Gramophone is a project of the Swiss National Sound Archives, which aims to safeguard and enhance a number of historical sound recordings (on cylinders and 78rpm records) preserved in the archives of the Phonotheque.
On this page, a selection of sound documents of the Gramophone project is brought to the public as "free access". These are cylinders and 78rpm records that, in accordance with the Swiss laws, belong to the public domain and can therefore be published online. More that 200 historical sound documents are listenable.
The aim of the Swiss RISM is to inventory the largest number of musical sources and to make them accessible to the public.
Since its foundation the Swiss RISM branch has recorded systematically prints before 1800, collective prints of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries and other works about music, manuscripts after 1600 as well as prints of the 19th and 20th centuries.
RISM operates as a service. Projects are developed and implemented in collaboration with the institutions (libraries, archives, monasteries) that own the sources.
The Music inventory database 1500-1800 is an online resource created in the project Musical Repertoire in Swiss Collegiate and Monastic Churches of the Institute of Musicology of Fribourg University.
It brings together different catalogues of music collections from the past. Thus, it allows to browse and search library catalogues as they existed several centuries ago. It enables a better knowledge of the context of preserved sources and brings to light important information about sources or indeed whole music collections that no longer exist.
Every record is linked to the page (or pages) in the source carrying the relevant information.
The International Museum of the Reformation (IMR) presents the history of the Reformation from its origins to the present, and the influent work of John Calvin in Geneva and abroad.
The Museum organises special exhibitions. The permanent collection shows the most important elements of the spiritual and cultural movement in the history of Protestantism.
The IMR contains unique objects, manuscripts, rare books, engravings, paintings and many other exhibits.
The archives contain more than a hundred estates and collections of important composers, interpreters and other personalities from the whole world. The estates contain autographs, scores, sketches and drafts, manuscripts, correspondence, parts of the personal library and other documentation material.
