Why are there no Bach scores? You suck.

Carolus · Post by **Carolus** » Wed Aug 23, 2006 8:25 am

OK, here are the basic facts for anyone intrested:

The Bach Gesselschaft Edtion of the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach was published in a series of volumes from 1851-1900. These volumes are public domain worldwide. The last surviving editor died a century ago in 1906. Scanning volumes does not place a work into copyright. Something must be added to the original, like a new preface, new editorial markings, etc. in order to claim copyright for a derivative work.

In some countries - Germany for example - there is a particular, limited class of copyright granted to so-called "critical editions." The term for such "scientific" works - when it is simply a re-engraving of existing public domain material - is 25 years from date of publication. The BGE varied in quality, depending upon the individual editor in quesion. The BGE volumes edited by Wilhelm Rust (1822-1892) were generally quite good and often differ little from their modern counterparts published in the Neue Bach Ausgabe. Other editors were less meticulous than Rust. In a few cases, manuscripts and other source material have surfaced which resulted in significant changes.

At any rate, the bottom line is that there is nothing in the Bach Gesellschaft Edtion that is protected by copyright - not a single page. This stands in stark contrast to other works found on this site, like Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" which is protected by copyright around the world (Barber died in 1981 - considerably less than 70 years ago, and the title in question was published well after 1922 in the USA.)

imslp2 · Post by **imslp2** » Wed Aug 23, 2006 8:48 am

Indeed... and that work (Adagio for Strings) is going down tomorrow, along with a whole host of other stuff.

Now if only I could get the forum login working again...

I. de Zwarte · Post by **I. de Zwarte** » Fri Jan 12, 2007 3:37 pm

On the site http://www.imslp.org/index.php?title=So ... bastian%29 I started to put in links to the site with the music files (being an organist I started with the Trio-sonatas). I wonder: should those links point directly to the pdf-file or to the site with the music files (as I did).

A possibility could be that the "header" : Trio-sonatas for organ BWV 525-530 could point to the site with music files and the titles beneath it to the pdf-files, but I did not find out how to make a link of the "header".

So the easiest (and quickest) way is to do as I did, but, as written, I wonder if this is the right way to do? Maybe there is a policy for those kind of things?

I. de Zwarte · Post by **I. de Zwarte** » Fri Jan 12, 2007 11:15 pm

I saw that one who's called Peter made some changes on the Bach trio-sonatas. In fact, an answer on my questions.
I agree with his changes, much better "overlook"!

Post by **Peter** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 3:19 pm

I did not read your message before today... IF someone needs an english reply please notify.

Ik had enkel de paginatitel veranderd (vewijderen van nummer) omwille van de alfbetische opsomming in de componistpagina. Dat hoeft nu niet meer, omdat nummers automatisch niet meer worden opgenomen in de sortering. Dus Six Preludes (Bach) worden gesorteerd onder de P, maar de titel blijft dezelfde.

Het heef inderdaad weinig zin te linken naar de pdf, aangezien die toch op IMSLP staat. Linken naar de website zelf is een beter idee.

En je laatste vraag begrijp ik niet goed.

BTW, your question is not very relevant in this topic...

Post by **Funper** » Wed Oct 03, 2007 8:05 pm

this project will never get to an end...

Post by **imslp** » Wed Oct 03, 2007 10:09 pm

Actually I think there is just one book of manuscript left, and I'm not sure how Peter intends to do it (or even what they are manuscripts of really). But the project can finish any time now really

Post by **Peter** » Wed Oct 03, 2007 10:14 pm

Hmm sooner or later... The last book is the most difficult one - and I'm alone for it. It's a collection of hundreds of fragments of manuscripts, all of which need to be matched with a BWV number. All regular scores have been submitted. Feel free to help, Funper.

Website · Post by **pml** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 2:10 am

Peter:

which volume of the BGA is this?

If it is a true miscellany of items from the BWV catalogue, I suggest it might be better to provide the file "as is" or subdivided by some other system than for individual works. If you can let me know which volume, I'll download a copy and give it a look.

Regards, Philip

Post by **Peter** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 8:57 am

pml wrote:which volume of the BGA is this?

Volume 44. I've never been hurried to submit...

Website · Post by **vinteuil** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 10:57 pm

I just finished uploading this. The problem is, the file #27 is too big by about 4 mb. Sorry! I could ZIP it, but ZIPs are deprecated. Any ideas.
However, aside from that, the BGA is done!

Website · Post by **vinteuil** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 6:27 pm

um...help? Also, I think that the book should be moved to "finished"; I don't want to do this myself - might mess up.
Any ideas for No. 27?

Post by **daphnis** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 7:14 pm

Hi. I'm not sure I follow you, but would be glad to help get this down to size. What have you uploaded and where? If it's a matter of size, if you want to post your images files to a hosting site, I could compress them a bit better since I use Acrobat 9.0 pro.

Website · Post by **vinteuil** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 9:59 pm

I uploaded all of the last volume (44) to IMSLP except for one part - the page wasn't in the file I had - and the mass in b minor, of which I made a PDf that is 153.9 MB. I could zip it and email it or something, but it might still be too big.

Website · Post by **vinteuil** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 10:01 pm

mass in b minor is part 27. I didn't make that clear.