From the path that is overgrown comes news of a project from the Royal Academy of Music. Tantalising news, since it's not yet at the stage for open release. Called RAMline, it uses the Topic Maps standard to create what appears to be an intricately linked database of digital resources. From the RAM's description:
“The RAMline is a unique multi-dimensional index of music and musicians linked to local digitized archives and other online resources, such as manuscript sources and published editions, live performances and recordings, musical criticism and comment. This index can be used to display a timeline of musical history and the life-cycle of any piece of music, from antiquity to the present, as well as to chart musical profiles of individuals and organizations. It is multi-dimensional in that the index can be explored from the perspectives of people, works, places, events, and dates; it is unique in that the connections between musicians and musical works are categorized in a rigorous yet flexible ontology which makes sense of the processes and products involved.”
The slides from Antony Pitt's presentation about the project can be found here.
Which reminds me of a link sent by a colleague earlier this year, this one from the Royal College of Music. Their Centre for Performance History site provides links to a whole bunch of projects and resources, including Concert Programmes 1790–1914. (Performance history ranks high on the list of Thomasina's enthusiasms.)
And while pottering about on the RAM site, I came across their APOLLO collection (Academy Pictures On-Line) – yet another resource to support the eternal hunt for interesting, relevant, not-too-tired music illustrations.