I know there have been discussions off and on in various newsgroups on the web regarding this topic, but I thought I would post again here.

I'm not so much interested in the difference between the different notation programs. You can make each program's output look pretty much the same as any other program if you spend enough time (disregarding the shareware or entry-level programs).

I'd like to hear general preferences or opinions about about music that might be available in both urtext and facsimile. For example Gendai Guitar published a lot of Coste music in new engravings. I would not call them critical editions because not much more than short histories of the pieces and Coste were appended. Any edits made to the music were not apparent.

Then there are the Chanterelle editions of Coste which are in facsimile, but include lists of proposed edits and obvious misprints.

There are mixes of these two approaches with clearly notated edits in urtext editions, facsimile editions with little or no information at all, etc. I'm curious to hear everyone's opinions on this issue.

Facsimile:

That is a misnomer. With one or two exceptions, all the so called guitar facsimiles are not facsimiles in the true sense of the word, but rather photographic reproductions of second and third generation xerox copies.

What you get is of very low quality, B&W line art, in which many important details of the original are lost or distorted. A true facsimile is one which is reproduced in full color, or at least in gray scale halftone.

This is a very expensive process to produce, which would require the publisher to sell each copy at very high prices. A recent facsimile from Minkoff of a Stravinsky autograph manuscript sold for some $700.- a copy. It was sold out in no time at all! If I produced, for example, a true facsimile of the Klinger Manuscript of the Regondi 10 Etudes, it will have to sell for at least 300-400 dollars a copy. How many such copies do you think can be sold in today's market?

In my estimation not more than 2 or 3.

Now, to do a good quality B&W line art reproduction of xerox copies, or even images scanned from the original, one would require to invest a great deal of manual labor in restoring it to look as the original. I once produced such a facsimile. Of the Mehul-de Fossa arrangement for two guitars of the Overture to "La Chasse du Jeune Henri". Each page was photographically enlarged by 500%, and then all the type on the page was minutely retraced and blackened with ink. Took about 10-12 hours per page. Then these pages were presented to the printer who reduced them back to their original size for preparing the printing plates. The results was a spectacular image. The rationale here was that if pictures at the Louvre and the Uffici can be restored, so can early 19th century print music.

But this is not an effective way to spend one's time and it definitely does not pay to do it. Ity is a lot cheaper to re-engrave and edit.

Urtext:

I prefer the term Critical Editions. I did a few of these, the Regondi Etudes, the first Tango book and others. No more.

The reaosn is simple: telling people what I have done exactly, is to spoon feed them with information on how best they can rip me off. Happened too many times already, and I am not about to repeat the stupid gesture. If someone is really interested to know in what way my editorial changes and emendations vary from the original, I suggest they do their own home work, find the original and compare my work with it.

Aha, the original is not accessible to the public? that's just too bad. Those who trust my work as an editor, will accept it, ocassionally ask me directly about some questionable places where I may have made a mistake, and at the end of the day, no one will notice either way. Those who do not trust my work as an editor, will not even look at it and not bother to compare, unless of course, they have an ax to grind.

Last point: you cannot copyright the image of the page, in the US at least, so any one can reproduce the facsimile with no penalty. Cf. the CDSheetmusic reproductions of Tecla and Chanterelle facsimiles.

You cannot copyright public domain music either, but you can copyright your editorial work, whether you detail it in a Critical Apparatus or not.

Matanya wrote:

This is a very expensive process to produce, which would require the publisher to sell each copy at very high prices. A recent facsimile from Minkoff of a Stravinsky autograph manuscript sold for some $700.- a copy. It was sold out in no time at all! If I produced, for example, a true facsimile of the Klinger Manuscript of the Regondi 10 Etudes, it will have to sell for at least 300-400 dollars a copy. How many such copies do you think can be sold in today's market?

The Minkoff Editions I have look exactly like what you stated above this quote, reproduced photocopies. The L'Hoyer edition looks pretty awful. They must have done a special version with the Stravinsky.

Also, a note about copyrighting facsimiles. I notice a lot of European facsimiles contain notices about prohibiting photocopying. I wonder if there really is protection for that or it is just an attempt to intimidate?

I was interested to hear your statement about the critical editions you have done. I guess it is tough to be at the forefront of a small industry in which people in some countries decide it is perfectly fine to copy your work. When I was in China it was very interesting to visit a music store. A lot of foreign publishers were represented, not by pirated editions, but by authentic ones. However, the price difference from the West was dramatic. How about a 40 page book for $1? Most of the time the only difference between the Chinese and the Western version was the addition of a Chinese title on the cover. For guitar there were no Western publications (not even pirated ones).

I got a little off-topic, but I appreciate your view of facsimiles. I guess even if you have first generation imaging then unless you are dealing with something very unique you end up being not much more than a copy machine. The difference between a low-quality file from Rischel and a higher-quality (yet not first generation) facsimile from someplace like Chanterelle ends up not being much.

Archivist wrote:

Also, a note about copyrighting facsimiles. I notice a lot of European facsimiles contain notices about prohibiting photocopying. I wonder if there really is protection for that or it is just an attempt to intimidate?

All copyright notices are an attempt to intimidate, or better put, an attempt to disuade the user from infringing on the copyright owner's rights. In some countries may be possible to copyright an image of a page, though I doubt it. When it comes to imaging, all you can copyright are phtogoraphs and works of art.

Archivist wrote:

The difference between a low-quality file from Rischel and a higher-quality (yet not first generation) facsimile from someplace like Chanterelle ends up not being much.

The difference is, as I said earlier, in the price and method of delivery. It seems to me, and I am not sure if this is correct, that the only reason the Copenhagen library went to on line free delivery, is that it has become too expensive for them to run their photo-duplicating service, or they were not making enough money there, or that by some quirks of Danish law they could not make money there. What I am suprised at is the Huddleston. When I asked them for copies of the Sczcepanowski, not only they charged me an arm and a leg for the copies, but also a hefty fee for the licence to publish.

Matanya wrote:

Archivist wrote: Also, a note about copyrighting facsimiles. I notice a lot of European facsimiles contain notices about prohibiting photocopying. I wonder if there really is protection for that or it is just an attempt to intimidate? All copyright notices are an attempt to intimidate, or better put, an attempt to disuade the user from infringing on the copyright owner's rights. In some countries may be possible to copyright an image of a page, though I doubt it. When it comes to imaging, all you can copyright are phtogoraphs and works of art. Archivist wrote: The difference between a low-quality file from Rischel and a higher-quality (yet not first generation) facsimile from someplace like Chanterelle ends up not being much. The difference is, as I said earlier, in the price and method of delivery. It seems to me, and I am not sure if this is correct, that the only reason the Copenhagen library went to on line free delivery, is that it has become too expensive for them to run their photo-duplicating service, or they were not making enough money there, or that by some quirks of Danish law they could not make money there. What I am suprised at is the Huddleston. When I asked them for copies of the Sczcepanowski, not only they charged me an arm and a leg for the copies, but also a hefty fee for the licence to publish.

I have a copy of "The Royal Library's digitisation policy 2002-2205[sic]" which I'm not sure if I'm allowed to pass on, but I'll give you a general idea of what they were thinking. Part of it comes from the Ministry of Culture's IT strategy of 2001. They want to be part of the pan-European digital library "The European Library" and their focus is to digitize Danish cultural materials, music being one. I see that they have digitized much more of their music collection beyond the Lumbye and Rischel now. I think this was nothing more than a directive from above that ended up including the Rischel.

I have not learned of any specific initiative that started the Boije digitization nor the Hudleston. I have the suspicion that some of my inquiries from months ago may have initiated the digitizing of the Krick and Hudleston collections. Mind you, the Royal Irish Academy does not seem sure yet how to proceed. I'm not even sure that the Hudleston is the focus of their considerations. It is simply that my inquiries related only to that specific collection. There was a catalog completed of the collection in 1997 by Michael McCartney, but it is still being revised.

There are great many digital initiatives currently in the works not related to music. Google is working with Oxford, NYPL, Stanford and others. Just the existence of that project is affecting the thinking of other libraries. So far, the only library system that I know of which is actually thinking forward on how to deal with cost and maintenance issues beyond simply digitizing and putting on the web is the Illinois State Library system. They are preparing major plans for digitizing at the state and local levels to generate income from end users.

Archivist wrote:

I'll give you a general idea of what they were thinking. Part of it comes from the Ministry of Culture's IT strategy of 2001. They want to be part of the pan-European digital library "The European Library" and their focus is to digitize Danish cultural materials, music being one. I see that they have digitized much more of their music collection beyond the Lumbye and Rischel now. I think this was nothing more than a directive from above that ended up including the Rischel.

As I suspected—local politics. This may change at any time so I would still urge people to download now, while it is still available.

Archivist wrote:

I have not learned of any specific initiative that started the Boije digitization

The main task there is not the Boije which was catalogued in the 1980s, but the Fryklund Collection which wasn't. To get an idea of what's there, see this:

http://www.orphee.com/fryk.htm

Archivist wrote:

nor the Hudleston. [...] There was a catalog completed of the collection in 1997 by Michael McCartney, but it is still being revised.

Indeed. It was Michael who drew my attention to this collection and to the existence of the Szczpanowski print in it. Eventually, he also engraved the music for my edition.

Archivist wrote:

So far, the only library system that I know of which is actually thinking forward on how to deal with cost and maintenance issues beyond simply digitizing and putting on the web is the Illinois State Library system. They are preparing major plans for digitizing at the state and local levels to generate income from end users.

Well, may be I should rethink my priorities. My own collection of PD music is far larger than most of the specialized guitar collections in libraries, roughly 10,000 items, I wonder would kind of an investment it would take to digitize it and offering it for sale on line. More important, what kind of a business plan I would need to generate to justify the investment?

It certainly would solve my storage and distribution problems, relieve me from any responsibility to make informed decisions on what to publish and how, and all I'll have to do, once the project is working, is sit down and process the orders, a job I can assign to a flunkie.

Matanya wrote:

The main task there is not the Boije which was catalogued in the 1980s, but the Fryklund Collection which wasn't. To get an idea of what's there, see this: http://www.orphee.com/fryk.htm

The Music Library of Sweden has stated they have no intentions right now of cataloging the Fryklund Collection. I'm not sure why.

Archivist wrote:

Matanya wrote: The main task there is not the Boije which was catalogued in the 1980s, but the Fryklund Collection which wasn't. To get an idea of what's there, see this: http://www.orphee.com/fryk.htm The Music Library of Sweden has stated they have no intentions right now of cataloging the Fryklund Collection. I'm not sure why.

Probably for the same reason they did not want to do it 10 years ago. It is too big, and they don't have the money for it. Just the collection of French romances with guitar is well over 10,000 in number!