Telemann's manuscripts are being digitized
Almost 800 musical manuscripts by Georg Philipp Telemann in the Johann Christian Senckenberg University Library in Frankfurt am Main are being digitized with funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG).
The project is scheduled to run for one and a half years and comprises the digitization and indexing of around 48,000 pages of the Frankfurt cantata collection from the 18th century. It consists of almost 800 manuscripts of music by Telemann (1681-1767), who was active as municipal music director and church bandmaster in Frankfurt from 1712 to 1721. Among them are manuscripts in his own hand as well as copies of his works.
In addition, around 150 manuscripts of the municipal music directors who followed him up to the end of the 18th century and some anonymous works have been digitized. The texts of the cantatas are also offered in modern transcription. The recording of the watermarks will be particularly helpful for scribal and provenance research.
The aim of the project is to make the autographs and manuscripts of the church cantatas and some secular works from this unique collection available for academic research, scholarly editions and performances in churches and concert halls. It is a useful addition to similar music digitization projects in other academic libraries. The cantata manuscripts are expected to be available in the University Library's digital collections from the end of 2019.
