IMSLP Forums

I don't know how feasible this is, but as a composer I am often far more interested in studying the full score as opposed to vocal/piano scores, piano arrangements, etc. For operas it can be especially maddening to have to browse through everything to find the smattering of full scores that are on IMSLP. Full scores of older operas, though especially full of pages (though not any more than the vocal scores are) seem like they would be ideal to host here as they can be so difficult to purchase/find at a library which are overstocked by vocal scores that are for the most part useless to me.

If there is already a way to easily search for this, I'd love to hear about it, otherwise I think many people would find this extremely useful, or at least I would.

We always try to put the full score of an opera at the top of the page, followed by the vocal score, after which appear the misc. arrangements, transcriptions, and excerpts.

This can potentially result in a huge page, especially when you're dealing with 400-plus page full scores and almost as big vocal scores that are broken up into multiple files. I've been attempting to follow a more or less consistent hierarchy on work pages:

• I. Complete Work
  • (1) Full score
    • (a) Manuscripts
      (b) Printed editions
    (2) Orchestra Parts
    • (a) Manuscripts
      (b) Printed editions
    (3) Piano reductions (for operas, vocal scores)
    • (a) Manuscripts
      (b) Printed editions
    (4) Other arrangements (like a piano score for an opera)
    • (a) Manuscripts
      (b) Printed editions
  II. Excerpts, Arrangements, Transcriptions

This hierarchy obviously does not apply to piano pieces, works for smaller ensembles, choral works, etc. As for adding operatic full scores - by all means! We would very much welcome them. The Dover series is a great place to start, and you can help IMSLP out if you're in the market for Dover scores by going here: http://astore.amazon.com/intemusiscorl- ... TF8&node=2

That doesn't help in finding them in the FIRST place though.

Perhaps appopriate catagories -- "full score", "piano transcription", "orchestration", etc would be helpful, though of course populating such might be a chore.


-Lala-

As a music student, I too find full orchestral scores more useful than vocal scores as I would be able to study the orchestration. I understand the rational of vocal scores as they are less heavier, less bulkier and less page turns which are more suitable for the soloists and the piano player.

Carolus wrote:The Dover series is a great place to start, and you can help IMSLP out if you're in the market for Dover scores by going here: http://astore.amazon.com/intemusiscorl- ... TF8&node=2

The Dover series is great, but they are also widely available and generally inexpensive, hence I own a great number of them. It's the rarer scores that I am looking for, especially some of the great orchestrators of the early romantic era like Meyerbeer, Halevy, etc. Rimsky-Korsakov would be great as well, but I have not for the life of me been able to find many full scores of them anywhere. When I was doing a little project trying to catalog as many pieces as I could find that utilized Rimsky's "invention" the Alto Trumpet in F, I had to resort to the excerpts in the back of his orchestration book in order to find out which operas of his included it in their orchestras.

Anyways, I will hopefully be scanning some of these in the future, at least the ones I can get my hands on.

To jsnfmn,
Dover also publishes two of Rimsky-Korsakov's most famous pieces: Sheherazade and Capriccio Espagnol. If it's his rarer works like operas you're looking for, you can try Kalmus or Eulenburg.

Melodia wrote:That doesn't help in finding them in the FIRST place though.

Perhaps appopriate catagories -- "full score", "piano transcription", "orchestration", etc would be helpful, though of course populating such might be a chore.


-Lala-

Jsnfm, Lala, we actually have a part of your wishes already: http://imslp.org/wiki/List_of_Orchestra ... _Available. This page is accessible via Browse by genre; it would be very appreciated if someone could populate this beginning page. The creation of manually updated pages with works with full scores available available might be overzealous, though.

jsnfmn wrote:Anyways, I will hopefully be scanning some of these in the future, at least the ones I can get my hands on.

I have the Kalmus reprint of the full score of Rimsky's "Snowmaiden," which I would like to scan when I have time.

Meanwhile, you might try to convert the images from I.U.'s Variations project version of the full score of "Golden Cockerel" (Kalmus).

Lyle Neff wrote: Meanwhile, you might try to convert the images from I.U.'s Variations project version of the full score of "Golden Cockerel" (Kalmus).

Thanks for pointing this out, this must have been put up there since the last I had browsed what they had. I'll definitely grab this and convert it for upload here.

Very good, jsnfmn!

In my rummaging this evening, I dug out my early Soviet adaptation of the pre-Soviet engraving of the piano-vocal score of Golden Cockerel. I should scan that, definitely.

I likewise found also my Kalmus score of the 2nd version of the symphonic poem Sadko, which I should do first.

Lyle Neff wrote: Meanwhile, you might try to convert the images from I.U.'s Variations project version of the full score of "Golden Cockerel" (Kalmus).

Done! I'd love to see the Sadko score up here, it'd be one less score for me to scan for my alto trumpet project, I believe it has a part for one, though I'm pretty sure I confirmed it with Rimsky's orchestration book as the copy at the academic library that I normally utilize has gone missing!

Back to the subject at hand though. While uploading Le coq d'or, I wondered whether it might be possible to create new categories in the list of genres that you choose from when uploading to help in searching for full scores. Perhaps for operas/oratorios/any chorus and orchestra type piece have one category as say Opera (Full Score) and another as Opera (Vocal Score). Or something like that? There are probably reasons this isn't done that I haven't thought of, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

jsnfmn, you could try to borrow the full score of Sadko on interlibrary loan. It's more likely that the Soviet edition from the "complete" works would be more lendable than the original edition, if anything, but you can give it a try.

(The only full score opera of Rimsky that I have from the Soviet edition is May Night.)

jsnfmn wrote:[...] Perhaps for operas/oratorios/any chorus and orchestra type piece have one category as say Opera (Full Score) and another as Opera (Vocal Score). Or something like that? There are probably reasons this isn't done that I haven't thought of, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

From what I understand, the current practice is to keep full score and vocal score formats within the same work-page. To subdivide the categories (genres) by score format would be cumbersome, IMHO. The genre lists as they are have other lacunae that need to be filled (as I've pointed out elsewhere).

Too bad the Variations version of the Golden Cockerel has low resolution and therefore not printable, but at least it's better than nothing.

From what I understand, the current practice is to keep full score and vocal score formats within the same work-page. To subdivide the categories (genres) by score format would be cumbersome, IMHO. The genre lists as they are have other lacunae that need to be filled (as I've pointed out elsewhere).

That is true - though I sometimes worry about what the pages will end up like when someone scans all the multiple editions of vocal scores for the Bach Cantatas (since we have 10 cantatas on a page).

Carolus, would it then be necessary to divide full scores and vocal scores to different pages should there be too much material cluttered into one page, which might happen to the example that you gave (Bach's cantatas)?