Two born-digital thematic catalogues

Tuesday, April 14, 2026

Two work catalogs, for composers Francesco Pollini and Luigi Cherubini, have recently been completed as born-digital publications. They supplement the growing number of digital versions of traditional thematic catalogs that can be accessed on the RISM Online search platform. These catalogs are directly linked to the database that collects and describes musical sources, and they instantly establish connections between works and sources. This allows users to explore their content and performance locations, and to interact with the international cataloging heritage. The two digitally native thematic catalogs were created using Muscat, the RISM cataloging software. The essential data contained in the database is supplemented by historical and musicological context published on a dedicated website. The first catalog is dedicated to Francesco Pollini (1762–1846). An amateur composer, tenor, pianist, and fortepiano teacher, Francesco Pollini was a prominent figure in the Milanese music scene from the late 18th century through the early decades of the 19th century. Born in Ljubljana, and after completing his early studies in his native country, he finished his training in Vienna in the 1780s, where he met Mozart. In 1793, he settled in Milan, where he was intensely active as a teacher and composer. His oeuvre comprises 262 catalog numbers across all genres, with a predominance of piano compositions. His reputation as a pianist and composer was international, as testified by the praise of Glinka, Liszt, and Schumann. The catalog of Luigi Cherubini (1760–1842) now published is a partial catalog, encompassing his theoretical and pedagogical works. These include works such as solfège and basso continuo exercises, which are not generally considered “compositions” but are of great importance for fully understanding Cherubini’s views on the art of composition and the teaching of music theory. There is still no comprehensive thematic catalog of Cherubini’s works. The standard reference remains the catalog of Cherubini’s “Nachlass” compiled by Auguste Bottée de Toulmon (1797–1850) in 1843. It is hoped that this partial catalog will provide a stimulus for the compilation of a long-awaited general catalog of Cherubini’s works. These new catalogs are one of the outcomes of two research projects conducted at the Bern Academy of the Arts, Francesco Pollini and the Early Italian Piano Tradition and Luigi Cherubini and Composition Teaching at the Paris Conservatoire. The catalogs created with Muscat rely on a large-scale, long-term international research infrastructure. The Catalogs series of RISM Online was developed in accordance with FAIR principles, with a view to long-term sustainability. In this sense, these first two publications serve both as a tool for studying the authors’ works and as a model for the future of thematic catalogs in the digital environment.