MEI conversion for the Joseph Haydn Werkverzeichnis Online

The work of the Joseph Haydn-Institut・Köln (JHI) has been well-known in eighteenth century studies and beyond since publication of the first four bands of the Joseph Haydn Werke (JHW) in 1958. As of early 2022, 132 print-only bands have been published, with only the 133rd–a supplemental addition–remaining in progress. No plans for a printed thematic catalogue or a digital publication of JHW exist, creating an analogue-digital dichotomy unique to this project. The next phase of work thus entails further development of the Joseph Haydn online portal in partnership with the Centre for Digital Music Documentation (CDMD) at the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur Mainz (ADWMainz). A works catalogue with complete metadata and polyphonic incipits is the current focus of the JHI-CDMD collaboration. The digital Joseph Haydn Werkverzeichnis (JHWV) builds upon recent examples of digital works catalogues (Bruckner, Gluck, Delius, and Nielsen) in terms of content engagement, data management, and structure while also accommodating extensibility.

Naturally for Gesamtausgabe or Werkverzeichnis undertakings, sources occupy a central role, and with them come massive amounts of data and metadata that require compilation and organization throughout the project lifecycle. Over the past decade, JHI has digitised the card-catalogue records for nearly 3,000 works attributed to or associated with Joseph Haydn at one point or another by converting each into an xml document. Given when this process started, and that large-scale xml projects in music documentation were not yet commonplace, JHI devised an idiomatic schema that set and achieved the goal of verbatim data preservation. Inasmuch as this system served immediate needs, it presents limitations in accessibility, shareability, and research-ability—all desirable or essential qualities for the Haydn portal. Moreover, it creates a distinct set of challenges for creating a digital Werkverzeichnis within the portal, the most pressing, time-intensive, and labor-intensive of which is transforming XML data into a standardized format and structure enabled to create the necessary qualities.