Digitised sources from the ZHB Lucerne

Wednesday, May 24, 2023

Within the digitisation projects “Digital Music Unica in Switzerland” and “Disjecta membra”, a number of musical sources from the holdings of the Central and University Library of Lucerne were digitised in 2022. Around fifty music autographs and unique music prints are now online. Among these sources are works that are formative for the musical history of the canton of Lucerne, such as the magnificent manuscript of the three-choir mass by Franz Joseph Leonti Meyer von Schauensee composed for Beromünster. A vivid example of the benefits of such digitisation projects is the “Ottavo libro de concerti ecclesiastici” Op. 19 by Michelangelo Grancini, Kapellmeister at Milan Cathedral, printed in Milan in 1666. The digitisation of the Lucerne copy has made these compositions completely accessible for the first time. Although only the books of the alto, bass, and organ parts are preserved in Lucerne, the two missing part books of the soprano and the tenor have been digitised by the holding library of another copy in the United States (the Sibley music library of the Eastman school of music in Rochester NY). Interested users can therefore access the complete work via RISM Online.
Image: Detail from the first page of Meyer von Schauensee’s Mass for three choirs.