British Library digitises Mozart

 

Gallery

By Alun Williams

Posted on 12 Jan 2006 at 17:45

Starting today, the British Library is presenting Mozart in electronic form. Specifically, Mozart's Verzeichnüss aller meiner Werke (Catalogue of all my Works) is being made available over the Internet for the first time.

The digitised version of the original manuscript - which uses the Turning Pages interface, to simulate handling a physical document - presents 30 pages and 75 musical introductions (included as audio) to some of Mozart's compositions.

Interestingly, for historians, these works include the opening bars of a number of lost works, such a 'Little March in D', which the British Library claims are recorded for the first time (performed by musicians from the Royal College of Music). The electronic work also includes a transcription function to provide a readable version of Mozart's original dates and composition descriptions.

You can turn the virtual pages at www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html. Note that it uses the Macromedia's Shockwave plugin.

The online presentation accompanies the display at the British Library of the original manuscript of the Verzeichnüss aller meiner Werke. It is the centrepiece of an exhibition called Mozart's Musical Diary, which opens today and runs in The John Ritblat Gallery until 10 April.

We last reported on the British Library in November 2005, with the news that it was working with Microsoft to digitise 100,000 books, making them available online as part of the MSN Book Search service.