IMSLP Forums

Dear all,
I've some scores by Vivaldi in the Ricordi edition, revised (quite kindly, in my opinion) by Malipiero. I'll add one sample page: the edition is (in this case) of the '50s, the copyright has been renewed in 1983... may those be considered public domain? In this case I'll be able to upload some scores...
Please let me know, and Happy New Year to everybody

Simone (aka K.)

Malipiero is often quite problematic because his realizations can be quite original in nature. The editions are generally protected in the USA, but we unfortunately must decide on a case by case basis for Canada and the EU. Since he lived until 1973, an edition with a creative continuo realization cannot be uploaded to the main server - since it counts as an arrangement instead of as an urtext edition.

Yes,
I understand... (in the meantime I saw some similar requests in this forum, but whithout a clear answer)
What if I remove all the continuo realization (which is, by the way, probably useless for a decent performace)? there will be some little additions left, like slurs or the division of the bass line (I don't own the original, so I presume) to celli and double basses... nothing really original here (maybe even wrong, in my opinion), so...?
Should I be able to put the version w/out realization in the public domain? (in my opinion, the answer should be 'yes')
Moreover... if this will not be possible, in case I create a new version of the whole work, re-typing everything, and maybe adding new slurs (and so on) according to my musical taste, but which will be de-facto 'copied' from the above edition, will this latter one be elegible as a public domain work?
Please let me know.
Many thanks

Simone

If you actually removed all of Malipiero's realization, along with anything else of an original nature add by him (this would include dynamics, articulations and slurs not taken from public domain sources, but added for the first time by him), the item could be alowed under the urtext rubric.

As far as I remember from a previous post, in order to remove Malipiero's specific edits, you would need to be able to compare it to an original. In some (many?) cases, libraries are not making the manuscripts available, especially for PD digitization. Realization is an obvious thing to remove, but other things like articulation are more difficult. However, where you can get hold of a manuscript, it would be easy to create an urtext.