The religious foundation for the canon fathers of St. Michael in Beromünster is in possession of an extensive collection of musical sources in form of autographs, manuscripts and prints. It's music library is one of the most important collections of central Switzerland. This music library, together with the libraries of the Benedictine monasteries of Einsiedeln, Engelberg an St. Andrew in Sarnen, has lived through the same fate, that is that the awareness for such treasures - collected on a religious motivated approach to art - is returning to musicological science and musical performance at an extremely slow pace. The manuscripts of the 19th century are most prominent in this collection of liturgical music: they document in a very impressive way that in the daily life of the religious foundation for the canon fathers of St. Michael music of the 17th and 18th centuries was continuously cultivated by several "regens chori" far into the 19th century. The fact, that St. Michael in Beromünster is the only active community of canon fathers in the German-speaking part of Switzerland having a library of their own, underlines the importance of this collection.
With gratitude to the financial support from the Albert Koechlin Stiftung AKS in Lucerne the music sources of St. Michael in Beromünster are completely recorded during the years 2004, 2005 and 2006 by Swiss RISM branch. At the end of the inventorisation 823 music manuscripts from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, 1087 prints from the 17th and 18th century as well as 3656 prints from the 19th century are accessible to musicological research and musical performance. During the process of the inventorisation the entire collection was rearranged, shelf-marked and repacked in acid-free materials for conservation.

Contacts
The collection may be visited and used only after previous inquiry. For inquiries please contact:

Chorherr Jakob Bernet
Stiftsbibliothekar
Stift 35
CH-6215 Beromünster
Tel: +41 (41) 930 32 77
e-mail: stift@nachricht.ch

Documentation
- List of musical documents
- Composers and statistics


Database
www.rism-database.ch