Rare MS Music Scores versus published music scores.

[guest377]

thought I would enlighten the non educated regarding "rare" music scores:


As with most works and composers that are rarely heard, their works (the music score) may exist only in MS version  (that's NOT Microsoft but Manuscript, meaning "handwritten").    Chances are again slim that if the MS was never published,  then the parts have to be copied by hand to be performed. 

From my experience, if the work was published by a publishing house, the parts are probably available for performance.   It becomes a huge task to "engrave" (from the old publishing terminology where metal plates were engraved for the printing press) the manuscript score into a software product to produce the printed parts and conductor score needed for the performers. 

However, it can be done.  In fact, I am seeing some premiere recordings being "crowd funded" in order to bring them to the market (see Edward Burlingame Hill: Four Premiere Recordings  Symphony No 4 wherein the MS was engraved into a software product, and funds were raised to bring it to the market).

[guest377]

therefore, if a particular symphony or concerti is still in the MS format, chances are that it has never been performed or recorded.  However, there are exceptions... I have a photocopy of Garuta's piano concerto in MS format and it was recorded by the Latvian Radio Symphony.

[Grandenorm]

therefore, if a particular symphony or concerti is still in the MS format, chances are that it has never been performed or recorded.

Not at all. A great many works exist only in MS score with the parts not printed but written by a copyist or copyists, yet they have been performed and continue to be performed using those parts. And copyists' parts are perfectly usual for many works where the full score has been printed, though the string parts (on the whole) tend to be printed - which is why these are sometimes the only parts of some works which survive. "Published" does not, of course, necessarily mean "printed".

[guest377]

hmm yes you are correct.

[guest140]

But although many works that only exist in manuscript form were performed once or a few times in the past, it is often difficult to get your hands on the scores (in whatever format) to study them. I am now talking about manuscripts in archives and "even worse" still under copyright, so one has to find the actual copyright holders, ask for permission, order copies from the archive, and so on. I did that for my violin concerto project dozens of times and this process takes several months regularly and deserves a lot of efforts and persistence. Not every musician wants to take this time and work and so switch back to the comon, printed repertoire. Therefore I am doing my violin concerto project: That no violinist or music director can say anymore: "We wanted to play an unknown violin concerto but we couldn't find the score and parts."