Digitization and Online Catalogue of the Archive of the International Gustav Mahler Society

Project Directors
Christian Utz
Renate Stark-Voit

Research Assistants
Dimitrios Katharopoulos (01/09/2023–31/07/2024)
Julia Lenhart (01/12/2023–31/08/2024)
Raphaela Quass (01/06–30/11/2023)
Annachiara Seitlinger (01/06–31/08/2023)

A digitization of the archive of the International Gustav Mahler Society has been prepared by the current executive board for some time, including a cooperation with the Gustav Mahler Science Center of the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna mdw. Funding from the Digital Heritage program (Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport) now enables us to implement the project.

The aim of the project is the digital backup and public distribution of the archive holdings of the IGMS. Digitization of the archive holdings guarantees that the sources are kept up-to-date, including numerous original manuscripts, significant primary sources, and unique items, and significantly improves accessibility. The holdings are not only relevant for scholars from the fields of music, politics, history, and culture, but also for a broader public interested in the history of Austria, the Habsburg monarchy, Viennese modernism, and the intertwining of music and politics from the late 19th century to the present. In addition, digitization of the sources is also of great interest to active musicians, since the musical archive stock also includes conductor’s scores and orchestral parts with handwritten annotations. With the Mahler online project, which has been in preparation since 2019 and will go online in a first version in 2023, the IGMS, in cooperation with the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of Innsbruck, designed and implemented a comprehensive online repository on Mahler’s work and its research, which provides ideal conditions for the publication and digital archiving of the digitized IGMS holdings. However, the digital copies will also be available via the new catalog on this website. The inventory to be digitized includes around 2,300 sources with a total volume of around 36,000 pages.

The project management lies with Renate Stark-Voit and Christian Utz. Work on this project has started on June 1^st, 2023.