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Hi,
Just wondering about the status of the sketches for Elgar's Third Symphony - specifically, those which were published in W H Reed's book, Elgar As I Knew Him in 1936. I know the unpublished sketches in the British Library are still in copyright in the EU, but as far as I thought, the selections published in 1936 are PD. I thought I'd check anyway, just to be sure, before posting anything.

Also, are Reed's descriptions of the symphony PD or not? He died in 1942, so I'm not entirely sure... If they're in copyright, I can always summarise the structure-related info in Reed myself as an appendix, I guess...

Hi Tom,

as you may know, after wanting all attempts at the completion of No. 3 suppressed, the Elgar Estate eventually saw the light and commissioned Payne to do the job, as otherwise it would have become a free-for-all when the sketches included in Reed's book eventually fell into the public domain - as they now have in life+50/70 years domains.

Apparently the situation is rather like the sketches for the Zsolnay publication of Mahler's 10th - the collection in Elgar As I Knew Him is substantial but incomplete (the sketches never before published might fall foul of Canada's interpretation of Editio princeps, even though it doesn't represent an entire work). Reed himself is under EU copyright until the end of 2012, so you would have to be careful not to be found infringing copyright yourself in Ireland.

The question will be whether the copyright of Reed's book was registered and renewed in the US - it may be subject to one of those 95 year copyright terms which result in the work in question being blocked on this site. If it's PD in the US, then the entire book would be a useful source (although it would be prudent for anyone uploading it from the EU to wait until 2013!).

Regards, Philip

Hmmm... best not to post Reed's descriptions, then, I guess! (The information he gives can easily be summarised in any case!) How about the actual facsimiles of Elgar's sketches that Reed gives, though? I seem to remember Anthony Payne saying that they expired (in the EU at least) back in 2005?

Yep, the sketches in Reed’s book entered the EU public domain after 2004 - in other places they had already become public domain after 1984 or 1986, and the sketches (separate of Reed’s book) may not have ever been registered in the US. I think the amount in Reed’s book is somewhere in the vicinity of about 40 pages (out of more than 100 pages of sketches) so it’s substantial, but far from being the complete set of materials needed to work with.

I leafed through the score of EP3 a couple of months ago (but didn’t have a recording on iPod to hand, drat), Payne’s done a marvellous job with it. (I want to hear the newly minted sixth Pomp & Circ. march from Elgar’s sketches!)

Regards, PML

pml wrote:Yep, the sketches in Reed’s book entered the EU public domain after 2004 - in other places they had already become public domain after 1984 or 1986, and the sketches (separate of Reed’s book) may not have ever been registered in the US. I think the amount in Reed’s book is somewhere in the vicinity of about 40 pages (out of more than 100 pages of sketches) so it’s substantial, but far from being the complete set of materials needed to work with.

Yeah - but they do give a good idea as to what Elgar was planning - and they serve to dispel any doubts as to the merits of Payne's work. I doubt anyone but Elgar could have done a better job! As for P&C6, I quite like it! Perhaps not as imaginative as the Third Symphony, but I think the blame for that lies divided pretty evenly between the two (Elgar and Payne).

Anyway, I'll get to work with concocting an explanation of how the sketches fit together, and post them when I get a chance!

Hi Tom,

thanks for the upload. Would you mind also doing a scan of the publishing/copyright notice page of Reed's book? (Usually affixed to the back of a page after the title page in most books.)

I've marked the sketches as "checked" for their copyright status in the US, but the publishing info in Reed's book would help confirm its status.

You can reach me at philip.m.legge [AT] gmail [DOT] com

Thanks, Philip

There's actually no copyright notice at all, so far as I can see. The Title-page simply reads: "Elgar as I knew him / By/ William H. Reed / London / Victor Gollancz Ltd / 1936", and the reverse of this page has a note at the bottom: "Printed in Great Britain by / The Camelot Press Ltd., London and Southampton". I can't actually find any copyright notice at all anywhere in the book.

Most likely free in the USA. Publication without a notice is generally Il bacio della morte as far as US law is concerned if it took place before 1978. Unless they filed an NIE between 1996 and 1998, it's up for grabs.