Performance potential of Stationers’ Hall collections

With a wealth of early music prints now available online via The Library of Congress digital collections, archive.org, IMSLP, and the National Library of Scotland, many more opportunities have been created for performers and researchers to bring to life musical sources that do not belong to the standard Western classical music canon. New projects such as the ‘Sound Heritage’ and ‘Transforming Nineteenth-century Historically Informed Performance Practice’ are actively using these prints, which were primarily produced for a domestic market to consider gaps in our understanding of music-making practices. In this respect, the vast quantities of music and pedagogical treatises in the Stationer’s Hall collection have the potential to uncover further insights into historical performance practices and musical fashions. However, this potential can only be realised if the entirety of the Stationer’s Hall collection is made publicly available. In this article, I will highlight possible ways to facilitate cross-collaborative projects between performers and the custodians of this material, which enhance the visibility of the collections as well as performance practice research.