Thread - Dates on scores

We use "n.d." unless the date is actually printed on the score by the publisher, even if it is confirmed by a reliable source (like BNF, who is very good indeed). So, if Sieber published something in 1774 according to BNF, which is a very reliable source, we put the date in square brackets after the "n.d.[1774]." You can even plug those into the complex 7-field P template if you like. Other libraries aren't nearly so good about the issue and you'll now and again run into some date put in which is so boneheaded that they have the thing being published before the composer was born or before the piece was written. Those should be ignored altogether. Russian publishers can trick you. They often actually did have dates (though you'd never guess it from looking at a cover or title page) - put in by the censor just before something was printed. These often appear in the back of the piece, but the tricksters sometimes would put in in the middle just for fun. (The 1874 date for the 1st ed. of Mussorgsky's Boris is on page 126 as I recall). Jurgenson must have been exempted at some point because they are often really have no date to be found (probably able to provide bound volumes of things to be issued in a given month, or perhaps a few bottles of hard stuff for the censor). In general, dates were more frequent on earlier prints for some reason but seem to be largely absent by the end of the 18th century, only to pick up again after 1891 when the USA signed treaties with a number of countries.