IMSLP Forums

I have in my possession a vocal score of the Holst Ode to Death. Holst is now out of copyright: Walt Whitman, the librettist, died in the nineteenth century, and there is no named editor in the score, whose copyright is given as 1922. So far, so good. But in 1973 the composer Colin Matthews revised the work (I'm not sure whether he changed the vocal score or just the orchestration). The score I have is *not* this version - it is Holst's original. But I don't know whether Matthews' later involvement has any bearing on the copyright status of my score? I'm in the UK, and plan to perform the work in November: as well as making copies for my choir, I intend to upload a scan of this important WWW1 commemorative work to IMSLP.

Any advice gratefully received.

Two more bits of information I might have included: the vocal score bears the number 14880 at the bottom of each page of music (along with 'Copyright, 1922 by Novello & Company, Limited' on the first page), and the score itself is on loan from a library.

amgriffiths wrote:in 1973 the composer Colin Matthews revised the work

Matthews' revsion may qualify for copyright, however this has no effect on the original by Holst. Definitely public domain in US (score published before 1923), Europe and Canada (Holst died in 1934).

Max

That's really nice,

Have you uploaded this score somewhere? It's a really important work of the great war, as you said, and I'm researshing it. I'm trying to get all editions I can in order to compare them.