Thread - Concerto Rondo (Offenbach, Jacques) not urtext

Freed name could appear in the title page too. The cello part does have some fingerings in it, but since it was part of the piano score, its not eligible. The worldcat entries DOES mention his name for the edition, sorry.

Also once again, the Pfitzner is not urtext either, since it was arranged by Osthoff, who died in 2008. Plus to add to the fire, the first performance was less than 50 years ago, which makes it not eligible for the canadian public domain.

You need to understand how "Threshold of originality" works. I've done similar mistakes to what you have done with uploading material after 1966.

as long as the first performance was done more than 50 years ago (same with publication). If no performance during his lifetime, then no.

I should bring in Carl to give you the whole spiel on how the "Threshold of originality" rule works (including urtext/critical editions). He would be able to better explain it to you better than I can. I "mostly" understand it but to a point.

We only voluntarily accept urtext editions which are older than 25 years of the date of publication. (1991 and before), is one thing I know.

Henle is the "Booby-Trap" for the Urtext rule. They put the Urtext name on their editions as a marketing term, but it turns out in the edition, there are contribution made by editors, which debunks their "Urtext claim and makes the edition not eligible! I am sure they have editions that are non-edited.

Once again wait for Carl to explain these things...

First item: The German law is 25 years and the EU directive allows for a term of up to 30 years for 'scientific editions' if a member country enacts it (the longest term at pesent is Germany's 25 years).

The standard for urtext editions gets tricky because things are often not marked in terms of what contributions were made by an editor and what was not. Even when one knows what is the editor's versus the composer's original, the question arises as to what added by the editor is original in nature. A preface is pretty obviously original to the editor, while mere corrections of errors from the sources are not. Dynamics, slurs and articulations added by an editor on the basis of parallel passages marked elsewhere in the same work by the composer are not original, but those created by the editor on his own are original. Fingerings added from great artists and performers long dead (Liszt, Mikuli, D'Albert, Scharwenka, Paderewski, etc.) are not original, but those added new by the editor probably are (though there is some debate as to how original a fingering can really be for a passage of music). A comparison of the sources used in a simple table-like format is unlikely to meet the threshold of originality, but a narrative describing the different variants in the soucres consulted probably would meet the test. This is why having all the possible information about the item can be critical. Yes, the editor's dates don't really matter if the item is really a 'scientific edition' as long as that edition is over 25 years old. Trouble is, one has to look over something quite carefully to get an idea of what the nature of the editor's contribution is, and even then it's now always obvious - especially with something published posthumously. See the problem?

I think a number of these early Offenbach cello pieces (Offenbach was a cellist, after all) were published in the composer's lifetime so having the original on hand is preferable before adding some edition where the nature of the editor's work is not spelled out. We can't expect every uploader to be a copyright expert, after all. The best we can do is to try and offer general guidelines.