Klarinet Archive - Posting 000328.txt from 2010/09

From: Joseph Wakeling <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Collaborative Urtext project
Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2010 12:15:57 -0400

On 09/11/2010 04:26 PM, Peter Gentry wrote:
> Joseph, Such a collaboration is already in place. Why not just join Mutopia?

Here's why, and it's for the same reason that -- while I immensely value
and respect IMSLP -- I don't think they go far enough in what they are
trying to do.

Mutopia contributions _aren't_ carefully-created scholarly editions.
They are reproductions (using Lilypond) of out-of-copyright scores, with
no particular editorial processes to ensure that the resulting score is
good or free of arbitrary impositions. There are also no meaningful
controls on _what_ score is chosen -- e.g. if you look at their copy of
the Mozart clarinet concerto, it's based on a Breitkopf score from the
late 19th century.

IMSLP has similar problems, except that (unlike Mutopia) they don't
transcribe to Lilypond, they just take direct scans. That may explain
why they are more successful -- it's technically easier to achieve and
you get an exact copy of the score, engraved according to the
professional standards of the time. (On the other hand it means that
what you get isn't editable by others -- it's just a picture on a page.)

IMSLP does provide important documents sometimes -- e.g. the Simrock
first editions of Brahms' clarinet works, facsimiles of Bach manuscript
copies -- but as often as not, the music provided is just whatever
out-of-copyright scores or parts happened to be available, usually from
the 19th century.

So you have no meaningful editorial or scholarly process, no careful
consideration of source material, no critical commentary or remarks on
different readings in different sources ...

I want to see if we can do things a bit differently, which is to prepare
a high-quality scholarly edition in an open, collaborative, community
environment. That means that we have to get appropriate source material
(all the relevant manuscripts, proofs and editions, not just some random
out-of-copyright score); it means carefully identifying the different
readings, making appropriate editorial interventions where necessary,
and surely many other things that I don't yet anticipate because I've
never been through the process of creating a scholarly edition.

Alongside this, I'm curious about whether we can use some interesting
technical tools (Lilypond, version control, possibly others) to
facilitate or extend certain aspects of the preparing-scholarly-edition
process.

I'll certainly be reaching out to Mutopia and IMSLP people as part of
the project, but for the reasons given above I don't want to be bound to
them -- and the kind of expertise needed here is perhaps best found in a
community like this, which includes a number of musicological and
scholarly experts, and which is brought together principally by interest
in the _music_.

Anyway, as a first step, there needs to be a piece for which there is
adequate source material available. Can anyone provide such material,
or suggest where it could be obtained? :-)

Best wishes,

-- Joe
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