IMSLP Forums

A copyright review request from the anonymous donor:

Hi, I am not satisfied with the scan quality of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique in IMSLP (it's after all from Variations). I would therefore like to scan another copy. However, this copy is not from Dover, it is from the Norton Critical Score series edited by Edward T. Cone. I haven't borrowed the book yet from my library but I did a comparison with the Dover reprint of the Brietkopf and Haertel score. I can tell you that the Norton score is based on the Dover reprint. In fact, the layout, engraving and the number of pages are exactly the same. The only differences are corrections in engraving errors and translation of stage directions and instrument names. Other than that, it is the same as the reprint. If it is based on the 1910 score, can this Norton score be PD in US and Canada?

More information about the Norton score:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/bookse ... 9263&itm=2

http://www2.wwnorton.com/college/music/ ... scores.htm
(Scroll down to Romantic to find Berlioz)

Perhaps you could ask Carolus about this. The fact that editing does not constitute copyright is reassuring, but since Edward Cone is still alive, I'm not sure about the PDness.

Response: Some extensive editing may constitute copyright, though lesser editing will not. I'm not sure about this case...

And also:

I also forgot to mention that in the Norton score, the cornet part of the 1st movement has been transposed from B-flat to G. Hence in the tutti part (there is only 1 tutti part in the entire 1st movement and it is also the only place where the cornet and trumpets are used), the cornet part has been edited by superimposing the old part with the new reading (which is quite obvious if you compare the engraving style). Still, this won't affect the PDness, will it?

I already answered the second question via email (transposition does not constitute copyright in any manner).

The key question comes down to: What is the contribution made by the editor in question that constitutes an original work on his part? Correcting mistakes? Unlikely. Writing a preface? Cerrtainly. Adding interpretive markings (articulations, dynamics, slurs and the like)? Probably. Removing interpretive markings inserted by 19th century editors? Unlikely. Translating performance directions? Maybe (if it's a few sentences of specific directions), or maybe not (if it's merely a translation of common French tempo indications into standard Italian terms).

The chief value of the Nortion critical scores lie with the essays and commentary that appear before and after the score itself, which is usually a reprint of a standard, commonly available public domain edition (like the Berlioz edition cited, which was part of the series edited by Charles Malherbe and Felix Weingartner published by Breitkopf from 1900-1907).

As for the quality of the reproduction itself, I think the best outcome might be to scan a well-printed (not over or under-inked) copy of the Dover, Kalmus, or Luck reprints (or an actual Breitkopf copy if you can find it) as 600 x 600 dpi tiffs, open the pages needing correction in a program like Photoshop, make any corrections needed, convert into a PDF and upload to IMSLP. My only (very minor) objections to diretly scanning the Norton score is that it is 1) considerably reduced in size; and 2) already probably a reprint of a reprint. Until very recently, scores were frequently reprinted from the last copy of the prvious print run, a practice that resulted in substantial degradation of the image quality over time. Pick up a recently printed copy of the Schirmer vocal score for Mozart's requiem, which is actually a reprint of a vocal score arranged by F. Brissler first published around 1880 by Peters, to see a great example of how bad of a result can be achieved with such a method.

Thanks for the information! By the way, I've changed the public domain page quite a bit so that we don't have to ask you the same questions again Can you check if there are any mistakes? The changes can be found here:

http://imslp.org/index.php?title=Public ... ldid=50227

The anonymous donor thinks that the quality of the Norton score is not too bad, so I let him scan it. Apparently he also has a Dover (miniature) reprint of it, but the quality is rather poor and under-inked (maybe the batch didn't print well?). In any case, I don't think he'll be able to get another edition even if he wanted, and since the quality isn't too bad I think it will be good to have on IMSLP, especially seeing how the quality of the current scan is...

Speaking of the Symphonie Fantastique... I remember buying a horribly under-inked copy of it several years ago for $35CAD... now that's a ripoff haha. But then again I didn't know any better back then...

The dover reprint I have (from the complete works edition published by Breitkopf c.1900-1910) is pretty good. I think the times I've played this work it's always been from this Breitkopf printing. Isn't this supposed to be the definitive version?

The recent Dover mini scores have varied considerably in print quality. I expect your donor will have a better time with the Norton.

The Malherbe / Weingartner edition of Berlioz is no longer considered completely definitive. The "Neue Berlioz Ausgabe" is now generally regarded as the best. Of course, this reputation might have a little to do with Baerenreiter's superb marketing skill. The assertion one encounters is that the quality of the individual volumes in the old Breitkopf critical editions was uneven - suffering from the idiosyncracies of individual editors with personal hobby-horses, lacking in peer-review, etc. It is also said that Malherbe's own aesthetic view was quite alien to that of Berlioz, which caused the Breitkopf edition to suffer. His co-editor Weingartner was apparently more sympathetic - at least according to some commentary and articles.

The Malherbe / Weingartner edition of Berlioz was never regarded as definitive when it lacked the scores of Benvenuto Cellini and Les Troyens! One particular Malherbe hobby-horse was the inimical grouping of French Horns with the woodwind choir between the clarinets and bassoons, not to mention the removal or "bowlderisation" of a whole lot of Berlioz's precise instrumental designations or instructions.

By the way I think the style for the Bärenreiter volumes is correctly given as the "New Berlioz Edition" or NBE - in particular to avoid confusion with the "other" NBA they publish!

One of the editors of the NBE contacted me earlier today, one who is very keen to increase the number of Berlioz scores represented here at IMSLP. Although this is unlikely to include facsimiles from the copyrighted material of the NBE, I hope the process may move quite rapidly nonetheless

Best regards, Philip

Hehehe, I was being too polite to Malherbe. I do remember bitter complaints from the conductor of an orchestra I played in a while ago about the NBE parts for the Symphonie Fantastique - they were literally the Breitkopf parts from the older edition, with a few corrections here and there - mainly to do with tempi, etc. They just didn't appreciate having to rent the parts!

The Symphonie Fantastique was an early volume of the Breitkopf not-so-complete works. I think I remember reading somewhere that Weingartner either died or dropped out early on in the series, which apparently left Malherbe's carreer as hobby-horse jockey quite unimpeded! I've been annoyed by his bizarro instrumentation order in those scores too.

pml wrote:One of the editors of the NBE contacted me earlier today, one who is very keen to increase the number of Berlioz scores represented here at IMSLP. Although this is unlikely to include facsimiles from the copyrighted material of the NBE, I hope the process may move quite rapidly nonetheless

I'm very much interested in this... if there are any problems that need sorting out, I welcome the editor to contact me (imslp@imslp.org).

Contacted.

I did approach PML and another Berlioz website owner about making their files available to IMSLP as PDFs. I hope that may come to pass as their transcriptions seem good and the more Berlioz the better. I'm happy to work on saving Sibelius files as PDFs and uploading them, even other composers besides Berlioz. (Not Wagner though.)

gilbertdh

Hmm... I haven't received an e-mail, but are you the editor PML was talking about gilbertdh? That's pretty amazing to have an editor of the NBA here with us

Indeed, gilbertdh is editor of NBE volume 6, the Prix de Rome works (several fugues that were the "qualifying pieces" to enter the contest, then the three extant cantatas La mort d'Orphée, Herminie, and Cléopâtre, along with the fragments of the winning cantata Sardanapale). I'm on holiday for the next three weeks and will be looking at getting my scores ready for posting here.

Regards, Philip

Is this New Berlioz Edition considered public domain because it represents (or supposedly?) an urtext? Also, I was wondering if anyone had/knew of scans or at least the table of contents for the old berlioz works edition published by B&H. I was going to, hopefully sometime this year, complete all of Berlioz's works list from the old edition, but had some immediate questions about from which vol. some of the overtures came, specifically the ones to operas which have their own volumes.
Should I scan in reprints of the old Berlioz edition or is the new edition PD?

The NBA started in 1969 with the centennial of Berlioz' death as I recall. Under the famous Section 70 of the German law, the edited scores (not the editor's preface but only the scores themselves) therein published before 1982 would be public domain in Germany and likewise PD in Canada under the rule of the shorter term provision of the Canadian Copyright Act.

Feldmahler is the Canadian law guru here, so I'd like to see if he agrees with my interpretation here. The Malherbe / Weingartner edition, which is indeed quite incomplete, is completely free of course.

And so I take it that any scores published post-1982 would not be public domain in Germany according to Section 70? As I'm not familiar with the NBE project, was it completed before 1982? If not I would be more inclined to continue scanning and archiving the old Breitkopf edition in order to have a "complete" edition, even if by present scholarly work deemed incomplete.

However, one of my original questions still stands: Would you or anyone else have a catalog or index of the exact contents on a per volume basis (and not book, as I have included this information under the appropriate section in the Breitkopf Gesamtausgabe section) of the old Malherbe/Weingartner editions? I'd like to make sure I catalog as detailed as possible from which portions of this edition these scans come. I've noticed there is some discrepancy between the Dover reprints of the Berlioz overtures and the entry the New Grove has for Berlioz in this manner. I'm not convinced that the prelude to Les Troyens comes from the same volume as the independent overtures, nor the overture from Béatrice et Bénédict or Benvenuto Cellini as these being operas have a dedicated volume.