I have a project this summer through Special Collections at Utah State University to catalog various old sheet music. I'm looking to posting as much as I can through IMSLP.org. I don't know much about cataloging sheet music, and it's been a fair struggle so far. Any ideas?
I'm studying music education at Utah State University with an emphasis in band and saxophone. I'm hoping to receive my PhD in music theory and composition to be a theory professor.
Schirmer
Great work with this page! The plate numbers tables are among the most useful information we have on these publisher pages, but are sometimes rather haphazardly put together; i.e. they aren't as complete as they ought to be. Thanks!-- Snailey (_@/) Talk to Me Email me 01:30, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
Internal links
Hi! To link to a page within IMSLP, just copy the page title (e.g. 'Violin Concerto No.4, K.218 (Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus)') and put two square brackets around it - [[Violin Concerto No.4, K.218 (Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus)]]. If you want to change the text displayed, you can use, for instance, '[[Violin Concerto No.4, K.218 (Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus)|Violin Concerto in D major]]' - within the brackets, separate the page title from your text with a pipe character. Cheers, KGill talk email 16:11, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
- It seems we don't actually have a scan of the 1904 score or arrangement you listed, so it actually should not be linked this way until we do. (I just linked it to see). Another thing, the 1904 date seems odd in that Andre was up into the 15,000's by that time. It's not impossible, as some publisher recycled plate numbers. Carolus 16:14, 21 June 2010 (UTC) (IMSLP Admin)
Thanks! I'm still new to this whole thing, so any help and tips like these are fantastic!
A few questions:
What's the best way to contact people - is it best to go to their discussions page?
Did publishers often recycle plate numbers? 1904 is the only date that is printed.
Is the goal to link it to the IMSLP page for the work, or to the scan of the particular publication itself?
Thanks again for your help!
- User talk pages are usually the easiest way to contact folks here. Recycling of plate numbers is not that common, but some publishers have been known to do it. European publishers (especially those in Germany) often indulged in making bogus claims of copyright when a work came up for reprint as nearly everything issued before 1891 had no copyright protection in the USA. Dates can be deceptive, therefore. You can only link to the page for the work itself, not the particular file. On publisher pages, we normally only link when that particular plate number is found somewhere on the work page. Carolus 17:13, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
Dates for Schirmer (and other publications)
Hi, This is a classic example of the type of confusion found in library records (like OCLC). Louis Oesterle's edition of Grieg's Notturno, Op.54 No.4 (plate 14396) was first issued in 1899, not 1926. Librarians often cite the latest date present on a score, which would be 1926 for a score printed after the 1899 copyright was renewed. Oesterle's edition was engraved and first issued in 1899, however - which is quite consistent with Schirmer's plate numbering. Schirmer is actually pretty consistent in having the plate numbers track with the date of issue, something that cannot be said of all publishers. That's why the very first item in the Schirmer list looks quite suspicious to me. Prior to the establishment of an engraving and printing facility in 1891, Schirmer frequently reprinted scores from European publishers (since nearly all were PD in the USA until that year). They sometimes reprinted the original plate number as well, so Les Deux Alouettes looks like it could such a case. Carolus 21:12, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
- Are you saying they would reprint the plate number from some other publisher? I've seen this a couple times on publisher pages, and in part wondered if it was an input mistake, but that makes more sense in recycling plate numbers (or using the same plate number as the editor that they made the copy from).
- Yes, this happens quite a bit actually. (See below). Carolus 17:21, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
- I've noticed that when everyone leaves a comment somewhere that they leave a link to their user talk page. I've figured out how to do it for myself: Jefflyon, but it says the page doesn't exist - is this because I don't have my own user page set up yet? Do I put the date and time in for my own time zone, MST? Is there anything else you would recommend leaving as part of this "signature"? Is there an easier way than typing in the date and time?
Thanks for your help!
- Yes, there's a much easier way :-) just type in four tildes (~~~~) and everything will appear automatically. You can set your time zone through the 'preferences' link at the top of your screen. And yes, you're correct that the reason it says the page doesn't exist is because you haven't set it up yet. KGill talk email 00:04, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
- I was hoping for a shortcut, thanks! Since I'm new here, what would you recommend for a user page? Jefflyon 00:11, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
- Well, it's always good to advertise what languages you speak and what instruments you play. You can look at anyone else's userpage (e.g. mine) for an idea of how to do this...or I could just tell you, now that I've looked at my page and realized that it's a bit confusing ;-) To set up instruments, you should type something that looks like the following: {{Instr|com-3|vln-2}}. 'Instr' is required; each instrument gets a different code ('com', 'vln' - you can see a list here), followed by a skill level (1-4, 1 being novice and 4 professional). You can add as many as you want as long as they're separated by a pipe character (|). For language: {{Babel|en}}. 'en' is the ISO standard language code, obviously for English (see the full list here); if you put a hyphen right after it (en-), that means it's not at a native level (no hyphen means native). Again, you can put multiple languages separated by the pipe character. In addition to those, there are a bunch showing what kind of music you enjoy listening to that can be found here, but it's a bit incomplete. Finally, there are the templates {{User finale}}, lilypond, and MusiXTeX. That's kind of a lot to swallow, but that's about it apart from just writing a bit about yourself :-) KGill talk email 00:23, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
- Well, I started my user page, I'll definitely have to do some more work on it. I also speak Bulgarian very well, but the page is not created yet. I don't think I would be able to correctly make the page. Could you help me with this? Thanks again! Jefflyon 20:01, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
- Done. Feel free to mess with the translation (I used Google) if it's awkward (which it probably is) - you can access it at either Template:User bg or Template:User bg-. KGill talk email 22:03, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks! The translation at least had the right words but it was a little off, I fixed it though :) At least Google gets the right words! Jefflyon 17:30, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Carolus, I've got another question about interesting plate numbers. I'm looking at "Three Rondos on Folk Tunes" by Bartok, printed by Boosey & Hawkes. The first listed copyright is by Universal Edition in 1930, then "copyright assigned 1939 to Hawkes & Son..." The plate number says "Universal-Edition Nr. 9508" on the first page, and U.E. 9508 on the remaining pages. This seems like another clear instance of a publisher recycling the plate number from another publisher. In adding the plate number to the Boosey & Hawkes publisher page, would I add "U.E. 9508" or just 9508? Thanks, Jefflyon 20:30, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
- I'll pop in and say: Don't add it, as this is not a Boosey plate — this looks like U.E.'s plate number, and Boosey is probably just reprinting the old edition. Thanks-- Snailey (_@/) Talk to Me Email me 22:21, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
- P.S. The user page looks good :)
- Thanks! Jefflyon 17:41, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
- Perlnerd is correct. It's best not to add such "recycled" plate numbers (from other publishers) to our listing of plate numbers for a given publisher. Plate numbers are often very useful in establishing who the original publisher was. There has been a lot of chicanery in the last 70-80 years with reprinting things and claiming that it's a new item (with a new copyright notice). Costallat and Billaudot are notorious for doing this with reprints of old Richault scores. Richault ceased to exist in 1898 so a 1970s reprint of some Alkan piano piece with a Billaudot imprint is definitely not the subject of copyright. Carolus 17:21, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
- Ok. Some of these plate numbers are confusing! I'll watch out for these "recycled" plate numbers. Jefflyon 17:41, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
- What about when a publisher recycles their own plate number when they make a reprint of one of their previous publications? For example, I have Grieg's Notturno (op.54, no. 4) - the copy I have in front of me was first copyrighted in 1899 by Schirmer, then again in 1926 when it was printed by Schirmer. It uses the same plate number as before, as is already posted on Schirmer. Would it be good to post the 1926 version as well? Jefflyon 17:54, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
- No, it should be put under the original date, which is often difficult to find. The 1926 would merely be a reprint - still helpful, but it really belongs in the publisher information for the file. Another publisher notorious for the practice of putting copyright notices on reprints is Eschig - one case I recently found was that they claimed to publish Villa-Lobos's Choros No.6 in 1987, but closer inspection revealed that they really published it in 1955 and reprinted it in 1987. (That's important for us because it means that it's public domain in Canada since it was published within the author's lifetime, and could be hosted on this site.) They really should have been sued for copyfraud years ago... KGill talk email 18:14, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
I have a piece (Intermezzo from "Hary Janos" by Zoltan Kodaly) printed by Universal Edition in 1941 (first copyright in 1927 again by Universal Edition), but, it doesn't include a plate number. Would it be good to include this somehow on the publisher page even without a plate number? That seems to be the biggest point of the lists, but at least it would be included that it was printed. I'e seen a few like this recently. Thanks! Jefflyon 15:59, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
- According to WorldCat, the plate number for this (I think) is U.E. 8943. If we didn't know that, then it could probably still be put in the list as long as we had a date. KGill talk email 16:20, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks, I added it with that plate number, and I used the first copyright date - it fit in the list. I'll have to remember WorldCat as another resource. Jefflyon 18:08, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
I have another piece published by Schirmer (Tchakovsky's Violin Concerto, Op.35), with a copyright for 1918, and plate number 22603. The year is 8 years off of what is around it according to the plate number. Would you recommend posting this? I assume it's another "recycled" plate number from 8 years before. Thanks! Jefflyon 22:33, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
Plate numbers
Thanks again for all of the fantastic work!-- Snailey (_@/) Talk to Me Email me 16:24, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
- You're welcome! I've learned a lot from doing it and I am enjoying it! Thanks for your initial comment from over a month ago, it really helped me to know that what I was doing was helpful, I would not have done so much if I hadn't heard that. If there is anything else that I can be doing better, please let me know because I am still learning. I have many more boxes of music to go through and to process. Jefflyon 17:46, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
Great work. You seem to have started a trend, BTW :)-- Snailey (_@/) Talk to Me Email me 17:36, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
- How did I start a trend?
- I've only have about two more weeks of being able to work as much as I have been doing, then classes start again. I'm sad to see the summer come to an end! Once classes start, I'm not sure how much time I will be able to spend here. Jefflyon 18:05, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
- KGilll, Daphnis and others have started adding plate numbers. That's all right. Regards-- Snailey (_@/) Talk to Me Email me 18:08, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
- Dear Jefflyon, please limit the plate numbers included in any publisher to those which we have on-hand or those which are related to what we have on-hand. Including something by Ginastera, who cannot be represented for a VERY long time, is really pointless since these lists should primarily list scores which we house and should not seek to be exhaustive catalogues of what is in the world. Thanks. Daphnis 22:20, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
No offence, Daphnis, but I somewhat disagree. Much of the point is in dating purposes, and these pages are not just used by CRs. It may be of some use to others to have these items. That's why I added Marteau to the UE page.-- Snailey (_@/) Talk to Me Email me 22:33, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
- Well, on second thought, the idea of a universal dating list isn't a bad idea, per se, but the problem we face is people inserting items which we cannot verify and which they aren't sure when were published. As has been proven time and time again, just because some publisher CLAIMS copyright on something and inserts the date which suits their fancy, this does not at all mean it to be accurate. The other situation faced with the recent addition of the Ginastera piece I mentioned (not picking on you here, Jefflyon, just an example) is providing incorrect or incomplete information, which again can be rectified if we have the material in question. So this is kind of a slippery slope, you see, and last thing we want is for these publisher pages and the corresponding list of plates to become farcical. But perhaps I'm over exaggerating here... Daphnis 22:54, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, we can put a disclaimer that we can't verify the entries that aren't linked...-- Snailey (_@/) Talk to Me Email me 02:42, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
- An issue there, albeit small at present but growing, is that all non-linked entries aren't necessarily not present on the site. An example on the Durand page is when there are collections that represent multiple composers or multiple different pieces by the same composer. Obviously, we sort things on a per-piece basis and not how they are collected, hence no linking for those scores possible. Daphnis 20:50, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
Breitkopf und Härtel (and others)
I added some plate numbers to the Breitkopf und Härtel publisher page, and noticed that the pages says that dates in plain type have been confirmed in the Hoffmeister Monatsbericht. I didn't confirm them, but left the ones that seemed to fit within the years around them.
I'm also wondering what language is best to put the title of the piece. Do I add it in the language that is printed, or with the wording that is used on the composer's page? Jefflyon 21:08, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
Any ideas on a publication by C. F. Peters that has multiple plate numbers? The piece is a piano reduction with vocal parts of Mozart's Don Juan, and on the first eight pages (Ouverture) are the first two - 4544 5887, by page 9 where Act I starts it switches to just 5887, then by p. 34 it changes again to 4611. Would it be good to include each plate number on the Peters page? Jefflyon 16:35, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
- The best procedure to use in a case like this (on the work-page only) is to list all three plate numbers present in the score. This most likely was the result of a revised edition where Peters inserted pages from earlier editions instead of re-engraving the whole piece from scratch. Carolus 02:51, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
Summer 2011
Well, I'm back for another summer of work. I'm finishing up finals and final composition projects and I can't wait to get started again with my music librarianship project this summer.
Thanks to everyone who helped me in my work last summer, I had a great experience working with IMSLP and I hope to be even more effective this summer. Jefflyon 14:54, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
