musicaLetters

MusicaLetters is a digital platform developed by the Musica* consortium (CNRS, Huma-Num), with support from the New Berlioz Edition, dedicated to the online critical edition, management, and exploration of musical correspondence, initially centred on Hector Berlioz.

Conceived as a generic and reusable relational database, it is designed to host and expand to other corpora of musicians’ letters. The methodology, developed by Joann Élart and Sabine Le Hir, is based on two pilot corpora (Berlioz and Boieldieu). Integrated within the Dezède ecosystem, MusicaLetters ensures interoperability by sharing metadata and querying existing datasets while enriching them with new material.

The platform structures data around the letter as the core unit, defined by relationships between correspondents and anchored in time and space. It provides tools for transcription, annotation, indexing, and the integration of digitised sources, supporting both facsimile consultation and scholarly critical editing.

Following a development phase in 2025, MusicaLetters is progressively opening to the research community as a collaborative and evolving infrastructure, with a public launch planned from 2026.