the library of Duke Johann Albrecht I (1525-1576) will be cataloged, as well as a small group of 19th-century music materials from the collections of Rostock families and the Rostock Singakademie.

See also: Ortrun Landmann, “‘Pour l’usage de Son Altesse Serenissime Monseigneur le Prince Hereditaire de Wirtemberg’: Stuttgarter Musikhandschriften des 18. Jahrhunderts in der Universitätsbibliothek Rostock.” Jahrbuch Musik in Baden-Württemberg 4 (1997): 149-173. (Written version of a talk given at a colloquium about the musical history of Mecklenburg at the Musikwissenschaftliches Institut der Universität Rostock, May 1968.)

Ekkehard Krüger, Die Musikaliensammlungen des Erbprinzen Friedrich Ludwig von Württemberg-Stuttgart und der Herzogin Luise Friederike von Mecklenburg-Schwerin in der Universitätsbibliothek Rostock, Beeskow 2006, 2 vols. (Also PhD dissertation, Universität Rostock, 2002.)

Dr. Miriam Roner

Category: Library collections