by | October 15, 2026 · 6:00 am

Two fiddles and one concern: The Karakalpak ķobyz and the Albanian lahutë–UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding

This post is the third in a series featuring annotated bibliographies on performing arts inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. To promote open knowledge and preserve these traditions through scholarly writings, Bibliolore offers monthly posts over the course of one year. This post is published in conjunction with the International Day of Intangible Cultural Heritage, observed globally every 17 October.

In 2025, UNESCO inscribed two fiddles on its List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding: the Karakalpak ķobyz and the Albanian lahutë. Though separated by mountains and seas, these bowed string instruments have both transmitted epics across centuries, while today the musical practices associated with them share the risk of neglect and disappearance.

The ķobyz is a two-stringed bowed instrument carved from wood, with a partially open soundbox, a fretless neck, and a pegbox. An ancient instrument of the Turkic peoples, it is an essential part of musical traditions of Central Asia, including Karakalpakstan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. In Karakalpakstan, an autonomous republic of Uzbekistan, it is used to accompany the žyrau tradition of singing and storytelling, the raspy vocal timbres of which resemble the tones of the ķobyz. In neighboring Kazakhstan, the ķobyz was traditionally employed by performers known as baqsy during shamanistic rituals. Its sounds imitated the cries of animals and other sounds of the natural world, serving as a vessel for communication and a means of passage into a metaphysical realm. 

The Soviet era brought repression of Indigenous cultures, alongside the swift transformations of modern life and increased urbanization. Shamanic practices were suppressed, the repertoire handed down grew thinner, and today few ķobyz performers remain. The chain of oral transmission is broken, scattered by a world that moves ever faster.

Mylnyq-Zarlyqm, performed by Saian Aqmolda. An epic kui, an instrumental piece that is meant to express states. The original subject of this piece has been, however, forgotten.

The lahutë is a single-stringed wooden fiddle, with a wooden body and a soundboard fashioned from stretched animal skin, and it is native to the regions across northern and northwestern Albania. Its repertoire includes epic songs and verses performed by epic singers known as rapsods, a term from which the songs themselves take the name rapsodi. The repertoire has also widened in recent decades to embrace more personalized lyrics, giving voice to practitioners’ experiences and the shifting social and political landscapes they inhabit. The lahutë also belongs to the same family of instruments found across neighboring countries—Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina—where it is known as the gusle. In essence, the status of the instrument in Albania and other Balkan countries as a national symbol has grown, appearing in visual depictions and national programs; nonetheless, its everyday use, particularly from the second half of the 20th century onward, has declined.

Today, lahutë playing, the recitation of epic songs, and the making of the instrument all stand at risk. These traditions are confined to certain regions and families of limited means, and the Communist period’s censorship of religious celebrations and a scarcity of resources have further weakened them. Today, transmission rests on shifting forms and contexts, with social media increasingly shaping how recordings and videos of the practice reach new audiences.

A short documentary on the art of playing and making the lahuta. Produced by Barraka Productions in 2024.

The state and status of these two instruments mirror the rapidly shifting attitudes toward rural and nomadic life in an increasingly urbanized world. Their shift from practical tools in community celebrations and healing ceremonies to symbols laden with nationalist ideology marks a profound transformation: They no longer belong to the natural world that first gave them voice. Today, community members, educators, and policymakers in their respective countries strive to help these instruments not merely survive but thrive by implementing community-based documentation initiatives, dedicating income to musicians, creating opportunities and awareness campaigns, and developing safeguarding plans. In this endeavor, researchers and writers also have a role—not only as observers, but as custodians of memory and advocates for living heritage.

RILM Abstracts includes dozens of references to scholarship on the two instruments, in different languages. The writings cover the instruments’ history, social and ritual uses, and techniques for making and playing them. 

Annotated bibliography

The ķobyz

Gábry, György. “Egy hangszertípus útja Ázsiától Európáig. I” [The journey of a type of instrument from Asia to Europe. I], Magyar zene: Zenetudományi folyóirat 20:4 (December 1979) 350–373. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 1979-6652].

Explores the genesis and development of the archetype of the violin called the ķobyz and its role in Hungarian music history. According to László Lajtha, the instrument existed in both bowed and plucked forms and may have been brought from the early homeland. Werner Bachmann proposed that the oldest string instruments correspond in form, structure, and tuning to the early medieval plucked instruments of Central Asia. Central Asian sources mention the qobuz or kobuz as early as the beginning of the 10th century; some references suggest it was plucked, while others hint at the use of a bow. 

Gábry, György. “Egy hangszertípus útja Ázsiától Európáig. II” [The journey of a type of instrument from Asia to Europe. II], Magyar zene: Zenetudományi folyóirat 21:3 (September 1980) 223–248. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 1980-6748].

Discusses what the archetype of the ķobyz, a Central Asian string instrument, may have looked like around the millennium. The Hungarians maintained both the name ķobyz and the instrument itself. In the 14th century, the ķobyz is mentioned among the professions, and the term hegedűs is also traceable (initially fiellator in Latin). Regarding the proliferation of the archetype in Eurasia, one must distinguish at least two types: Eastern and Western, respectively; thus we see influences first from East to West, then from West to East. The basic type of the ķobyz survived in its rounded variant as a bowed instrument. This type might have been identical with the instrument called the hagadő. The origins of the word hegedű are discussed. 

Junussova, Balzhan, Dinara Bulatova, and Saule Utegalieva. “Kazakh prima-kobyz and Kyrgyz prima-kyyak: The experience of the comparative study”, Musicologist: International journal of music studies8:2 (December 2024) 210–232. [RILM Abstracts of Music LiteratureRILM 2024-21387]. 

Considers the improved (or prima) models of the Central Asian bowed chordophones ķobyz (the Kazakh version) and ķyyak (Kyrgyz). The primaķobyz and primakyyak were invented in the 1930s and have not yet been widely studied. Similar instruments became widespread in many Turkic republics of Central Asia as part of the creation of folk orchestras. Later, musicians used them actively in ensemble and solo practice. Their popularity and available repertoire make it possible to study them more closely.

Khodzhaniiazov, Ihor. “Cobuz cumanicus: Reconstructing the instrument”, in Rabab, Rubeba, Rubāb: Fellbespannte Streichinstrumente im historischen und kulturellen Kontext [Rabāb, rubeba, rubāb: Skin-covered bowed string instruments in historical and cultural context], ed. by Thilo Hirsch, Marina Haiduk, and Thomas Gartmann. Ergon Verlag (Baden-Baden: 2025) 319–328.

The Cumans, also known as Kipchaks and Polovtsians, were a nomadic Turkic people who lived in the western Eurasian steppes from the 11th to the 14th centuries. Written sources, rare images, and archaeological artifacts document their main musical instrument, the ķobyz. Its traces appear in several folk traditions of the region, and related instruments include the South Asian sārindā and the Tibetan kokpo, among others. Researchers excavated two Cuman ķobyzes (dating from the 13th to 14th centuries) from archaeological sites in modern-day Ukraine and Russia and reconstructed them, though a lack of detail makes the results ambiguous. The ķobyz remains relatively unknown among other researchers and the public. New, detailed reconstructions of the ķobyz are proposed based on comparisons with a wide range of instruments. In addition, drawings of two reconstructed instruments are presented to better convey their structure. Another aim is to contextualize the ķobyz within similar traditions. This can help bolster our ideas about the instrument’s reconstruction and offer clues for reconstructing its repertoire.

Sajžan, Almat K̦arasaju̇ly. “Kazahskoe kobyzovoe ispolnitel’stvo: Problemy terminologii i applikaturnyh pozicij” [Kozakh ķobyz performance: The problems of terminology and fingering positions], Saryn art and science journal1:34 (March 2022) 15–22. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 2022-18453]. 

The ķobyz is one of the oldest Kazakh instruments and one of the world’s earliest bowed chordophones. The traditional ķobyz is unique in that, unlike other Kazakh (wider Turkic) instruments, it has not evolved to the present day. To this day, it remains relevant in all spheres of Kazakh music. Moreover, this instrument is widely used both in solo and ensemble practice. The teaching methods of the Kazakh ķobyz school and techniques for playing traditional and modern works are examined, along with topical issues in ķobyz performance and ways to address them. A new approach to pedagogy and the development of performance techniques in general is proposed. Consideration of this technique will significantly facilitate mastering both the instrument itself and the performance of modern works, large forms, and parts in orchestras and ensembles. The traditional and modern ķobyz terminology is addressed. The ķobyz hand positions and fingering principles are seen from a new perspective. A comparative analysis of the teaching aids for playing string-bowed instruments is included. Its results were adapted and introduced into ķobyz performance practice.

Šaripbaeva, Aknar Tattibaevna. “Nositel’ tradicij muzykal’no-ispolnitel’skogo iskusstva v sociume: Na primere kazahskih kobyzistov i ukrainskih kobzarej” [The bearer of the music performance traditions in society: Example of Kazakh ķobyz players and Ukrainian kobza players], Opera musicologica: Naučnyj žurnal Sankt-Peterburgskoj konservatorii12/4:46 (2020) 92–112. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 2020-14115]. 

Explores the functions of kobzars and ķobyz players in traditional society. The historical characteristics of the kobzar tradition, its genres, and its practices are described, with reference to the prominent ethnographers Filaret Kolessa and Taras Ševčenko. The Ukrainian kobza and the Kazakh ķobyz, it is argued, share a common Turkic origin. The activities of ķobyz players are characterized with reference to the work of the prominent ethnographers Alʹkej Xakanovič Margulan and Aleksandr Fëdorovič Ejxgorn. Examples of blind ķobyz players in Kazakh history, including Nyšan and Šože, are discussed, along with a lineage of ķobyz performers beginning with Yxlas Dukenov. Commonalities and differences in the historical development of folk performance traditions associated with the kobza and kobyz are explored, while the possibilities for supporting and reviving these traditional performance styles in modern society are considered.

The lahutë

Ahmedaja, Ardian. “The lahutë between everyday practice and symbolism”, Music in art: International journal for music iconography38/1-2 (2013) 144–160. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 2013-8655].

The lahutë is a single-string fiddle used by Albanian lahutarë to accompany epic songs (kângë, kangë, and këngë). Its different images are influenced essentially by the connection with ideas of cultural heritage and national culture, particularly since the independence of the country in 1912. The instrument is made from a single piece of wood with a skin soundboard. The scroll on the neck of the lahutë can be shaped as a heart, a leaf, or a goat head with antlers, symbolizing the helmet of the Albanian national hero Gjergj Kastrioti, known as Skanderbeg (Skënderbeu; 1405–68). The gusle, the same instrument used by the Albanians’ Slavic neighbors in Serbia, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which during the second half of the 20th century was decorated with likenesses of politicians and nationalistic symbolism, political figures or singers have rarely been portrayed on the lahutë neck. The lahutë’s bow is frequently made in the form of a serpent, possibly symbolizing the snake as a protector of the house. In the first half of the 20th century, the lahutë and the këngët e Mujit e Halilit (songs of Muji and Halili) accompanied by it became Albanian national symbols in public discussions, publications, and works of art. An example is the poem Lahuta e malcís (The highland lute, 1937) by the Roman Catholic priest Gjergj Fishta (1871–1940), where the instrument’s name represents the art of telling and the paean is based on songs accompanied by the lahutë, which the poet had learned from the highlanders living in northern Albania. The lahutë has no place, however, in Lyra shqiptare (1940) by Pjetër Dungu, the first Albanian melody collection, which contains music from the Albanian urban areas. Therefore, it is surprising to find with the melody no. 20 a drawing of a lahutar. Here, the instrument relates to traditional national culture broadly rather than illustrating a particular song or its origin. Understanding the lahutë as part of local musical practice gradually gained importance in the second half of the 20th century, although its everyday use decreased. The lahutë is also disappearing from television and radio programs and commercial recordings, despite its continued presence on the Internet, at folklore festivals, and at public gatherings of lahutarë, where only short song fragments are now played.

Ahmedaja, Ardian. “Songs with lahutë and their music”, in Balkan epic: Song, history, modernity, ed. by Philip V. Bohlman and Nada Petković. Scarecrow Press (Lanham: 2012) 101–132. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 2012-911].

The songs with lahutë, also known as rapsodi because epic singers called rapsods sing them, are notable not only for their local presence in the Albanian-language repertories of the Balkans, but also for the multiple levels at which they represent local ritual and tradition. Performed by professionals at family and social gatherings, the songs with lahutë honor guests and invest ritual with celebratory functions. Rather than as single epic songs, the songs draw upon many different subgenres and subrepertories, most of which contain narratives about individual heroes and events in Albanian history. The rapsods often distinguish among different historical moments, for example, the earliest struggles over agricultural land, followed centuries later by conflicts between Christian and Muslim forces as the Ottoman Empire stretched across Albania. Musically, too, the Albanian epic songs show more local ballad traits than the Slavic repertories (e.g., verse structures), while also relying on more extensive, elaborate improvisation. Each rapsod employs his own melodic formulas and modal-harmonic structures, delaying the feeling of arriving at the tonic until strategic points at the beginning and end. So concentrated are the local and personal elements in the songs with lahutë that they have come to map very specific areas of historical and cultural exchange in northern Albania, as well as the areas of Albanian settlement in Kosovo and Montenegro, while distinguishing the ritual and history of those areas from the other regions of Albania, which have their own, albeit distinctive, repertories of traditional song.

Cestino, Giovanni. “Beyond the words: Framing non-verbal aspects in the performance of songs with lahuta”, Etnografie sonore/Sound ethnographies 5:1 (2022) 35–54. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 2022-19116].

Scholars in epic studies have long recognized the relevance of various elements in epic singing that go beyond the verbal poem. Yet even though the field has already shifted from text to voice and from voice to singing, a voice-centered approach persists. Switching the perspective from (sung) voice to non-verbal aspects such as timbre, instrumental technique, and gesturality highlights how they relate to the voice and to one another. A Balkan repertoire of songs with lahutë and gusle is examined along with the impact of classical studies on new fieldwork data. The specific case of Kosovar singer Isa Elezi-Lekëgjekaj is discussed in detail and used as a model for mapping the non-verbal aspects of epic singing.

Čolović, Ivan, Dušan Mihailović,and Sanimir Resic. “Who owns the gusle? A contribution to research on the political history of a Balkan instrument”, in The Balkans in focus: Cultural boundaries of Europe, ed. by Sanimir Resic and Barbara Törnquist-Plewa. Nordic Academic Press (Lund: 2003) 59–81. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 2003-42738]. 

Examines the Balkan folk musical instrument, the gusle, from a standpoint of political anthropology, with emphasis on political symbols, myths, rituals, and other forms of expression emerging from an imaginary political corpus.

Dietrich, Wolf. “The singing of Albanian heroic poetry”, in The oral epic: Performance and music, ed. by Karl Reichl. VWB: Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung (Berlin: 2000) 83–94. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 2000-38436].

Examines not epic singing itself, but rather the music of the Roma groups in the country, using recordings made with a family in the village of Balldre, north of Lezhë. The epic tradition, the lahutë, the myths themselves, and musical performances are discussed.

Croatian guslar legend Mile Krajina performs with a gusle ornamented with a falcon head and a coat of arms, two Croatian national symbols.

Pettan, Svanibor. “Singing epic songs with bowed lute: A vignette from Croatia”, in Balkan epic: Song, history, modernity, ed. by Philip V. Bohlman and Nada Petković. Scarecrow Press (Lahman: 2012) 262–276. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 2012-916].

Why do Roma, despite their central role in so many Balkan musical repertories, rarely sing epic songs accompanied by bowed lute in many parts of the region? Other minorities, as well as women, similarly perform within many Balkan traditions but far less frequently in epic traditions. These questions require considering how tradition does not simply exist but is created and maintained to meet different requisites of ownership. With epics, those requisites extend further still—to the ways in which ownership seemingly generates power, and power, in the post-Yugoslav arena, eventually leads to the nation and the state. The case study of Mile Krajina, a Croatian epic singer who moves between tradition and state politics, illustrates this process. As exceptional as that journey may appear, it is not unique, and the discussion concludes with a challenge to recognize the remixing of modern narratives in epics to include minorities and majorities, the powerless and the powerful.

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by | October 8, 2026 · 6:00 am

Dad rock and pursuit of stylistic comfort

The term “dad rock” was coined in 2007 with the release of Wilco‘s sixth studio album, Sky blue sky, when a review by Pitchfork’s Rob Mitchum described the album as reflecting the band’s “dad rock gene . . . the stylistic equivalent of a wardrobe change into sweatpants and a tank top”. Mitchum characterized it as a pejorative term associated with passivity and domestication, highlighting Wilco’s shift towards comfort and complacency in their music. This review marked the first printed mention of “dad rock”, linking it to bands that, having once been popular, now rely on basic rock heritage influences without pushing creative boundaries. The label also evokes themes of domesticity and the pursuit of stylistic comfort.

While “dad rock” is often used pejoratively, some artists embrace the label, reflecting a binary perspective in online media. Platforms like Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, and streaming services showcase a diverse array of artists associated with dad rock–from Meat Loaf, Blink-182, and MGMT to classic rock icons including the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and Led Zeppelin. Playlists and compilation albums on these platforms highlight the genre’s wide-ranging influences, encompassing subgenres from 1980s hard and soft rock to 2010s indie rock.

The “dad” modifier also signifies both a masculine archetype and an aging demographic, as rock culture has historically been deeply rooted in masculine experiences, often sidelining women and others. The significance of celebrating rock’s male-dominated eras, such as its 1950s roots and the British invasion, underscores how rock has been deeply associated with masculine identities and imagery. Media formats such as magazines, television, and radio have been designed primarily for male audiences, contributing to the exclusion of women from music history and their absence in the rock canon.

Dad rock by year of release.

Dad rock by artist gender.

Dad rock follows this trajectory and is defined as guitar-based popular music characterized by canonical conventions, primarily produced by men of an age to father younger generations. The genre encompasses music of the baby boomer generation or is created by aging male artists after their peak commercial and critical success. Classic or canonical rock is often described as dad rock because of its male dominance and roots from the 1960s to 1980s. As Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy (see first image, right) notes, the term “dad rock” often equates simply to rock itself, representing the essence of the rock ethos. Given the processes that shape meaning in rock culture, virtually all rock music could at some point be labeled as dad rock.

This according to “I tried to have a father but instead I had a dad: Defining dad rock” by Charlotte Markowitsch (Rock music studies 11/1 [2024] 107–122; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2024-4840).

An example of a dad rock playlist.

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by | October 2, 2026 · 6:00 am

RILM’s global network of institutional partners

RILM is recognized globally as a leading digital archive for music bibliography, built through collaboration among various international organizations, academic institutions, and cultural repositories. Its governance is anchored through joint sponsorship by four major societies: the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres (IAML), the International Musicological Society (IMS), the International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance (ICTMD), and the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM). Together, these organizations unite historical musicology, ethnomusicology, and popular music studies to preserve the world’s musical heritage.

RILM also collaborates with cultural and academic institutions around the world to document and preserve the diversity of global musical traditions. For instance, in India, the Archives and Research Center for Ethnomusicology (ARCE) focuses on South Asian musical traditions and research, while the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris specializes in Arab music and history. Partnerships with the National College of Arts in Lahore (India) and the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing (China) further expand global music scholarship by incorporating important regional research and perspectives.

Bases of RILM’s international committees and partnerships.

RILM also works with UNESCO as an accredited non-governmental organization and civil society partner dedicated to preserving and safeguarding the world’s musical heritage. In addition, colleges and universities worldwide subscribe to RILM’s resources. Although North American and European institutions constitute the majority of its subscribers, RILM also has a significant presence in countries such as Japan, South Africa, and China. Japan, for example, has developed its own digital database for collecting and publishing information on academic literature related to music in the country.

Homepage for the RILM Japan website.

RILM’s interconnected framework effectively reduces regional and linguistic barriers in music research, facilitating global access to vital musical knowledge. By integrating localized expertise with a comprehensive digital infrastructure, RILM connects international societies, specialized archives, and national committees, enabling researchers to easily explore a wide range of musical genres–from 14th century European polyphony to Punjabi folk music and contemporary hip hop.

Related Bibliolore posts:

https://bibliolore.org/2026/02/24/rilms-global-network-of-committees-and-partnerships/

https://bibliolore.org/2026/02/13/rilms-first-international-collaborators-the-committees/

https://bibliolore.org/2026/02/17/rilms-global-mission-and-its-expansion-in-2024/

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by | September 27, 2026 · 6:00 am

Bali’s gamelan gong kebyar tradition

Gamelan gong kebyar emerged around the turn of the 20th century in North Bali’s Buléléng region, which came under Dutch colonial control in 1849. At the time, Bali was divided among eight kings whose rivalries allowed the Dutch to pit one kingdom against another. Dutch economic control was the intention, but their campaign was framed with moral arguments rooted in the Balinese slave trade (from which the Dutch had long benefited) and in widow sacrifice tied to royal cremations. In succession, the Balinese kingdoms fell to Dutch attacks: Lombok in 1894, Badung (Denpasar) in 1906, and Klungkung in 1908. As the historian Adrian Vickers notes, “The Dutch moved on the capital of Denpasar. On the morning of September 20, the king, his family and thousands of armed followers all dressed in white and ready to meet death in battle, marched out to meet the Dutch. Each of the leading warriors ran amok in turn, marching on as if bullets would bounce off their bodies. The Dutch opened fire on women with weapons in their hands, lance or kris, and children in their arms who advanced fearlessly upon the troops and sought death . . . surrender was impossible.”

The Dutch cavalry in Bali, circa 1906. Photo by Colin McPhee, courtesy of the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive.
A drawing of Balinese forces attacking Dutch troops in Kusamba on Bali’s southern coast in 1849.

The reasons that led to the artistic flowering that followed the collapse of the Balinese kingdoms are open to speculation. The Balinese musician I Nyoman Catra has suggested that the surge of experimentation functioned like medicine, helping to heal the trauma of social upheaval and colonial occupation. With the dismantling of the power and wealth of the regional courts, the arts broadened beyond the capitals and spread into the banjar (village) effectively democratizing artistic life. Furthermore, new fashions and technologies associated with modernity arrived with the Dutch, alongside a small but steady flow of European and U.S. travelers who, in the 1920s, began traveling to Bali on cruise ships.

Balinese gong kebyar musicians, circa 1906. Photo by Colin McPhee, courtesy of the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive.

Around this time, gamelan gong kebyar and related dances were beginning to be heard and seen across both North and South Bali. Kebyar’s innovations took shape between 1910 and 1915 in North Bali’s Buléléng region, then the Dutch colonial administration center. Across the island in the late 19th century, Balinese-language literary life–sometimes blended with Kawi (known as old Javanese)–entered a particularly creative phase. Traditional poetic genres and their song forms took on mystical, romantic, historical, and sociopolitical themes, while renewed interest in classical kakawin texts also inspired a wave of Balinese literary clubs devoted to teaching Kawi recitation and translating the material into Balinese language. Another popular genre, palawakya, a non-metric Balinese form of storytelling, chanting, or prose narration with themes inspired by the Mahabharata, also emerged during this period. Clubs from different villages often competed with one another before larger, growing audiences at ceremonial religious events and at night markets.

Balinese gong kebyar musicians, circa 1906. Photo by Colin McPhee, courtesy of the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive.

At these gatherings, the juru baca (singer/reader) and the juru basa (translator) might sit within a gamelan while kakawin verses from the Mahabharata were intoned. Alternatively, musicians within the ensemble could sing a kakawin verse on the spot–since performers were expected to know kakawin well enough to respond musically to the sung text. The gamelan would punctuate these moments with brief instrumental interludes drawn from the classical repertoire, increasingly animated by the brighter, more improvisatory phrasing that would come to define the gong kebyar tradition.

This according to the commentary by Edward Herbst that accompanies the CD The roots of gamelan: The first recordings—Bali, 1928; New York, 1941 (World Arbiter, 1999; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 1999-38076).

Related Bibliolore posts:

https://bibliolore.org/2023/06/12/lost-and-found-balinese-music/

https://bibliolore.org/2022/11/14/balinese-aesthetics/

https://bibliolore.org/2019/08/15/bali-remixed-and-revisited/

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by | September 22, 2026 · 6:00 am

Behind the scenes: RILM’s Commission Internationale Mixte

RILM’s Commission Internationale Mixte plays a crucial role in directing global musicology by influencing how researchers engage with music literature. Established in 1968 under Barry S. Brook, RILM’s founder, the committee ensures that RILM’s digital collections and bibliographies reflect a comprehensive representation of global music scholarship across various languages, subdisciplines, and cultural contexts. Acting as the primary governing and advisory board, the Commission functions as an international steering committee, overseeing that digital tools and bibliographies accurately encapsulate the diverse landscape of music research. It serves as a crucial link between RILM’s overarching mission and its daily operations at the International Center, thereby enhancing the relevance and effectiveness of music scholarship worldwide.

The board features a democratic structure that blends distinct perspectives from four major international sponsoring societies. It consists of 16 voting members, divided equally among four institutions: the International Musicological Society (IMS), the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres (IAML), the International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance (ICTMD), and the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM). Additionally, the RILM Executive Director participates as a non-voting member to bridge the gap between policy making and active implementation.

The Commission Mixte does more than provide administrative oversight; its decisions directly impact how scholars locate music literature. By merging historical musicology, ethnomusicology, popular music, and library science, the board safeguards diversity so that no genre, geographic region, or culture is overlooked. They guide how RILM adapts to shifting digital publishing standards, which simplifies how students and professors uncover niche articles, dissertations, and conference proceedings. Furthermore, they facilitate connections with a massive network of national committees worldwide, ensuring that data pipelines remain active across geopolitical borders. This collaborative framework provides modern music scholarship with an essential interconnected digital map that supports daily research and exploration.

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by | September 15, 2026 · 6:00 am

A global instrument, a German tradition: Organ craftsmanship–A UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity

The hydraulis of Dion (above), dating to the 1st century B.C.E., is the world’s oldest surviving archaeological example of a pipe organ. Photo taken by RILM Executive Director Tina Frühauf while in Greece for the International Association of Music Libraries Congress (IAML) in June/July 2026. The hydraulis of Dion has been extensively discussed in the scholarly literature. For further reading, see RILM Abstracts.

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This post is the second in a series that features annotated bibliographies on performing arts inscribed in UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. To promote open knowledge and preserve these traditions through scholarly writings, a monthly post is curated for Bibliolore over the course of the year.

The organ is a truly global instrument. Over the centuries, it has crossed seas and lands, finding a place in ceremonial contexts, in churches and synagogues, and later on in concert halls and movie theaters. Its earliest known ancestor, the hydraulis, was developed in Alexandria during the Hellenistic period. From there, the organ and the knowledge of organ building spread across the Mediterranean and beyond, as communities found new uses for the instrument, adapted its design, experimented with its possibilities, and responded to its distinct sound. By the eighth and ninth centuries, the organ reached Western Europe, where it was sometimes given as a gift to dignitaries, a gesture to establish or mend diplomatic ties among nations. In the medieval Islamic world, too, organs were known and used in centers such as Baghdad, Cairo, and Córdoba.

By the Middle Ages, the organ had become increasingly important in the Catholic churches of Europe. Its incorporation into liturgical practice developed over several centuries, with important early evidence emanating from Anglo-Saxon England as well as on the European continent. In the German-speaking lands, monasteries became important sites for the construction and development of organs. By the 15th and 16th centuries, numerous cities had emerged as centers of organ building and innovation. In the centuries that followed, German organ builders and craftsmen continued to make significant contributions to the instrument’s development, establishing a living tradition of craftsmanship. Even as this tradition remains deeply rooted in the region’s heritage, German organ builders transmitted their knowledge across borders, sharing their mechanical precision and musical artistry with the world.

RILM Abstracts includes tens of thousands of references to scholarship on the instrument’s music and construction in 51 languages, reflecting how this truly global instrument was adopted and adapted across geographies throughout the centuries. The database also includes rare sources featuring 80 references to the hydraulis organ, 313 to the theater organ, 40 to portative organs, and lesser-known references in Chinese, Japanese, and Afrikaans.

This annotated bibliography celebrates UNESCO’s inclusion of organ craftsmanship and music on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2012 by presenting selected writings on German organ building from the 442 entries on the topic found in RILM Abstracts.

Check out a map of pipe organs in Germany and elsewhere. (https://pipeorganmap.com/map)

Annotated bibliography

Fidom, Hans. “Nederlandse orgelbouw in de vroege 20ste eeuw: Duite achtergrondeng” [Dutch organ building in the early 20th century: German backgrounds], Het orgel: Uitgave van de Koninklijke Nederlandse Organistenvereniging 97:5 (2001) 27–40. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 2001-23570].

Dutch organ building traditionally followed developments in Germany and France. At the end of the 19th century, the German moderne orgel was particularly influential. Consequently, understanding Dutch organ building in this period requires examining developments in Germany. The roots of the German moderne orgel can be traced to the early 19th century, when organ building became rationalized. Georg Joseph (Abbé) Vogler presented his system of simplification, and Johann Gottlob Töpfer published his Lehrbuch der Orgelbaukunst. Organ builders such as Walcker followed Vogler, while others, including Ladegast, followed Töpfer. At the end of the 19th century, the modern organ appeared to be an instrument with one basic pitch (represented by the 8’ stops) and one basic tone color (which could be varied endlessly). Electro-pneumatic action and stop channel chests made this organ type possible. After 1900, the modern organ was modified by Oscar Walcker according to the ideas of Emil Rupp and Albert Schweitzer (Rupp named this the Alsacian Organ Reform), resulting in giant organs with relatively more pipes and mixtures and larger swell boxes than the modern organ. Following World War I, the Orgelbewegung, oriented toward Baroque organ culture, became important: Its leader, Christhard Mahrenholz, hoped to develop a contemporary organ type based on historical principles. In the Netherlands, however, the Alsacian Reform was not very influential. After the 1930s, the organ builder Flentrop seemed to make a strong Orgelbewegung-related statement with his new organs with slider chests, tracker action, and Baroque-like dispositions, but in the 1950s the Danish firm Marcussen received the important Dutch projects. After 1970, the “Scandinavian episode” made way for the historicism of many Dutch organ builders. Meanwhile, a contemporary organ style was developed abroad, based on the Alsacian Reform interpretation of the modern organ and some of the principles of the Orgelbewegung. Because these builders depend on research, they are related to historicizing organ builders: Both are rationalists.

Fischer, Hermann, and Theodor Wohnhaas. Georg Friedrich Steinmeyer (1819–1901) und sein Werk: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des bayerischen Orgelbaues im 19. Jahrhundert [Georg Friedrich Steinmeyer (1819–1901) and his work: A contribution to the history of Bavarian organ building in the 19th century], Das Musikinstrument (Frankfurt am Main: 1978). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 1978-5827]. 

Georg Friedrich Steinmeyer, a pupil of Eberhard Friedrich Walcker in Ludwigsburg, founded his own organ workshop in Oettingen in 1847. Steinmeyer’s biography, the development of his workshop into a factory, the constructional features of his organs, their specifications, and the Steinmeyer facades are discussed. His co-workers, surveyors, and architects are also named. Steinmeyer’s oeuvre up to 1899 included 676 organs; they are arranged alphabetically and described briefly. Tables, sketches, and drawings of the facades are included. Special attention is given to Steinmeyer’s position in Bavarian organ building and to the history of 19th-century organ facades. A list of Bavarian builders is included. (abstract by Hermann Fischer)

Biographical organs in Germany: https://www.organ-biography.info/organs.php?id=vSPB

Georg Friedrich Steinmeyer

Frühauf, Tina. The organ and its music in German-Jewish culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 2009-235].

Examines the presence of the organ in synagogue music and the musical life of German-speaking Jewish communities, chronicling the history of the organ in Jewish culture from the earliest references in the Talmud through the 19th century, when it had established a firm and lasting presence in Jewish sacred and secular spaces in central Europe. The introduction of the organ into German synagogues was part of the significant changes which took place in Judaism after the Enlightenment. Indeed, the organ became a symbol of the division of the Jewish community into Orthodox and Reform congregations. Newly composed organ music for Jewish liturgy, after this division, became part of a cross-cultural music tradition in the 19th- and 20th-century Germany, when a specific style of organ music developed, which combined elements of Western and Jewish cultures. Concluding with a discussion of the organ in Jewish communities in Israel and the U.S., the book presents in-depth case studies (analyses of selected organ works by Deutsch, Lewandowski, Samuel, and Würzburger), which illustrate how the organ has been utilized in the musical life of specific Jewish communities in the 20th century. The original German edition, Orgel und Orgelmusik in deutsch-jüdischer Kultur (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 2005), is indexed in RILM Abstracts as well.

Hofner, Hans. “Der ostfränkische Orgelbau. Geschichte und Ausstrahlungen auf andere Orgellandschaften” [Organ building in East Franconia. Its history and effects upon other organ districts], Archiv für Geschichte von Oberfranken 52 (1972) 7–116. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 1976-1476]. 

Traces the history of organ building in the former margravate of Bayreuth and illustrates how this style spread to Saxony, Thuringia, Coburg, Lower Franconia, and Württemberg. The biographies of the following organ builders are provided: Matthias Tretzscher of Kulmbach (1626–86), Tobias Dressel of Falkenstein/Buchholz (1635–1717), Johann and Adam Heinrich Gruber of Hof/Adorf (1690–1725), Daniel Felix Streit of Kulmbach (1619–1730), the Puruckers of Marktleuthen im Sechsämterland (1670–1730), the Leubes and Hollbeck of Hof/Zwickau (1650–1700), Graichen and Ritter of Hof/Erlangen (1739–65), Gottlob Hubert of Bayreuth/Ansbach (1714–93), and the Heidenreichs of Hof/Bayreuth (1741–1860). Thirty photographs of organ facades, documents, and seals, as well as 120 descriptions of dispositions, are included.

Kaliberda, Sergej. “Органы немецких колоний Причерноморья, или еще одна органная ‘Атлантида’” [The organs of the German colonies at the Black Sea, or, another organ Atlantis], Organ: Žurnal ob organnoj kul’ture 3-4:19:20 (2013) 21–27. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 2013-17438]. 

Discusses the history of organs in the German colonies located between the Pìvdennyj Bug and Dnìpro rivers, which appeared after the Russo-Turkish War (1768–74) with permission from Empress Ekaterina II, Emperor Pavel I, and Emperor Aleksandr I. The history and disposition of the late–19th- and early–20th-century organs of the German firms Walcker and Steinmeyer in the Mykolaiv and Odesa areas, and in Ekaterinoslav are examined. Facsimile documents of the organ-building firms are included.

Kocourek, Jiří. “Orgelland Böhmen” [Organ country Bohemia], Ars organi: Internationale Zeitschrift für das Orgelwesen 57:1 (March 2009) 5–18. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 2009-1111]. 

Traces the history of organ building in Bohemia from the 13th to the 20th century. The exchange between Czech and German organ building is considered, and the names of towns in the border region are given in both Czech and German. Characteristics of Bohemian organs are described, and an overview of known organ builders is provided.

Ladegast, Walter. Friedrich Ladegast: Der Orgelbauer von Weißenfels [Friedrich Ladegast: The organ builder from Weissenfels], Weidling (Stockach-Wahlwies: 1988). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 1998-17613]. 

Friedrich Ladegast was one of the preeminent 19th-century organ builders. After a difficult start, he established himself in Weißenfels, where he built organs that still testify to his exceptional sense of sound and craft. Famous Ladegast organs are still to be heard in Merseburg, Köthen, Ronneburg, Wernigerode, Schwerin, Biederitz, Parum, Hermsdorf, Leipzig, Weißenfels, and Wittenberg, to name just the most important surviving instruments. All current information about Ladegast is presented in this first monograph on the subject. The many illustrations of his organs also reveal the visual variety of the instrument. In addition, a survey of Ladegast organs built before 1888, a map of locations, and a glossary of organ registers are included.

Lampl, Sixtus. “Orgeldenkmalpflege in Bayern” [Preservation of organs in Bavaria], Jahrbuch der bayerischen Denkmalpflege 38 (1990) 161–179. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 1990-2058].

A survey of the development of organ building in southern Germany from the 17th to the 20th centuries, the builders and their workshops or factories, and the various mechanical systems and problems of their conservation and restoration. This is an enlarged version of a report given on the occasion of the inauguration of the St. George organ in Munich (Obermenzing) in July 1985.

Main organ of the St. Lorenz Church (Lorenzkirche), Nuremberg. With over 12,000 pipes and 165 registers, the organ stands as one of the largest organs in the world


Prost, Dietrich. “Der norddeutsche Orgelbau des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts auf dem Gebiet der DDR: Bestandsaufnahme, charakteristische Merkmale, Probleme der Werterhaltung” [North German organ building of the 17th and 18th centuries in East Germany: Inventory, characteristic features, and problems of conservation], Bericht über das 5. Symposium zu Fragen des Orgelbaus im 17.-18. Jahrhundert [Report on the 5th symposium on questions of organ building in the 17th and 18th centuries], ed. by Eitelfriedrich Thom. Kultur- und Forschungsstätte Michaelstein (Blankenburg: 1985) 19–123. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 1985-5172].

Provides examples of instruments from the three periods of North German organ building during the 17th and 18th centuries. The 17th century was characterized by construction corresponding to antiphonal musical practice, while the following century was characterized by the concertato style, and the third by the Empfindsamer Stil.

Vlagsma, Auke H. “Andreas en Marten de Mare: Orgelmakers van de Renaissance. I: Inleiding en werken van Andreas de Mare” [Andreas and Marten de Mare: Organ builders of the Renaissance. I: Introduction and the works of Andreas de Mare], Het orgel: Tijdschrift van de Nederlandse Vereniging van Organisten en Kerkmusici 109:6 (2013) 36–41. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 2013-12076]. 

After the Reformation in the 16th century, many organ builders left the Netherlands to seek work in Germany. One of these was Andreas de Mare from Gent, who had previously had enough work in the northern Netherlands because the Spanish troops, who hindered the Reformation, stayed in control there much longer—in Groningen, even until 1594. Andreas worked both in the city of Groningen and in the province. His work is known in the city (1558, the Der Aa-Kerk), in Midwolda between 1564 and 1566, and in 1578 in Zuidbroek. From 1566 to 1567, he expanded his work area to include the Lutheran region of Ostfriesland, where he built his first organ at St. Ludgeri in Norden. In 1577 to 78, he rebuilt the organ in the Grote Kerk of Emden with his son Marten. Later, they worked together in Verden, Bremen, and then in Hannover, Stadthagen, and Loccum. Andreas died in 1599. Marten became a citizen of Bremen in 1595. When the opportunities for work in Ostfriesland also diminished, the De Mares moved to Hannover. A list of Andreas de Mare’s works is provided.

Vogt, Franz-Josef, and Gabriel Isenberg. “Der Kölner Orgelbauer Ernst Seifert und sein Werkverzeichnis” [The Cologne organ builder Ernst Seifert and his catalog of works], Acta organologica 38 (2024) 179–366. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 2024-27413]. 

Ernst Hubert Seifert was born on 9 May 1855 in Sülzdorf in the Thuringian district of Hildburghausen. After completing his training as an organ builder, he served as foreman for Franz Wilhelm Sonreck in Cologne and for Clemens Schneider in Mudersbach. It was during this period that Seifert developed his first purely pneumatic wind chest system (“communication chest”), which was later patented. At the beginning of 1885, Seifert established his own organ building company in Cologne-Mannsfeld. While the sound quality of his instruments undoubtedly adhered to the spirit of the times at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, it is remarkable how certain Ernst Seifert must have been of the function of his pneumatic system, which he used exclusively from the start. One of the most important instruments from Seifert’s workshop is the large, recently restored organ in the Marienbasilika in Kevelaer. Built in 1907, this instrument remains one of the most important examples of late–Romantic-period organ building in Germany and was the basis for the opening of a Seifert’s branch in Kevelaer. Only a small number of the instruments from the company founder’s time have survived. It is therefore critical to care for the few remaining Seifert organs from this era that have been preserved unchanged, including the small organ (restored in 2022) located in Seifert’s birthplace of Sülzdorf. The handwritten catalog of works compiled by Ernst Seifert lists a total of 209 instruments that were built between 1885 and 1914. The information in the catalog is transcribed and commented on in detail. Important findings on the prehistory of Seifert organs have also been added, and details on the instruments’ subsequent development have been compiled. Such detailed information provides insights into the construction and disposition of Seifert’s instruments. The fifth generation of the Romanus Seifert family branch of the company still operates in Kevelaer today.

Ernst H. Seifert

Voigt, Markus. “Orgelbouw en “Orgelbewegung” in de DDR” [Organ building and the Orgelbewegung in the German Democratic Republic], Het orgel: Tijdschrift van de Nederlandse Vereniging van Organisten en Kerkmusici105:5 (2009) 26–43. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 2009-19576]. 

The organ culture of the German Democratic Republic (DDR) can only be understood against the background of economic, political, and ideological circumstances. Organ-building firms (including four state firms and 17 private firms), employing 250 people, were organized into the Artikelgruppe Orgelbau in 1981. The firms were strongly dependent on each other, and there was no competition: The only relevant factors were the shared need to acquire materials and to get along collectively with the socialist government. To judge the style of life and standard of living in East Germany, it is essential to consider the subtle influence that the government, particularly the Ministry for State Security (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, Stasi), exerted on citizens. The true tragedy lies in the ongoing struggle between intellectuals and the highest levels of government. Many highly placed employees of organ-building firms were involved in this struggle. The churches, as main clients of the organ-building firms, played an important role at the end of the DDR as key supporters of the opposition, in which employees from the organ-building branch participated. Organ-building firms functioned as a reservoir of people working and living creatively who–without theological or (church-)musical diplomas–attempted to escape the narrow limits of socialist life. The marked rise in interest among citizens (especially the younger generation) in organs and organ concerts at the beginning of the 1970s was closely related to the advanced process of secularization imposed by the state. At the same time, the intellectual Marxist dogmas were apparently unable to satisfy people’s emotional and religious needs, and organ concerts filled the gap. Great interest among members of the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED, Socialist Unity Party) led the government to build concert halls with new organs. This solved the dilemma faced by SED members, who had to visit church buildings to hear an organ concert. By placing organs not in churches but in concert halls, a statement was also made that the instrument, despite its association with religion, could still find a place in socialist art.

Windelen, Magnus, and Markus Zimmermann. “Wie geht es weiter?: Firmenübernahmen im Orgelbau—Risiken und Nebenwirkungen” [What happens next? Company takeovers in organ building—Risks and side effects], Organ: Journal für die Orgel 26:4 (2023) 10–13. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 2023-17480].

In the next ten years, of the 300 or so workshops in Germany currently involved in organ building, around half are expected to see changes in management or ownership structures. These mostly small or micro-enterprises have often been family-run for generations and have accumulated enormous specialist knowledge. Risks and potential advantages of the different possibilities—takeover from within the family, takeover from outside, takeover through a distribution of shareholdings—are considered.

Wohnhaas, Theodor, and Hermann Fischer. “Sieben Jahrhunderte Nürnberger Orgelbau” [Seven centuries of Nuremberg organ building],Der “schöne” Klang: Studien zum historischen Musikinstrumentenbau in Deutschland und Japan unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des alten Nürnberg [The “beautiful” sound: Studies in the history of music instrument building in Germany and Japan, with special consideration of old Nuremberg], eds. by G. Ulrich Grossmann and Dieter Krickeberg. Germanisches Nationalmuseum (Nürnberg: 1996) 158–170. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 1996-5376].

Offers a history of organ building in Nuremberg. First, it introduces the builders themselves, from the late Middle Ages to the present, both citizens of the imperial city and residents, with particular attention to the office of municipal organ builder. Second, it takes up the history of the organs in the various churches of Nuremberg within the historical boundaries of the imperial city. An extensive bibliography is appended.

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by | September 9, 2026 · 6:00 am

Editing before the digital age

In its earlier days, RILM production relied on manual processes that were quite different from today’s digital workflows. Contributors from around the world submitted records on color-coded paper forms, often in multiple languages. The forms were intentionally double-spaced, giving editors room to make extensive corrections and annotations. Because many submissions arrived from non-native English speakers, editors frequently rewrote abstracts to improve clarity while preserving the author’s meaning. Work was divided according to language expertise. Staff members handled languages they knew, while outside specialists reviewed others. This process often became an unexpected education, with editors gradually acquiring technical vocabulary in languages they had never formally studied. Once edited, the forms were sent to a keyboard operator who entered every record into RILM’s database from home.

The database itself lived on a mainframe computer housed in a separate facility on Manhattan’s West 59th Street. Staff accessed the system via dial-up modems (see first photo of this post) using WYLBUR, a versatile computing system for managing various text types, including computer programs, letters, and manuscripts, through typewriter terminals connected to a computer. It featured remote job entry and retrieval, along with text alignment and justification capabilities. While it may seem outdated today, WYLBUR was a revolutionary innovation at the time. Although mastering its commands posed a challenge for many, the system became user-friendly once learned.

Meanwhile, another room in the RILM office housed thousands of paper copies of RILM Abstracts destined for distribution around the world. Each week, a staff member carefully sorted and organized the outgoing publications by hand–a reminder of how much invisible labor supported international scholarly communication before the internet.

The RILM office in 1994.

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by | September 4, 2026 · 6:00 am

From the EBSCOpost backlist. VIII: Why music reference still matters in the age of Wikipedia (2017)

RILM staff periodically contribute writings to EBSCOpost, a lively blog run by our partners that publishes pieces pertinent to librarianship, higher education, and beyond. Over time, some of these posts are removed, and even those that remain generally recede from view, following the ephemeral nature of much digital content. With 60 years of preserving the world’s writings on music and music-related topics behind us, we are now adding a small rescue project: bringing these blog posts back into circulation. However modest, they help document our history as an organization, and we hope they will continue to resonate with our international readership as well as with any music enthusiast who happens upon them.

In this installment, Executive Director Tina Frühauf ruminates on the place of music reference at a time when Wikipedia was changing how information was being generated, shared, and networked. Now 25 years after the platform’s release, the piece remains relevant, as the possibilities and potential dangers surrounding digital access points to knowledge, musical and otherwise, continue to surface in the context of generative AI and large language models (LLMs).

Why music reference still matters in the age of Wikipedia

The field of music reference has evolved continuously since the 1768 publication of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Dictionnaire de musique. But the advent of Wikipedia in 2001 has had a dramatic impact on this hitherto gradual evolutionary process in terms of format, authorship, and editorial structures. Assessments of Wikipedia’s impact differ widely, from the view of Wikipedia as a means and medium of internationality to complaints about Wikipedia’s elimination of the individual and avoidance of editorial control mechanisms. Whether Wikipedia strikes you as a net benefit or loss, it has triggered important questions as to how future reference works and bibliographies can and should be made accessible, to whom, and with what features. Technology has changed how much can be accomplished and how far one can reach. But where does all this leave musicologists and music librarians? Printed reference works are organisms in themselves, reflective of their time and culture, region and subject matter. Technology has the ability to transform each organism into a universe of musical reference works and bibliographies, easily accessible in multiple languages and across cultural and other divides. More concretely, technology can create such a universe by facilitating cross-database searching, hyperlinking, and complex keyword searches, while maintaining the identity and specificity of reference works as individual organisms. Indeed, why, in the age of advanced information technology, should one reference work exist without the other? Such a communal approach was first put forth by Wikipedia, but neither thought through nor further developed beyond the issues of open access and open authorship. Ideally, digital archives should not aim toward completeness and a global perspective, but toward carefully curated content by means of 21st-century technology.

With technological advances, currency becomes an important matter as well. But as music researchers continue to rely on established and existing reference sources and bibliographies for research on individuals and subjects not included in modern encyclopedias, and for historiographical work which compares the representation of individuals and subjects over time, “old” encyclopedias have now received the ability to become new encyclopedias for the digital age.

In the longue durée, music reference works have always been reflective of their time and location, and also of their editors and users. The aforementioned Rousseau Dictionnaire is a case in point, as it has been deemed both radical and traditional at the same time—radical, as Rousseau advanced philosophy on opera and revealed his rejection of French musical tradition; traditional, as he held on to existing categories—music as art and music as science—and views on music theory accepted in the 18th century. This presence of two (or more) distinct strands or “voices” can be best understood as a reflection of the dialogue process in the formation of musical ideas.

RILM supports such dialogue by comprehensively and accurately representing music scholarship in all countries and languages, and across all disciplinary and cultural boundaries. If you think your faculty and students could benefit from the kind of resources RILM provides, I invite you visit our website to learn more.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Dictionnaire de musique (Paris: Veuve Duchesne, 1775), one of the many historic reference works available in RILM Music Encyclopedias.

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by | August 28, 2026 · 6:00 am

RILMiniscences: Remembering RILM as a family

The second installment of the RILMiniscences series features Terence Ford, a former editor-in-chief, who remembers that the organization’s greatest strength was its people. Ford joined RILM in 1981 after beginning graduate studies in musicology at the City University of New York. Like many graduate students at the time, he was assigned to work on one of three major music documentation projects: RILM, the iconography project that would later become one of the four R projects, Répertoire International d’Iconographie Musicale (RIdIM), or the music collections project. Ford’s first assignment was in iconography, a role that took him to Germany before he returned to New York to join the RILM staff.

Although Ford was simultaneously writing a dissertation, he eventually made the difficult decision to stop working on it. Instead, he forged a career at RILM, beginning as an assistant editor before becoming an editor and, eventually, editor-in-chief from 1989 to 1991. After leaving RILM, he worked for the Modern Language Association and later retrained as a psychoanalyst, a profession he practices today in Los Angeles. Looking back, however, what stands out most to Ford is not the career trajectory but the overall atmosphere of the RILM office itself.

During the 1980s, RILM occupied the third floor of a building on Manhattan’s 42nd Street, where its relatively small staff worked closely together each day. The close quarters fostered friendships that extended beyond professional titles and responsibilities. “RILM back then was like a family,” Ford recalls. As the organization expanded and moved to the tenth floor alongside other music department offices—including that of RILM founder Barry S. Brook–the sense of community endured. Even after Ford’s responsibilities shifted from editing to supervising editors and reviewing their work, the office retained its convivial atmosphere.

Dorothy Curzon, RILM’s managing editor from 1975 to 1991.

Central to creating this environment was Dorothy Curzon, a managing editor whom Ford affectionately describes as the “mother of the office”. Impeccably dressed, elegantly perfumed, and never without beautifully styled hair, Curzon embodied professionalism. She was also a gifted editor and teacher who trained many of RILM’s early influential editors, often emphasizing precision, consistency, and clarity. One of her rituals left a lasting impression on Ford: every payday, Curzon walked around the office personally handing each employee their paycheck and thanking them individually for their work. As Ford puts it, “Dorothy was so good at making everyone feel appreciated.”

Besides Curzon, the RILM office was filled with other memorable personalities. Rosalie McQuade, a full-time editor, was also a nun who commuted daily from a convent in New Jersey. McQuade carpooled with fellow sisters–some of whom worked at the United Nations–and became known in the office for her singing abilities, especially a song she wrote and often sang titled Buckle up, New Jersey! inspired by her observations that few motorists on the New Jersey highways wore seatbelts. Carl Skoggard was another significant figure in the RILM office. Skoggard handled many of the German-language abstracts and possessed remarkable linguistic abilities. Hidden behind rows of filing cabinets in a corner of the office, he would periodically emerge with an unexpected, humorous story that left everyone laughing.

Carl Skoggard, the RILM editor who established many of the organization’s editorial practices.

There was also Adam O’Connor, whose dry wit enlivened the RILM office. O’Connor, who would later become RILM’s editor-in-chief, had an uncanny ability to switch effortlessly between editing abstracts and reading The New Yorker, Harper’s, or The New York Review of Books, seemingly never missing anything despite dividing his attention. Of course, not every relationship was always harmonious. Ford remembers frequent disagreements in the RILM office based on differing views reflecting wider debates and philosophies within bibliography about how knowledge should be organized and what indexing systems should be used.

Adam J.P. O’Connor, RILM’s editor-in-chief from 1991 to 1996.

During his time at RILM, Ford noted that several publishers and information companies, such as EBSCO and H. W. Wilson Company, recognized RILM’s value and expressed interest in acquiring it, though no sale was ever finalized. What set RILM apart was not just its growing reputation but the dedicated individuals behind its success. More than three decades later, while technologies and editorial workflows have evolved into digital formats, Ford’s most cherished memories center on the people who made up the organization and the relationships that turned the editorial office into a vibrant community rather than just a workplace.

This post is based on an interview conducted with Terence Ford on 16 January 2026.

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by | August 20, 2026 · 6:00 am

RILM’s 1.5 millionth record

RILM’s 1.5 millionth record is now online!

The record is titled “The Filipino national anthem” by Adrian De Leon (Journal of popular music studies 35/4 [2023] 4–13; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2023-16951).

Growing up in Toronto’s Filipino Catholic community, the author witnessed firsthand the power of Lemonade–a 2003 SoundClick track by Jeremy Manongdo, better known as Passion, that became an anthem at Couples for Christ camps. Far from just a nostalgic hit, the song represents a unique slice of the Filipino diaspora that resists the flattening of Asian American identity. Passion’s journey from bedroom singer-songwriter to digital icon mirrors the birth of the modern internet. He built momentum first on SoundClick and MySpace before riding the first wave of YouTube stardom following its 2005 debut, showing how early music platforms grew largely on content of racialized creators. The resulting musical repertoire became a touchstone for generations of North American Filipinos, born at the intersection of 2000s youth culture and the dawn of the platform economy.

A performance of Lemonade by Jeremy Passion.

Fan videos of Lemonade.

The effectiveness of Passion’s Lemonade lies in its formal simplicity as a serenade, easily performed on a guitar or ukulele. As a serenade, it addresses an unnamed woman, rooted in Filipino musical traditions influenced by Spanish colonial practices like the harana and kundiman, which involved love songs sung by men outside women’s homes. While contemporaries such as Gabe Bondoc, David Choi, and A.J. Rafael also achieved online popularity with their serenades, none have reached the cult status of Lemonade, which has become emblematic of a vernacular Filipino American national anthem.

A painting depicting harana singers in the Philippines. Image courtesy of Max Adlao.

Lemonade also illustrates the complexities and frictions between Filipino American life and the dominant Northeast Asian American culture, while also showcasing the impact of viral Filipino American performers within the broader Asian American musical landscape. The song’s resonance among Asian American youth in the 2000s underscores its significance in shaping a diverse and multifaceted sonic identity.

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