Publisher info of uploaded edition
On the last page of the score (p. 63) is the censor's approval date of 1896 as well as the indication of Jurgenson as publisher in Moscow. (Fortunately Kalmus did not remove this information for their reprint.) Why was the publisher info on the page changed to reflect the original year of publication (1879)? Since the plate numbers are missing from the Kalmus reprint, we can't know whether this 1896 ed. used the same plates as 1879. In any case, the 1896 date should be reflected somehow in publiser info on the page. Lyle Neff 07:23, 8 July 2008 (EDT)
- The 1896 score with the censor date (which I'm a little surprised to see that Kalmus actually missed, since they are usually fairly meticulous about eliminating all original publisher info on scores they reprint) was most likely a reissue, probably a slightly amended reprint, of the 1879 score - possibly for inclusion in Jurgenson's "complete works" advertised in the years after Tchaikovsky's death. Jurgenson's 1898 catalog lists the same plate number and pagination as that of the 1879. It's highly unlikely that Jurgenson would have actually re-engraved the work. In the few cases where Tchaikovsky revised something enough that re-engraving was necessary, the old plate number was retained. The Kalmus catalog of study scores, vocal scores, piano music, and chamber music was sold to Belwin Mills in the early 1970s shortly following the move to Florida. This sale has resulted in three decades of endless confusion among the music public over the name Kalmus, which has been made even worse by Thompson Edition's recent hijacking of the "kalmus.com" domain name. If the score you scanned has New York imprint it is probably from before 1975, though Belwin did not add their own name to the imprint immediately but took a couple of months to do so. Sorry for the confusion - I'll ask the folks at the "real" Kalmus if they know when this score was actually first reprinted (not likely, but there are a couple of folks at the printing plant still there from the New York days). Carolus 13:47, 8 July 2008 (EDT)
- I just talked with a longtime employee of Kalmus and he told me that the sale of the portion of the catalogue to Belwin took place in 1976, even though Kalmus moved to Miami in 1972. They only added "Miami" to items when they came up for reprint (and less than perfectly even then). We probably ought to set up a publisher page for Kalmus here as an aid to dating the many scores of theirs that are in circulation. Carolus 14:38, 8 July 2008 (EDT)
- Thanks for checking that out. As a long-time library cataloger, I instinctively have to go by what is actually printed on the piece that I have in hand (or microfilm, etc.) to describe my source, rather than on the rambling nature of a publisher's history, unless conjecture or secondary sources are absolutely required to fill in some details. That's why the IMSLP pages for publishers are extremely useful. Actually, I bought many of the Tchaikovsky works in their green octavo-sized "Kalmus/Belwin-Mills" volumes during the late 1970s and early '80s. Some of the ones that are clearly printed as "New York: E.F. Kalmus" have price stickers on them labeled "Belwin Mills." (Then there is their reprint of the Soviet editions of Musorgsky, Prokofiev, Rimsky-Korsakov, etc...) Lyle Neff 18:44, 8 July 2008 (EDT)
