19TH CENTURY PUBLICATIONS

Music publishing exploded in the 19th century, and RIPM provides access to a portion of the 2000+ music periodicals of the time.

RIPM covers titles up to 1950, but the bulk of content is from the time of Schubert, Berlioz, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Verdi, Wagner, Liszt, and all those other guys on the posters on the walls of elementary school music classrooms.

  PRIMARY SOURCES

Not every item in RIPM is a primary source, but you will find composers authored writings on music (e.g., by Schumann, Berlioz, and Wagner), correspondence, and some really terrific images.

Even just thumbing through an issue of a 19th century music periodical will give you a better sense of how music was discussed at that time.

Pretty amazing stuff...

  SOME FULL-TEXT

RIPM was first an index, then they started to scan the periodicals they indexed, both to provide online access to the content, but also in an effort to preserve it.

When using the RIPM index to search for content, if you see the  button, then there's full-text available for that item.

If not, you can use the  button to see if we have the periodical here at Iowa.

And if THAT doesn't work, you can use the citation to request the item via Interlibrary Loan.

  BRING A DICTIONARY

RIPM's content is primarily drawn from European publications, so that means that the content is in many different languages, such as German, Italian, French, English, and many others.

So make sure you bring your language dictionary skills along when exploring RIPM results. Just because an article is in a language in which you are not fluent does not mean you do not also possess the skill and intellect to figure out either what the article is talking about or if it is important to your research.