(no subject)
As many of you know, I do a lot of music editing: I not only enjoy it, but I know it's useful to many other people around the world through websites like the Choral Public Domain Library. The principal e-mail address listed on CPDL is my netscape address, which results in me getting a variety of comments, questions, and suggestions from all over the world. I've received e-mail from Iceland, the very tip of the Northwest Territories of Canada, from all over North America and Europe; even one or two from Africa and South America.
For example: this, from an ex-member of SUMS now living in the United States:
I've just come across your wonderful scores of Dixit Dominus.
I lost all my music in Hurricane Katrina, including a complete score of Dixit Dominus I'd had since my school days. What a treat it was to find your PDF, Scorch and Sibelius files. You've done a beautiful job with these and I wanted to thank you for helping replace this part of my music collection.
What can you possibly say in response to that! (I did manage to find words to reply: I offered to help find anything else she was unable to get hold of...) I was simply amazed and astounded to receive that e-mail from someone who'd probably lost everything in the hurricane, was probably rebuilding their life from scratch, but had bothered to thank me for providing that one little musical score...
More recently:
I just happened upon your rescoring/revision of the old CPDL edition of Carver's "O bone Jesu." Beautiful job of making an impossible original more legible and more elegant. Bravo.
Then there are the cryptic:
I believe that this score is wrong. It goes to E at the very beginning when it should go to D#.
A crafty question from me established the guy was referring to the Mass in C minor by Mozart; he had no idea about key signatures, and therefore no idea that enharmonic notes are usually spelt a certain way depending on the key.
One of the things I'm most proud of started off with this innocuous e-mail that arrived from Ireland nearly 3 years ago, concerning the Mozart Requiem:
I saw your site, and I was wondering if you could send me your transcriptions of the sketches by Mozart, or at least the ones you have finished transcribing. I am an unfinished-fanatic, as in I am fascinated by unfinished works.
A deal of correspondence has flowed between us, because I too am fascinated by incomplete works. I soon discovered he had started making a new realisation of the Requiem. When MUCS performed the Requiem the following year I added a couple of pages to my website listing the various versions of the Mozart Requiem, mentioning his as being "in preparation". I was subsequently contacted by an Irish conductor who wanted to officially commission it. I facilitated putting conductor in contact with composer, and so the new version will be premiéred at a concert this coming December.
A more recent e-mail:
I was just Googling on the Mozart Requiem editions and stumbled across your
extraordinary webpages on the history of the work and the comparison of some of
the editions. I just wanted to say I'm stunned by all the research and detail.
It's a fascinating read. Congrats.
A number of you should know of the originator of this e-mail: Graham Abbott (he probably was trawling the web for an upcoming Keys to Music edition).
Also close to home:
I have just found your orchestral set for Zadok, and would love to be able to use it for an amateur orchestra to rehearse and accompany an amateur choir for a concert in October, 2006, in Coffs Harbour NSW. [...] It is really nice to see you are a fellow Aussie!
My reply - in order to calm the orchestra committee's nerves, they wanted me to state categorically that copyright had expired in that version of Zadok, and therefore only existed residually in my editorial contributions to the edition, a duty which I performed with my usual eloquence and turn of phrase - elicited the following response:
You are a beautiful person, Philip! The pearls in your email will be cast
before those doubters who may think that nothing is free and generous any
more in this dark world!
So I am rather chuffed by all that :)
For example: this, from an ex-member of SUMS now living in the United States:
I've just come across your wonderful scores of Dixit Dominus.
I lost all my music in Hurricane Katrina, including a complete score of Dixit Dominus I'd had since my school days. What a treat it was to find your PDF, Scorch and Sibelius files. You've done a beautiful job with these and I wanted to thank you for helping replace this part of my music collection.
What can you possibly say in response to that! (I did manage to find words to reply: I offered to help find anything else she was unable to get hold of...) I was simply amazed and astounded to receive that e-mail from someone who'd probably lost everything in the hurricane, was probably rebuilding their life from scratch, but had bothered to thank me for providing that one little musical score...
More recently:
I just happened upon your rescoring/revision of the old CPDL edition of Carver's "O bone Jesu." Beautiful job of making an impossible original more legible and more elegant. Bravo.
Then there are the cryptic:
I believe that this score is wrong. It goes to E at the very beginning when it should go to D#.
A crafty question from me established the guy was referring to the Mass in C minor by Mozart; he had no idea about key signatures, and therefore no idea that enharmonic notes are usually spelt a certain way depending on the key.
One of the things I'm most proud of started off with this innocuous e-mail that arrived from Ireland nearly 3 years ago, concerning the Mozart Requiem:
I saw your site, and I was wondering if you could send me your transcriptions of the sketches by Mozart, or at least the ones you have finished transcribing. I am an unfinished-fanatic, as in I am fascinated by unfinished works.
A deal of correspondence has flowed between us, because I too am fascinated by incomplete works. I soon discovered he had started making a new realisation of the Requiem. When MUCS performed the Requiem the following year I added a couple of pages to my website listing the various versions of the Mozart Requiem, mentioning his as being "in preparation". I was subsequently contacted by an Irish conductor who wanted to officially commission it. I facilitated putting conductor in contact with composer, and so the new version will be premiéred at a concert this coming December.
A more recent e-mail:
I was just Googling on the Mozart Requiem editions and stumbled across your
extraordinary webpages on the history of the work and the comparison of some of
the editions. I just wanted to say I'm stunned by all the research and detail.
It's a fascinating read. Congrats.
A number of you should know of the originator of this e-mail: Graham Abbott (he probably was trawling the web for an upcoming Keys to Music edition).
Also close to home:
I have just found your orchestral set for Zadok, and would love to be able to use it for an amateur orchestra to rehearse and accompany an amateur choir for a concert in October, 2006, in Coffs Harbour NSW. [...] It is really nice to see you are a fellow Aussie!
My reply - in order to calm the orchestra committee's nerves, they wanted me to state categorically that copyright had expired in that version of Zadok, and therefore only existed residually in my editorial contributions to the edition, a duty which I performed with my usual eloquence and turn of phrase - elicited the following response:
You are a beautiful person, Philip! The pearls in your email will be cast
before those doubters who may think that nothing is free and generous any
more in this dark world!
So I am rather chuffed by all that :)