Klarinet Archive - Posting 000099.txt from 2008/10

From: Joseph Wakeling <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Is there a market for this???
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 08:08:28 -0400

Dan Leeson wrote:
> For almost 50 years I have been playing, writing about, and thinking
> about the historic, musical, and performance issues of the gran
> Partitta, K. 361.
>
> I've published at least 10 serious musicological articles on the piece,
> its history, its troubles, and the most unsolved matter, namely when and
> under what circumstances was it written. But whenever I'm asked about
> the various articles, I'm told that they are not available, even in
> larger cities. Keith Bowen told me that he couldn't find any copies of
> the Mozart Jahrbuch in any university library in New Mexico. I guess
> that "The Mozart Jahrbuch" has limited availability, which is not
> abnormal since most of the papers are in German.

First thought. What is the copyright status of these articles? Yours,
or the Mozart Jahrbuch's? If the former, can your articles be
transcribed into electronic format and then placed on your website, or
an academic 'e-print' server?

> AND NOW TO MY POINT: I'm doing a book whose working title is "Mozart's
> Serenade in B-flat for 13 instruments, K. 361, the gran Partitta." There
> some new stuff in it but mostly it is putting in one place, all the
> various ideas and articles that have been printed over the last 50 years
> (and the spelling of "gran Partitta" with the lower case "g" and the
> three "t-s" is not an accident, but most of you know all that).
>
> I'm about half way done and it will probably push about 175 pages, with
> color pictures. It's about six months to a year away.
>
> It's not a novel, and two of the chapters are important but not fun. My
> intention is to make it a source book for anyone who wants to know the
> straight skinny about every aspect of the piece (at least as seen
> through my eyes).

My feeling is -- what is your personal interest in producing this book?
Will you make money out of it? Do you need or want to make money out
of it? If not, why not again release it in electronic form, for free?
I suggest this because it seems to me your main concern is that people
have access to the information. This method means that the _commercial_
viability of the project (from a publisher's point of view) becomes a
non-issue.

There do exist publishers who will produce a book but also
allow/encourage you to produce a freely-available electronic version.
Unfortunately from my knowledge most of them are limited to techy books
rather than musicology :-( But you can look.

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