IMSLP Kickstarter Project 1: Leo Ornstein's Piano Concerto

[Carolus]

At long last, we've launched a project at Kickstarter to raise funds to produce a newly-engraved and edited full score, set of parts, and two-piano score for this important early 20th century American piano concerto. With the encouragement and blessing of the composer's son Severo, the helpful librarians at Yale University were able to provide the essential source material for this important project: the manuscript parts, full score and two-piano score. We already have a Sibelius engraver who has agreed to work on this. The requested funds will be used to pay him and to pay for the printing of scores. If we actually meet out goal, we hope to have full scores, study scores and two-piano scores printed and everything posted here at IMSLP and at Severo Ornstein's site for free download.

The page for the Kickstarter project, which tells more about the concerto is found here, and a YouTube recording of the concerto is here. If this project is successful, there are no doubt a number of other worthwhile things which could be done to make this site even more useful. MusOpen's project to record standard-repertoire works professionally and release the recordings for free was one of the more outstanding projects which took place thanks to Kickstarter's very unique model of fundraising. Those recordings are also available here thanks to the many folks who donated to that particular project, so these things have a way of growing once they're set free. Spread the word!

[horndude77]

I added a link on the classical music reddit page: http://www.reddit.com/r/classicalmusic/ ... _concerto/. I've seen kickstarters posted there in the past and the response is usually mixed.

Some suggestions:
- Add a link to IMSLP somewhere. I assume the piece will end up here somewhere: http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Ornstein,_Leo.
- Add a link to a more detailed bio. Either http://leoornstein.net/leo_ornstein.html or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Ornstein. (Wow he lived a long time.)
- Add a picture of the composer somewhere (make it more personal).
- Find some people to evangelize the project (people with popular blogs, piano professors, others who might be interested?). I don't have many suggestions here.

Good luck.

[Carolus]

Thanks very much for these helpful recommendations! I'll try and get them added soon.

[Carolus]

Updates are now in place. BTW, if anyone has access to the IMSLP Twitter and Facebook accounts, please PM me with the particulars for logging into them so I can post this item to our followers.

[Praetoria]

I apologize for resurrecting an old thread, but I feel very strongly that this needs some commentary!

The result of the disappointing kickstarter does speak for many factors: lack of communication, advertising and enthusiasm for a very unknown piece of music, this is all understandable in our day. What isn't sensible, really, is the amount of money asked!

Twenty thousand, you could buy several great cars for that price, it's a lot! Who in the world should ask for $20k for something as simple as translating scribbles (as numerous as they may be) out of Ornstein's manuscript paper to Finale or some computer notation program and then presenting a clean, full score, of which orchestral parts could be derivated from as well?

This is a task for a dedicated enthusiast who would do it for FREE, not someone who has his schedule full of other professional commitments and has his salary's worth of expertise needed elsewhere. If I'd known of this project in time I'd have volunteered immediately to transcribe the score myself, even if it meant taking time off my other work in the meantime.

I do not live in the States, thus perhaps needing help to get travel expenses covered, BUT... that sort of flight-ticket money is ripples in a pond compared to the absurd $20,000! Above all, I have an eye for recognizing an important project: preserving Ornstein's incredible work... I would tremble in joy to have a chance to even touch the manuscript of this brilliant Piano Concerto!


In my opinion, asking for $20k is silly, destructive and shortsighted for a relatively niche project that something like this (no matter how important!) appears to the populace at large in our current time, especially if you don't have any backing of classical music preservation societies/entities or universities otherwise.

[Carolus]

There is a considerable difference between someone who buys a copy of Sibelius or Finale and sets up shop as "music engraver" and someone who actually knows how printed music is laid out for an actual performance by an orchestra. This is not to say that someone who starts out the as an 'out-of-the-box' engraver cannot become one of the actual professionals with time and practice, because even the folks who now work for Henle and Baerenreiter started at the beginning. The 20k for score, parts and 2-piano reduction is probably actually at the low end given the considerable complexity of the piece, the age and legibility of the manuscripts, etc. The folks at Sibelius and Finale do a excellent job of selling the notion that their software does it all for you automatically, but that's not reality.

[lekro]

If anything, the first step is getting the manuscripts on IMSLP. After that, anyone can make a typeset. Without the manuscripts or other usable sources, though, nobody can do much. Even if there isn't enough money to hire the professional engraver, engraving could be done by the community. If it comes to that, I know a bit of Lilypond if necessary.

[Carolus]

Good point!

[Eric]

Not anyone can make a good useable elegant typeset (I know I can't.) As to the scan of the concerto- glad to see it's up!

[Sallen112]

Would be a nice addition to the site. I was the one who scanned all of his scores and parts (last year). So if anyone wants to take a stab at typesetting his music, go right ahead!

[GalenHZ]

Well, that just sounds like a challenge, and I've been looking for an excuse to learn some Lilypond.

Here's a simple test run of the first 24 bars of the 2-piano reduction. Just posting it to see if anyone has feedback (like "don't quit your day job"), or is already working on it.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/133 ... uction.pdf
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/13353945/source.zip

[Eric]

I like so far...

(There is a subsection of one online forum I subscribe to that discusses typesetting issues not least because the music of the composer who/whose music is of the forum, Kaikhosru Sorabji, was largely left in manuscript and until recently a fair amount of it wasn't yet typeset (computer or otherwise. Though that's changed - the amount of his substantial output that's now available from the Sorabji Archive in a typeset form is larger than I anyway would have expected. Still, that leaves a community of people with a good notion of how -to- typeset in a useful, readable, professional-looking fashion- something I can't say for many of the typesets that have been posted to iMSLP in the past, where among other solecisms tempo changes appear over _every_ staff, e.g. ...)

[GalenHZ]

Heh. I'm familiar with the composer, and the archive. I have a lot of admiration for anyone willing to tackle those scores. (And pity.)

I've pushed up to measure 38, right before rehearsal mark 4 in the parts. The new stuff has been somewhat cleaned up but still needs a bit of work in spots. It's up on dropbox, same links.

[varnis]

I've made a start on the second movement, parts at least. It looks like trying to produce a score with the current convention of accidentals only apply to the next note is essentially impossible to do in Sibelius (it requires much faking).

As I get through it I'll probably follow suit and put it on dropbox, hopefully we can at least manage to crowdsource a set of parts in some engraving software, that way most of the grunt work is done and if we fancy trying again with crowdfunding it's only the conversion from raw sibelius files to properly engraved files.

[violinconcerto]

Good project, but I hope if you ever want to produce score and parts for a 20th century violin concerto that you will come to me, because I do this work for free - like I did for many, many violin concertos before:
https://www.tobias-broeker.de/rare-manu ... ns/violin/

Good luck with your project!

Best,
Tobias