OT: Publishing hall of shame

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motet
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Post by motet » Fri Aug 17, 2018 12:32 am

The excerpt below is from the score to Puccini's La Rondine. Puccini's regular publisher was Ricordi, but because of some feud he had with them at the time, this one alone was published by E. Sonzogno, Milan, a much-inferior firm (apparently still in business, http://www.sonzogno.it/).

As you can see, the music is missing clefs at the beginning of each system, and possibly even worse, key signatures (the passage is in F major)! The entire score (some 400 pages) is like this. As you can also see, the staves are not always labelled with the instrument names. In an "optimized" score, the clefs and key signatures often give a visible clue as to what the instrument is, so that's doubly bad.

Truly shameful! we'll see how many mistakes there are.


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N Grossingink
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Post by N Grossingink » Fri Aug 17, 2018 1:17 pm

Pity the poor orchestral librarian that needs to fix that monstrosity! Actually, the notation looks pretty good. But the score setup - what were they thinking?!

N.
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John Ruggero
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Post by John Ruggero » Fri Aug 17, 2018 3:07 pm

This may have been an accepted practice at the time among the lesser publishers of Italian operas. One sees little concern about "hand-holding" and "niceties" like adequate cuing even in the Ricordi parts. It reminds me a little of old-school Italian violin teaching: Lesson 1: insert violin under chin and stand in corner holding it with the head only until the pain is unbearable. Then do it again and again...
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N Grossingink
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Post by N Grossingink » Fri Aug 17, 2018 3:26 pm

"No Clefs and Key Signatures after the First System" reminds me of the way many big band charts used to be copied, at least here in the US. At least most of these arrangements probably didn't change key, or all that often. Today, you can still dispense with the clefs on every line for jazz arrangements, but the key - I don't think so. Of course, time saving or laziness doesn't enter the picture because Finale does it for you.

N.
N. Grossingink
Educational Band, Orchestra and Jazz Ensemble a specialty
Sample: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pFF5OeJDeLFGHMRyXrubFqZWXBubErw4/view?usp=share_link


Mac Mini 2014 2.6 Ghz, 8Gb RAM
OSX 10.15.7
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