Welcome to the Virtual Library of Musicology (ViFaMusik)

ViFaMusik, the central portal for music and musicology, allows you to access an extensive digital library containing the latest scholarly research and online resources. Using a single search engine you can find bibliographical data, entries to experts and research projects as well as current events to your search topic.

The currently available realms are listed in the navigation bar on the left side.

VifaMusik is funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft). The project has been developed over the course of a two-year construction phase since July 2005 at the Bavarian State Library in partnership with the State Institute for Musicological Research in Berlin and the German Musicological Society.

Questions or Comments? Please contact us at vifamusik@bib-bvb.de

News

23.06.2010: RISM online now: over 700,000 references
A new music catalogue has been available free online since June 2010 under http://opac.rism.info. This database offers around 700,000 mainly manuscript sources catalogued in detail according to academic criteria. The manuscripts are currently stored in hundreds of libraries and archives around the world. They pass down to later generations the musical works of 30,000 composers. The catalogue was made possible through cooperation between the International Inventory of Musical Sources (Rápertoire International des Sources Musicales, RISM for short), the Bavarian State Library (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek) and the State Library of Berlin (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin).
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01.03.2010: Facsimile-Edition of Buxheim Organ Book is available online
The category Digital Collections has been enhanced by the Facsimile-Edition of the Buxheim Organ Book .
This digital item contains the complete coloured facsimile reproduction of the handwritten organ book Mus.ms. 3752 from the Department for Manuscripts and Early Printed Books in the Bavarian State Library, edited and annotated by Bertha Antonia Wallner in 1955 and published by Bärenreiter, Kassel. The "Buxheim Organ Book" is a unique source for the organ playing practice in southern Germany in the second half of the 15th century, and it is considered to be the largest collection of organ music of this time. The main focus of the Buxheim Organ Book lies in intabulations of German songs and settings of the ordinary of the mass, and on the fundamenta for organ, particulary for the tradition of the "Fundamentum organisandi" of the Munich organist Conrad Paumann.

02-23-2009: Sheet music and sound recordings of the Deutsches Musikarchiv now available through the metasearch engine of the Virtual Library of Musicology.
A new data source has been added to the metasearch engine of the Virtual Library of Musicology. From now on, searches can be conducted in series M and T of the catalogue of the Deutsches Musikarchiv, which cover the catalogued holdings of the Deutsches Musikarchiv since 1976. It contains sheet music and sound recordings published in Germany.
The "Law regarding the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek" prescribes (among others) collection and cataloguing of deposit copies of sheet music and sound recordings at the Deutsches Musikarchiv, which is a department of the German National Library. This law covers sheet music and sound recordings published in Germany. Descriptive cataloguing of music is governed by the "special rules for alphabetical cataloguing of sheet music and sound recordings", a supplement to the "rules for alphabetical cataloguing (RAK)" which was first published in 1986 and the most recent edition of which is RAK-Musik 2003. In addition, titles are classified according to the sections of the DDC. Some 5.000 pieces of sheet music and 15.000 sound recordings are catalogued and documented in the series M and T of the "Deutsche Nationalbiographie" every year since 1976.

02-02-2009: The work of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy is now available online
Just in time for Mendelssohn's 200th birthday on February 03, 2009, the digital collections of the ViFaMusik have been extended by the first edition of the works of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Our collection of historical editions of the work of famous composers is being continued after a Händel- and a Liszt-edition with Mendelssohn's work as edited by Breitkopf & Härtel in 157 volumes. This edition is divided into 19 series (work groups) and was compiled by the musician and friend of Mendelssohn Julius Rietz (1812-1877) during 1874-1877. It includes around 5900 pages and contains all known works of Mendelssohn at that time. Some early works and alternative versions have only been discovered decades later and are not contained in Rietz' edition. Nevertheless, the work of this great German composer is represented here in its vast spectrum, including the symphonic work, the chamber music, oratories, operas, music for spectacles, sacred music, and Lieder.

08-11-2008: Carl-Alexander-Edition of the complete work of Franz Liszt is now online
The content on the webpage digital collections has been extended by the musical work of Franz Liszt in the Carl-Alexander-edition. We present all 34 volumes from the music department of the Bavarian State Library of this edition that was published between 1907 and 1936, and additionaly the two oratorias "Die Legende von der heiligen Elisabeth" and "Christus" in the first editions.

05-21-2008: RSS-feed for new digitizations of sheet music
The current digitizations of sheet music from the music department of the Bavarian State Library are now available via RSS-feed. From January until May 2008 approximately 40 volumes of sheet music have been digitized per month.

01-24-2008: Substantial extension of digitizations
The number of digital collections have increased considerably. The complete edition of the musical work of Georg Friedrich Händel (edited by Friedrich Chrysander) has been added as well as several other volumes of sheet music, books on music theory and musicology and libretti from the music department of the Bavarian State Library.

12-13-2007: RIdIM-database as new module of the ViFaMusik
The search in the RIdIM-database "RIdIM Deutschland: Datenbank zu Musik und Tanz in der Kunst" is now possible. This data is collected by the German research centre of the international project "Répertoire International d'Iconographie Musicale" and contains portrayals of music and dance in arts and crafts of all epochs. Mainly, the collections of large museums and libraries are considered for inclusion in the RIdIM-database.