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The last post on this piece, from 2012, got quite emotional, so I am going to start again. I am not looking for the score edited by Frank Campbell-Watson (he only died in 1980), but WorldCat shows a 1942 Salabert publication that doesn't seem to have an editor. This could be an incomplete entry by whatever library put it there, but if there is no editor, it should be fine for upload.

The1942 Campbell-Watson edition was published New World Music Corporation, so I don't think they are the same. The University of Ottawa has the Salabert edition, and I think anyone from a 70-year country could also upload this if they have access to it, which includes some German and other European libraries.

Does anyone who has access to, and can legally upload the Salabert edition, and if so, double check the editor issue, and then upload if possible?

Otherwise, if anyone has any information about the editorship of the Salabert edition, please post?

Thanks,

I don't have a copy of this in hand - however, while there are a number of entries in Worldcat for the Salabert issue that do not list an editor, there are at least three entries where Frank Campbell-Watson is listed as editor. OCLC #s 811828462; 659261594; 730019900.

steltz wrote:... but WorldCat shows a 1942 Salabert publication that doesn't seem to have an editor.

Can't Salabert be both the publisher and the editor? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Salabert

Thanks for this information:

OCLC 659261594 has a publication date of 1954, but it looks like the other two are actually from 1942, though both have the editor's name in square brackets, which usually means it is interpolated information.

On the surface of it, there is an outside chance that someone put Campbell-Watson's name on these entries, making an assumption from a later publication (hence the square brackets), but one would have to actually get a physical look at the score to see. Since none of the libraries in the country where I live have this edition, I can't do that. If anyone has access to this score -- the 1942 one, not the 1954 one -- I would appreciate it if they could look to see if there really is an editor's name there.

As to Coulonnus' question, yes a publisher can be an "editor" (or hire out the editing as "work for hire"). But then the copyright protection cannot be perpetual. In the country where I live, copyright will go by a death date where there is one (it would have to be a human being, not an entity or corporation), but from date of publication in the case of posthumous publications with no editor. In this case, since Gershwin died in 1937, and this is a posthumous publication, the 50 years will run from date of publication, i.e. from 1942 if there is no editor, and from the death date of the editor if there is one. If Frank Campbell-Watson edited the 1942 edition, it will be in the public domain in 2031 in the life+50 countries. If not, it came into the public domain in 1993 in the life+50 countries (2013 in the life+70 countries).

An Italian library http://opac.sbn.it/opacsbn/opac/iccu/sc ... BO\3622177 has it. But the question comes up again: how to convince a library to make it available online when this library is ready to lend it to its visitors in its reading room?

Is this "edition" one with lots of additions eg. fingerings, like Marcel Dupré, Alfred Cortot etc? Or simply a "scientific or critical edition"? In the 2nd case it is copyrighted only for 25 years.

From what I understand, there is no information on exactly what the editor's contributions were, which makes it difficult to work out whether it is covered. Obviously I'm hoping that the very first edition had no editor . . . .

Salabert I believe got his start as an arranger before going onto the publishing business. He produced quite a few arrangements for 'salon orchestra' - thought I imagine any thing of Gershwin's would have been licensed through New World, et al. My guess is that this is an arrangement made by Salabert, rather than an edition of the original (which gets very complicated in the case of this piece).

If that is Francis Salabert, he died in 1946, making him PD in life+50 countries, and nearly PD in life+70 countries . . . (tantalizing).