The International Joint Commission of the RISMAuthor(s): Vladimir FédorovSource: Fontes Artis Musicae, Vol. 9, No. 1 (1962 JANUAR-JUNI), pp. 5-7Published by: International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres(IAML)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23504220 .

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RISM: THE WASHINGTON MEETING s

RISM is indebted to many persons, scholars and librarians, officials, governments, and so

on, in many lands for their help in all that has been accomplished up to now. It is impossible

for me to express our thanks for this help here and now. I shall have to pass over the

majority of the names that should be mentioned—and trust that, by doing so, I shall not

wound those who have helped us so much. But I must at least thank my closest collaborators

on the Commission Mixte:

M. Fédorov, the general secretary Mr. Hyatt King, the deputy chairman

and the other members :

Monsignore Anglès Mme Beljaeva

Professor P. H. Lang Professor R. B. Lenaerts and

Dr. Sartori

I shall conclude, ladies and gentlemen, with a request. First listen to the reports by M.

Fédorov, Dr. Rehm, M. Lesure and Dr. Heckmann—and then bombard us with questions.

The more you ask, the happier we shall be.

VLADIMIR FEDOROV (FRANCE)

The International Joint Commission of the RI S M

As our President has just told you, the principle behind the creation of an International

Joint Commission for the Inventory was agreed upon after the IAML Congress in Paris in

July 1951. After interminable and useless debates, the bitter taste of which I have invol

untarily retained, the two associations, which were collaborating for the first time, convened

a constitutive assembly for the Commission, which met at UNESCO House in Paris in

January 1952. Representing the IMS, the following participated: Mgr. Anglès, Profs. Blume

and Smijers and Dr. Möhr. Representing the libraries: delegates of the six principal music

libraries, London, Munich, Paris, Rome, Vienna and Washington. Numerous members of the

UNESCO staff, of its Library Division and of the International Music Council aided us with

their advice.

As the person responsible for convening this assembly, I submitted to it also a technical,

administrative and financial plan for the future Commission. Three days of discussions ended

up with an adaptation of the general lines of this plan and with the definitive establishment

of the International Joint Commission consisting of three delegates from the IMS.: Mgr.

Anglès and Profs. Blume and Smijers, and three delegates of the IAML: Fédorov, Hyatt King

and Pirrotta. At the suggestion of the IAML, Prof. Blume was elected president of the Com

mission; the Commission designated me as its secretary.

An attempt was of course made to make the technical, administrative and financial plans

proposed as simple and clear as the difficulties of such a vast international undertaking

would permit. The Inventory was divided into two main series : the large general alphabetical

series, which would replace Eitner's Quellen-Lexikon ; and the classified series, which should

include all the isolated volumes related to :

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6 RISM: THE WASHINGTON MEETING

— groups of works : the printed collections, for example, which also were to replace Eitner's

Sammelwerke; — periods and forms: monodic and polyphonic music of the Middle Ages for instance; — branches of musical science: the theoreticians of the Middle Ages, books on music

published before 1800; — instruments: lute, Keyboard instruments; — countries: Byzantium, India; — subsidiary materials : musical periodicals, librettos.

I should like to draw your attention to the fact that this enumeration does not pretend to be

exhaustive; these are only examples.

Now, how was the Joint Commission going to tackle this task for which, at the moment,

it could discern neither the limitation nor the final outcome?

Once the plan for making a start was adopted, its task consisted, of course, in supervising its execution, in facilitating the means of carrying it out, in remedying its imperfections and

gaps. But the essential thing was, obviously, to start the ball rolling in a practical way. To do so, there were three main things to settle:

— to form national working groups in each country which was in a position to make a con

tribution to the volumes of collections of the Inventory; these groups would, in fact, do

the actual work of making inventories in their respective countries; —

secondly, to obtain the collaboration of specialists for certain isolated volumes; —

thirdly, to create one or several international centres for deposit of materials and for

research, centres which would direct and coordinate the efforts of the participating countries and would prepare the volumes of the Inventory for printing. As soon as the first national committees had been formed, a central Secretariat of the

Répertoire was established in May 1953 in Paris, thanks to the generous assistance of the

French national Library. It was put under the direction of our friend François Lesure. It was

his responsibility to deal with the most urgent part of the Inventory — the part which could be

realized most quickly: the classified series. He will describe to you himself in a few minutes

the first steps, he will enumerate the difficulties he had to overcrome; he will give you a

picture of the organization of the secretariat, the work it has accomplished and the results

obtained and will give you an idea of the future projects. Once it was assured of the creation of the national working groups and the very difficult

coordination of their functioning, once the first contacts had been made with the specialists and the functioning of the Paris secretariat itself had been assured and positive results had

been obtained, the Joint Commission decided to attack simultaneously the great general al

phabetical series of the Inventory and established, in April 1960, a second central office,

this time in Kassel, Germany. This second center was put under the direction of a young German musicologist, Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm Riedel. You will hear the report of this second

center and judge for yourselves of the opportuneness of this step. The knottiest part of .the Inventory plan to realize was, as you can well imagine, the

financial organization of the scheme. But any valuable undertaking which one attacks with

complete conviction and contagious enthusiasm always finds somehow a means of realization

The International Music Council, the Library Division of UNESCO, The International

Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies, governments and national scientific foun

dations, the National Library in Paris, the City of Kassel, the German Radio and, last but

not least, the Council on Library Resources of the Ford Foundation have come, in turn, to

our aid and continue still to give material support to the Joint Commission in its efforts,

which pessimists considered from the beginning to be completely hopeless. Our treasurer

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RrSM: THE WASHINGTON MEETING 7

will describe to you in some detail how and to what extent these organizations have helped us. He will also tell you of the sympathetic understanding shown by two German music

publishers, Bärenreiter-Verlag and Henle-Verlag, who have taken over, at their own risk

and peril, the publication of our two immense series.

Including now a good number of countries, collaborators, and specialized branches of

growing importance, the International Joint Commission has had to enlarge, proportionately, its membership. It recently added to its membership an American, Prof. Paul Henry Lang, and a Soviet delegate, Mrs. Beljaeva; it replaced the late Prof. Smijers by Prof. Lenaerts and

our friend Pirrotta, who resigned, by Prof. Sartori. The Commission meets regularly at least

once a year and most of the time with very extensive representation; this permits it to

maintain close and constant contact with all of the national committees, the heads of its

central offices, and its immediate collaborators.

The Commission is extremely happy to be able to hold a plenary session among you here

today, with the sincere hope of strengthening thereby its liaison and of obtaining a franker, more direct collaboration with all of the members of the IMS, to begin with, —and especially with our American colleagues, whom we should like to see at our side much more frequently then has been possible up to now.

FRANÇOIS LESURE (FRANCE)

The Central Secretariat of RI S M, Paris

The Central Secretariat in Paris has been functioning since 195 3. Its role has consisted, first of all, in making contacts with the different national groups and in sending the neces

sary directives to these groups; then, in preparing for publication the volumes of the RISM

for which a priority had been given. It has included for more than seven years, besides the

head of the Secretariat working on a half-time basis, one lady-collaborator, also working half-time. In 1961 new financial aid was granted which has made it possible to speed up the

work and to engage two supplementary half-time assistants.

In the immediate years to come, the classified series of the RISM will be enriched by some ten volumes prepared by specialists or by the Central Secretariat in Paris. I shall

enumerate them in the order in which they will probably appear:

1. The Theory of Music from the Carolingian Era up to 1400, Vol. 1, edited by J. Smits

van Waesberghe, with the collaboration of P. Fischer and C. Maas, is just about to appear (Dec. 1961). It gives a description of the manuscripts to be found in the following countries:

Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Holland, Luxembourg and Switzerland. Since it appears that the editor will be unable to continue this work, the Joint Commission must find a

solution to the problem in the next few months and secure the collaboration of a new editor

to complete the work on this catalogue.

2. Tropen und Sequenzen, by Heinrich Husmann. This catalogue forms part of the series

of manuscripts of monodic liturgical music of the Middle Ages, which will comprise several

volumes. Prof. Husmann's text was sent to the printer a few days ago. We can, therefore,

hope to see it come out in 1962.

3. Recueils imprimés du XVIIIe s. (Printed Collections of the 18th Century). Edited by the Central Secretariat in Paris, it will consist of a chronological continuation of the first volume

of the RISM already published. But there will be in this second volume two differences of

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