Musical Sources of the Middle Ages in Vienna (A-Wn)

The sources of early music history in Austria have until now not yet been sufficiently investigated. Despite meritorious case studies we are still lacking a systematic survey of the musical tradition in Austrian libraries from the 9th to the early 16th centuries. Among the rich collection of documents of medieval music in Austria`s monasteries there are certainly still many new and unknown to be found; in the long run the exhaustive cataloguing of these manuscripts can only be realised by filing them in an electronic database. Yet the desiderata at the largest collection of our country, the Austrian National Library (ÖNB), are especially obvious. The prior scientific task is therefore, the compilation and evaluation of all sources with musical notation, which are stored in the Department of Manuscripts and partly, in the Department of Music of the ÖNB. As a matter of fact Latin codices will prevail, but German and Czech texts shall also be considered. For historic reasons the collection is extremely inhomogeneous. A preliminary list of the relevant sources (actually around 200 shelf-marks) will present the basis for a complete catalogue focussing on music history, that will be beyond the scope of a brief inventory, but will also comprise aspects of the research history. Beside the codicological information and the presentation of the contents (in the case of liturgical manuscripts referring to standard texts), we shall particularly take into account the description of musical notations. The project results shall be made accessible in a database together with digital photos on the World Wide Web.

The sources of early music history in Austria have until now not yet been sufficiently investigated. Despite meritorious case studies we are still lacking a systematic survey of the musical tradition in Austrian libraries from the 9th to the early 16th centuries. Among the rich collection of documents of medieval music in Austria`s monasteries there are certainly still many new and unknown to be found; in the long run the exhaustive cataloguing of these manuscripts can only be realised by filing them in an electronic database. Yet the desiderata at the largest collection of our country, the Austrian National Library (ÖNB), are especially obvious. The prior scientific task is therefore, the compilation and evaluation of all sources with musical notation, which are stored in the Department of Manuscripts and partly, in the Department of Music of the ÖNB. As a matter of fact Latin codices will prevail, but German and Czech texts shall also be considered. For historic reasons the collection is extremely inhomogeneous. A preliminary list of the relevant sources (actually around 200 shelf-marks) will present the basis for a complete catalogue focussing on music history, that will be beyond the scope of a brief inventory, but will also comprise aspects of the research history. Beside the codicological information and the presentation of the contents (in the case of liturgical manuscripts referring to standard texts), we shall particularly take into account the description of musical notations. The project results shall be made accessible in a database together with digital photos on the World Wide Web.