Classical scores online

CBC Arts reports that a Canadian composer, a graduate student at Harvard, is now managing an online library of musical scores.

The thing is, there is hardly the first such collection. Here is another, although definitely not as well organized. There is also the Choral Public Domain Library (Choral Wiki).

The other problem is that just because music is 300 years old doesn't mean there are no problems publishing the work.

First of all, nearly all of the editions and printing in the past 100 years still have copyright. The only clear way out of that mess, and also to take advantage of modern technology, is to publish the music in a 'source' form, comparable to a Word file for a book. There are two major formats in use: Sibelius and Finale. There are numerous issues concerning this

1. Neither of these formats is "open", and thus publishing in these formats doesn't qualify as making music available to the public at no charge
2. To address the previous point, both Finale and Sibelius have limited versions that the unwashed public can use as "viewers" for Finale and Sibelius files. They not only allow printing of scores, but allow the computer to produce an approximation of the sound. The problem is that Finale (the company) now wants some money for Notepad (its viewer), so it's no longer free. Fortunately, volunteers are creating PDF's of the Finale and Sibelius files.
3. A huge amount of effort is needed to get people to create Finale and/or Sibelius files for major works.
4. Many classical scores, especially "urtext" editions and manuscripts contain errors, i.e. notations that are improper. In actual use, performers and teachers make interpretations to resolve these issues. Computer notation programs, which are, among other things, designed to perform the scores, are (not surprisingly) intolerant of errors. There is therefore, a temptation of an editor creating a Finale or Sibelius file of a work to gloss over parts of the score that the program doesn't like, thus making editorial decisions which are not the role of an anonymous transcriber to make.

Concerning the CBC story itself, we can read in the New York Times, at least if you can get past their pay wall, that Mr Guo had his site up way back in 2007, but took it down after threats from publishers. He then elicited the support of an army of volunteers to verify the copyright of 15000 or so works on the site. The site was brought back on-line in 2008.

Today's publishers point out (see the NYT article) that they no longer benefit from modern editorial markings, etc. They neglect to mention that the main benefits of Henle, a costly European publisher are the following:

• REMOVAL of most of the critical comments of the past from the main body of the score, consigning them to appendices/prefaces
• Using modern printing techniques on acid-free paper to make the page easier to see.
• Modern binding so the books don't fall apart
• Repute

Except for the last two items, this is nothing a modern laser printer can't manage -- given a PDF, Sibelius or Finale file of the work. So if you want to perform a Chopin Etude for an examination, you will have to an "official" edition, but if you want to explore the works of Buxtehude, online editions will be very useful, especially since Buxtehude is not readily available at any price in many cities.