The event archive of the Wiener Konzerthaus
A century of music history
The Wiener Konzerthaus is one of the most important concert halls in Europe. The wide-ranging programme - from symphonic concerts to chamber music, contemporary music, world music, jazz, literature and pop concerts - is paradigmatic of the variety of musical life in Austria. The events have ranged from the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra to Led Zeppelin, from Martha Argerich to Frank Zappa.
A look into the past
The Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft has been running an archive since the Konzerthaus opened in 1913. The event programmes, sheet music, recordings, documents, etc. collected in the archive have long formed the basis for a wide range of musicological and cultural studies. Since the digital documentation of all events at the Wiener Konzerthaus in a database (1998-2006) and the publication of this data on the website of the Wiener Konzerthaus, research interest has been steadily increasing.
Apart from the Vienna State Opera, the Wiener Konzerthaus is the only major music institution in Austria that can make its entire event archive available in digital form.
Detailed programme sheets
The new digital copies of almost all the original concert programme sheets in the archive supplement or complete the event data already available online in several aspects. Some contextual information on the events could not initially be included due to the standardisation and normalisation required in a database (database consistency).
Digitalisation enriches research
- Additional information on the promoter
- Event information
- Advertisements
- Graphic design
- Piano supply
- Print production
The digitisation and publication of the concert programme sheets therefore makes an important contribution to Austria's digital cultural heritage. It enables and supports a number of up-to-date research projects, for example in the field of new music, gender research or the analysis of cultural networks.