Am I the Only One? Let's Hear It!

[cGilmore]

Does anyone else buy music for no other reason than the engraving itself?

We have a store in this area that has quite a nice selection of music. It's been months, but I was finally able to spend some time in there looking at scores. I went in looking for either a Bärenreiter or Henle edition of the Bach violin Sonatas and Partitas and left with Debussy's Images from Henle. I wish this store had more contemporary music. That's an area that I know I haven't seen very many examples.

So yeah, does anyone else buy music just to have and to study its engraving*? If not, you should know that I'm much to big for you to stuff in a locker or give a swirly to. If so, what was the last one you bought? Do you have any suggestions?

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*I also will buy scores that have something interesting about it that I want to try and recreate. For example, I was (and still am) enamored with the Chopin Nocturne in F# major section with the 4 voices in a single staff. I think Henle's edition is so clear despite the oddity of notation.

[cGilmore]

My recreation of the Chopin mentioned above ^ made YEARS ago when I was first sinking my teeth into this world.

chopinNocturne.jpg (374.89 KiB) Viewed 14121 times

[OCTO]

If so, what was the last one you bought? Do you have any suggestions?

One of the latest scores I bought which I could recommend is Ligeti's Violin Concerto, by Schott, done in SCORE.
It is masterfully and virtuously done score, particularly when you see the complexity of it, it leaves you breathless.

http://www.schott-music.com/shop/resour ... 153622.pdf

[MJCube]

Props for the Chopin page! I have done the note entry for that passage too, out of curiosity, and found it delightfully doable in Sibelius, though I didn’t make it publication-ready as you did. Beautiful job.

I confess that I have gone to PDF for a lot of my score needs. But for much longer than that, the paper scores I buy are works that I want to study for a lifetime, mostly because my budget is small.

[John Ruggero]

Extremely sensitive, cGilmore! It makes me want to play the piece. Just to show you that I was paying attention, I wondered about the big II at the top, since this is a middle section. And the sotto voce, cresc. and sF might be slightly higher. The doppio is lower case in the original. Do you use an original edition as your source? There are some great Chopin sources online like http://www.chopinonline.ac.uk/cfeo/brow ... iew/64059/

Although I don't recall having bought music simply for the engraving, I share with you (and others on this forum) a fascination with all aspects of music notation, particularly with the unusual, intricate, and beautiful, as in your Chopin example.

OCTO. Along with the beauty of the engraving, I love the way Ligeti maximizes the use of "normal" musical notation to express his intentions.

[David Ward]

If so, what was the last one you bought? Do you have any suggestions?

One of the latest scores I bought which I could recommend is Ligeti's Violin Concerto, by Schott, done in SCORE.
It is masterfully and virtuously done score, particularly when you see the complexity of it, it leaves you breathless.

http://www.schott-music.com/shop/resour ... 153622.pdf

Thank you OCTO for this link.

I have a CD of the piece with Kopatchinskaja & Eötvös. Ligeti's interest in natural tunings is also of special interest to me, so I'm very pleased to see this score, and as a result I expect to buy a copy. One silly (eccentric, I suppose) thing: I'm so used to reading fully transposed scores that in some ways I find those notated 'in C' (as is this one) more difficult to read; but I'll put up with that.

[cGilmore]

@John

Yeah, I wasn't really interested in doing the whole song, just a section that contained this notation. I threw up the title and opus just because it looked bare without something there.

Totally agree with the placement of sotto, cresc, and Fz. I was using a Henle 1980 edition as the source. I was seeing if I could get as carbon copy close to their engraving as I could. The placement of those items are what you would find in the Henle ed. I also think a few of the 32nd and 16th beams in the last line are too close to the 8th beams, but it looks like I lowered them (so much for an exact copy).

At the time, I had never read anything about engraving. Doing this excerpt introduced me to a few concepts, for example hanging, straddling, and resting beams. I later found out those were actual things, not just something I conjured up myself. lol

[cGilmore]

One of the latest scores I bought which I could recommend is Ligeti's Violin Concerto, by Schott, done in SCORE.
It is masterfully and virtuously done score, particularly when you see the complexity of it, it leaves you breathless.

http://www.schott-music.com/shop/resour ... 153622.pdf

That's a beast. I just finished listening to it as well. Just out of curiosity, some of the shorter slurs seem really flat (not a graceful curve). Is this just the PDF rendering or is it like that in the printed score as well?

I'm going to looking to that score as well. Thanks!

[DatOrganistTho]

I have some music I was given by a professor who cataloged Felix Wolfes Lieder for their doctorate. Theodore Presser at the time owned all the copies of this music, and soon unloaded it to Viola Dacus (the author of this thesis). She gave me a copy of every volume except a couple (she didn't have anymore of those) and it's all old school typesetting or SCORE. It's delightful and I love just looking at it. I'll post an image soon.

You can't find these books anymore because they have been out of print for a few years. I am very fortunate to have as many copies as I do.

[DatOrganistTho]

Sorry for the really bad scan, but here's a page.