Special Collections @ Harvard

Harvard's collections of rare and unique materials include many music items held in the Isham Memorial Library of the Loeb Music Library, the Houghton Library, and the Harvard Theatre Collection.

See Music in Special Collections for guides to using these libraries.

RISM

RISM (International Inventory of Musical Sources/Répertoire International des Sources Musicales): a cooperative effort to identify and describe the world's pre-1850 musical sources, to record what primary sources exist and where they can be located. The University of Melbourne Music Faculty's introduction to RISM may help you understand and use the catalog entries.

Search RISM

  • RISM-OPAC: A catalog of over 1 million musical sources - manuscripts, printed early editions, and anthologies - most written before 1800, from hundreds of libraries and archives around the world. Includes the A/I, AII, and B/I series.
  • Themefinder U.S. RISM A/II: incipits of over 55,000 post-1600 musical manuscripts from U.S. libraries.

RISM Contents

Series A: Inventory by composer of musical sources 1600-1800 (prints and manuscripts containing works by a single composer)
Available online or in print:

Series B: Bibliographies of materials organized by topic (sources containing works by more than one composer; theoretical writing about music). 

  • A list of the volumes in Series B is available from the U.S. RISM Office.
  • Loeb Music Library | Spalding Room and Isham Memorial Library | ML113.I6

Series C: Directory of Music Research Libraries (in print only)

  • Loeb Music Library | Spalding Room and Isham Memorial Library | ML12.D615 1979

Using the RISM Online Catalog (RISM-OPAC)

This 2-minute video will help you get started searching the RISM-OPAC for sources from RISM Series A/I, A/II, and B/I: