Where to buy opera scores?
La Donna Mobile
in London. Manchester, yes, but not London, that great cultural city...!
I would be grateful for any assistance in this matter
http://www.madmusingsof.me.uk/weblog
http://www.geraldine-curtis.me.uk/photoblog
John Harnedy
off Charing Cross Rd) or to the bookshop at the RFH, where they carry a
reasonable selection for a small outlet. Needless to say, the ubiquitous
Borders will also be pleased to order for you.
Personally, I'd pick Dover scores; they are excellently produced and quite
reasonably priced, even for their full orchestral operascores
John Harnedy
"La Donna Mobile" <donna...@REMOVEbrixton.fsworld.co.uk> wrote in message
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RickyE
prefer one over the other? Thanks.
Ricky
"John Harnedy" <jkha...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
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John Harnedy
on very good paper and are excellently bound. I have several which have had
heavy 'thumbing' over the years, but I've never had one loose page etc.
John Harnedy
"RickyE" <nos...@earthlink.nospam> wrote in message
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Mark
>Nothing to do with musicology at all, it's just that Dover scores are made
>on very good paper and are excellently bound. I have several which have had
>heavy 'thumbing' over the years, but I've never had one loose page etc.
>
>
Its true that Dover scores are well put together and easy to read. They are
downright cheap, too. The downside is that all their prints are public domain
and not the newest scholarship. It becomes a trade-off.
Mark
AnMeinKlav
downright cheap, too. The downside is that all their prints are public domain
and not the newest scholarship. It becomes a trade-off.>>
Precisely why they can reprint them at those prices :-). How good the
scholarship is depends on the composer and even the genre. The Schenker edition
of the Beethoven piano sonatas, for example, is a marvelous bargain and great
scholarship; the reprints of the nineteenth-century Breitkopf edition of the
complete works of Mozart, distinctly variable.
Mark D Lew
RickyE <nos...@earthlink.nospam> wrote:
> what's the difference between Ricord, Schirmer or Dover scores? Why do you
> prefer one over the other? Thanks.
Dover specializes in low-price reprints of public domain scores with
high-quality paper and binding. By reprint I mean that they provide an
exact copy of the images from an earlier score, essentially as if they
were photocopying. Thus, in terms of content, it's no different from
whatever the original is. I know Dover mostly as a publisher of full
scores, for both operas and symphonic works, but I know they also
publish some piano classics. I wasn't aware of any piano-vocal opera
scores by Dover, but it wouldn't surprise me if they do that, too.
Dover tends to publish with oversize pages, which distinguishes them
particularly with respect to full scores, which are often printed quite
small. Typically, Dover will have one page with a few prefatory notes
and a glossary of foreign terms in the body of the work, and nothing
else. Dover never claims a copyright over its reprints, as most of the
other reprint houses do, usually on flimsy grounds.
Other reprint publishers are Kalmus and Köneman. Kalmus has been
around for a long time, offering low-quality reprints of public domain
scores. As a general rule, Kalmus is pretty crappy, but sometimes it
has a lesser-known piece in print which no one else offers, and
sometimes it offers a lower price for a standard score which is going
to look the same no matter whom you get it from. (For a long time the
only version of Pearl Fishers readily available in America was a horrid
Kalmus score with an English version of the lyrics clumsily added with
a typewriter. One still sees photocopies of that score at auditions.)
I'm not very familiar with Köneman, which is fairly new in the American
market. It seems to be competing by offering lower prices for the same
PD (public domain) score, rather like Kalmus did. I imagine that the
new digital publishers offering scanned images of PD scores on CD are
probably edging out the both of them. I was in a production of
Fanciulla last summer and about half the cast members were working from
pages from the CD, which they had printed out from their composer and
put into a binder. That's probably the way of the future.
Schirmer dominated the American market for a long time, and still does
to a large extent. A lot of singers and other opera fans think of the
Schirmer vocal score, whatever it happens to be, as the "official"
score. Many of the standard repertoire were retyped by Schirmer, some
time early in the 20th century. Others are direct copies of the
original plates (usually Ricordi) with a fresh English lyric
("translation") pasted in. In my experience, the retyped Schirmer
scores tend to introduce more errors than they correct, so as a result
they're less reliable than the alternatives. Also, I find that many of
the Schirmer scores have clumsy part labeling and other features that
make the, harder to read. I'm generalizing, of course; in fact,
quality of Schirmer scores varies considerably. Schirmer's Traviata
and Pagliacci, for example, are terrible. Many others are just fine.
For more recent works, Schirmer has a few original editions which are
much better. (I like their new aria anthologies, though I know others
who don't.) For the classic works, they stick with their old plates,
most of which were engraved about 75 to 100 years ago. Some time
around the 1940s and 1950s Schirmer re-did a lot of their scores with
new English lyrics. (We tend to call these "translations", but they
aren't really nor are they intended to be; they are lyrics to be used
when performing the piece in English.) Some of these are an
improvement, many are not. This is when the Ruth and Thomas Martin
lyrics were introduced in so many scores, though they weren't the only
ones. Personally, I tend to prefer the English versions written in the
1900 era over those written in the 1950 era, though there are pros and
cons to each. (Better than either are new English versions by any of
several contemporary translators.)
Ricordi was the original publisher of most of the Italian works in the
standard rep (eg, most Verdi and most Puccini). As such, they are the
"original" version. Opera professionals who have an opinion tend to
consider Ricordi superior to Schirmer, though that opinion is not by
any means universal. The Ricordi scores are not without errors either,
and for many operas there are several different editions. In some
cases, notably for most Puccini, the composer and publisher continued
to revise the piece during its early history, though in those cases one
typically will only see the "final" version, unless one goes digging
through archives for the older ones (which can be very edifying...).
For the most popular works there are also English editions, intended
for publication in English-speaking countries, with an English
"translation" included. There are often minor discrepancies between
the English-Italian edition and the Italian-only edition, which can
lead to confusion in rehearsals when singers are using different
versions of the score.
Ricordi's English-Italian editions put the English text on top and the
Italian below, which is opposite of what Schirmer does. This
differences reinforces many individual singers' preference of one
publisher over the other, as it's surprisingly difficult to break the
habit of always looking at the top line or the bottom line.
A few other publishers I've encountered a lot are Sonzogno and
International. Sonzogno was a rival of Ricordi, publishing Mascagni,
Leoncavallo, Giordano, and the one Puccini that Ricordi didn't get
(Rondine). I'm pretty sure Sonzogno is long since out of business, but
their scores are the sources for the reprint houses whether for
retyping or simply photocopying. As far as I know, International
retypes everything it publishes. In my opinion, International has
high-quality typography (compared to, say, Schirmer), but in terms of
content it's no better than its source material. For better and for
worse, it seems to be pretty faithful to the source.
I've made a long list here, but it's by no means complete --
particularly with regard to German opera and earlier opera, neither of
which I'm very familiar with.
mdl
David Melnick
> Other reprint publishers are Kalmus and Köneman. Kalmus has been
> around for a long time, offering low-quality reprints of public domain
> scores. As a general rule, Kalmus is pretty crappy, but sometimes it
> has a lesser-known piece in print which no one else offers, and
> sometimes it offers a lower price for a standard score which is going
> to look the same no matter whom you get it from.
My Andrea Chenier is really poorly done, one of those
plastic ring jobs with thin pages that all but cry out to be
torn off, though it might be OK if you're at the piano (I
use it only to follow along with recordings.)
My Meistersinger is from them, too, somewhat better bound
and with better paper, because it's pretty old.
Fifty years ago, before the copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy look
took over, Kalmus published some decent sheet music.
>
> I've made a long list here, but it's by no means complete --
> particularly with regard to German opera and earlier opera, neither of
> which I'm very familiar with.
>
Breitkopf & Härtel publish some piano/vocal Wagner, as well
as dominating the publishing world in the core orchestral
repertoire.
http://www.breitkopf.com/home.php
and scroll down to the alphabetical search at the bottom.
It doesn't look like you can order many of these directly,
though, unless I don't understand the process.
Schirmer also seems to publish some of the same Wagner
as Breitkopf.
Könemann is supercheap but weird. Talk about clefs! They
use some really odd clef for the tenor parts, not any
I know (treble, treble-octave, bass, or viola's C clef),
at least in some operas. Tower carries a stock of them, or
used to do so.
Sincerely,
Runzifunzi
CHSIII
> A few other publishers I've encountered a lot are Sonzogno and
> International. Sonzogno was a rival of Ricordi, publishing Mascagni,
> Leoncavallo, Giordano, and the one Puccini that Ricordi didn't get
> (Rondine). I'm pretty sure Sonzogno is long since out of business, but
> their scores are the sources for the reprint houses whether for
> retyping or simply photocopying.
I believe Casa Musicale Sonzogno is still publishing.
Mark D Lew
<dmel...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> My Andrea Chenier is really poorly done, one of those
> plastic ring jobs with thin pages that all but cry out to be
> torn off, though it might be OK if you're at the piano (I
> use it only to follow along with recordings.)
Chenier is the only International hard-bound score I still have. I
used to have a Lakmé, but I loaned it to a friend years ago and never
got it back. I assume the Kalmus is a Sonzogno reprint, yes? I
borrowed a copy of Sonzogno's Chenier once so I could make photocopies
for a chorus without infringing copyright.
> Fifty years ago, before the copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy look
> took over, Kalmus published some decent sheet music.
I'll have to take your word for that. I've yet to see any. I've seen
some new Kalmus which is freshly typed but still hideous. Really awful
typographic standards. It's as if they hired some tyro who used all of
Finale's default settings. Blecch.
> Breitkopf & Härtel publish some piano/vocal Wagner, as well
> as dominating the publishing world in the core orchestral
> repertoire.
Yeah, I've seen plenty of Breitkopf from the libraries, but it's
overwhelmingly German rep, and I don't really follow the German stuff
carefully.
> Schirmer also seems to publish some of the same Wagner
> as Breitkopf.
Schirmer's Ring scores are copies of Schott's 1899 edition. I don't
know about Schirmer's other Wagner. The only one I have on my shelf is
Lohengrin, which looks like it was retyped by Schirmer.
mdl
Mark D Lew
<chs...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> I believe Casa Musicale Sonzogno is still publishing.
Well, shet my mouth, so they are. If I had taken a minute to look, I
would have found them at <http://www.sonzogno.it/index_en.htm>.
Thanks, Claud.
mdl
RickyE
Thank you for your very informative response. Really great.
Ricky
"Mark D Lew" <mark...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
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David Melnick
>
> I assume the Kalmus is a Sonzogno reprint, yes?
There's no acknowledgement, but the text is in
Italian only. I could go to the library and see whether
there's a copy of the Sonzogno, but other people
in the group with far more knowledge and resources
than I have could answer more easily.
>>Fifty years ago, before the copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy look
>>took over, Kalmus published some decent sheet music.
>
>
> I'll have to take your word for that. I've yet to see any.
:-) I was only thinking of quartets. In those days,
the only opera scores I knew were from Schirmer.
BTW, what used to be a great old music store in
San Francisco, Byron Hoyt, is now a vast order-online
conspiracy:
It won't help La Donna Mobile, since overseas orders
probably carry expensive extra charges, but it's convenient
for domestic orders.
Luca Logi
> I'm pretty sure Sonzogno is long since out of business, but
> their scores are the sources for the reprint houses whether for
> retyping or simply photocopying.
Sorry to contradict you, but Sonzogno is well alive (I phoned them this
morning). I heard that Könemann is getting out of business, however.
--
Luca Logi - Firenze - Italy e-mail: ll...@dada.it
Home page: http://www.angelfire.com/ar/archivarius
(musicologia pratica)
David Melnick
> Mark D Lew wrote:
>
> I assume the Kalmus is a Sonzogno reprint, yes?
I should have checked the Byron Hoyt catalogue myself
before posting.
is the entry corresponding to the score whose catalog number
is on the cover of my score, and
is a separate entry for the Sonzongno reprint.
However, the one I have does a pretty good job of looking
like a reprint, complete with century-old text font style,
and there is no mention of Edward Winkler, the editor listed
in the entry for the first one, in my score.
Maybe they slapped the cover with the catalog number onto
a copy of the cheaper edition?
A mystery. Someday I'll look at the Sonzogno to check.
Runzi
David Melnick
Oy. It's Martin Winkler, not Edward.
La Donna Mobile
I was asking, and I am slightly overwhelmed by the infinite variables.
Nevertheless, I intend to explore further! (Also, at the time, I felt
desperate pressing need to up the proportion of opera-related posts on rmo!)
"David Melnick" <dmel...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
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