"IMSLP's biggest holes" - Most Wanted Scores

[Eric]

Copyright consideration for Canada/EU is a moot point as these regions are based on a life plus term. For the US, only the date of publication is the factor, and in this regard the piano version is completely separate from the orchestral score. If what you say is true, then the piano score would be free but orchestral score would not be.

Such evidence as I have is from Worldcat and a check of a couple of libraries connected to it, but will check Hofmeister MB also (only available up to 1947, but useful for 1921 and 1924 when I have a bit of time).
The piano reduction was done by Bela Balazs (or in the original, Balazs Bela - still omitting diacritics...) (1884-1949) near as I can tell. See eg sample piano score link.
For the full score see eg most useful full score link (at Ithaca College the permanent link is this which also provides the UE plate number that the Worldcat page does not). A by-date ordering on Worldcat (bartok 13 holzgeschnitzte) turns up this as the first in date order of appearance for full scores fwiw. (The search "bartok fából faragott" gives a similar result: 70-page vocal scores from 1921 up to a certain point, then 269 - page scores from 1924 begin appearing, only a few of them; then ones with copyright dates of 1949 - poss. real new editions, poss. copyfraud - after that.)

[NLewis]

Not a "score", but how is it that we don't have early editions of Grove's dictionary of music and musicians? It seems like a pretty big gap to me.

[daphnis]

Probably because that's an extremely tall order. I am not aware if it has been digitized and is available on some medium anywhere.

[NLewis]

Very tall order, but a very nice one if delivered

[daphnis]

Indeed, although I'm not volunteering my services for this one. Any takers out there?

[NLewis]

Done

[daphnis]

Where'd you find these?!

[pml]

I smell a spoor of archive.org, based on the fact that the scans are incomplete with missing pairs of double page layouts, where the scanner has (very occasionally) skipped a page turn and not gone back to fix his/her work.

A valuable addition, nonetheless: many thanks for discovering it, Nick.

Cheers PML

[daphnis]

Ah, I see. Any idea how many pages are missing from this set? THAT might then be something I could get behind.

[pml]

Not many: but in volume 1, pages 2 and 3 obviously missing (but very little from the remainder of the volume). The insertion of plates makes it a little awkward doing a precise count since these don't contribute to the general numbering scheme of the original print, though they have an impact on the numbering of the PDF.

Nick, would you also indicate what letters are covered by which volumes? Volume 1 is clearly A to E, but I have no particular desire to download all five volumes to establish the remainder. The 1904 edition is a bit of a historical curiosity, to be frank – naturally it is spectacularly outdated in comparison to later editons. ;-) P.

[Carolus]

Hrm. How is 'earliest publication' determined in such a case? The work was first published in some complete form (not as an excerpt) in 1921- though first as a full score in 1924, after the 1922/3 divide. So I wonder how US copyright law would treat the orchestral score... at least the piano arrangement would not be blocked, unless the person who transcribed it died less than 50 years ago etc. Eric

I see this ugly little issue has reared its head again. This is a case of nobody having the funds to challenge publishers' assertions in court. According to the definitions of "publication" found in Nimmer on Copyright, which are in turn based upon the case law pertaining to the issue, when a derivative work is the first thing publshed, all extant versions or arrangements of the original work are considered as being published at the same time. There are several publishers who have been hiding behind this claim of a full score remaining "unpublished" even decades after vocal score or piano arrangement was in print - despite the fact fact that in nearly every case, the arrangement was created after the full score. As with critical editions, it's another one of those unresolved issues in US case law - which UE, Boosey & Hawkes, et al take full advantage of. Stravinksy's Histoire du Soldat is another splendid example. The arrangement made for Violin, Clarinet and Piano (Suite) was published before 1922, but Chester didn't issue a full score of the original work until 1924. It's annoying, but there isn't much one can do about it.

[Eric]

Probably because that's an extremely tall order. I am not aware if it has been digitized and is available on some medium anywhere.

I enter this discussion very late, but books.google.com has early editions of this, Baker's, and many other dictionaries English, French, German and others... so the answer is definitely 'yes' to 'some medium anywhere' . Alas that means
removing the Google logo from a lot of pages... glad we were able to find a mostly-complete copy of 1904 Grove though - perhaps the missing pages can be filled in from the books.google.com copies... (a smaller number of pages to GoogleClean).
Eric

[panda]

I've got a 1910 edition of the Grove where vol 5 has an appendix with some updates. Vol 2 is F to L, vol 3 is M to P, vol 4 is Q to S, and vol 5 is T to Z.

[NLewis]

I was browsing through the string quartets by Brahms and discovered a rather startling hole. We don't have the parts for Op.67 ! Could someone please upload or typeset these? I've looked on almost every conceivable website for the parts, and have come up empty handed. Thanks!

[daphnis]

Posted