How a Beethoven-Era Music Catalog Becomes a Digital Research Tool

Oct 20, 2025

During Beethoven’s long teaching relationship with Archduke Rudolph, both figures relied on a handwritten music catalog now stored at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, an early 19th-century music archive based in Vienna. The archive preserves a wide range of historical manuscripts, including this document, known as Musikalien Register Nr 9. The catalog lists compositions grouped by composer, publisher and instrumentation…