IMSLP Forums

I was looking at two fugatos by Aaron Alexander Cotton and saw that neither employed any imitation.
That indicated that the composer (also the submitter in 2012) does not understand the fugato form.
On a side note, the quality of the scan is poor, the clefs cannot be made out, as well as several other markings.
I assumed that IMSLP was a respository for composers recognized by academia or by some compositional organization outside of IMSLP for their accomplishments.
Am I mistaken and can anyone upload any of their own scores?
I am concerned that IMSLP could become a dumping ground for inferior works.

Thank you,

-Mike L.

You really think all those 1000s of scores from unknown 19th century composers are all that great either?

yamex5 wrote:On a side note, the quality of the scan is poor, the clefs cannot be made out, as well as several other markings.

Pleeeaaase, fo a good productivity, provide the URL of these Fugatos! On http://imslp.org/wiki/Fugato_in_D_minor ... Alexander) I found a retypeset score. Sure the form is anything you want except a Fugato but I can't say the "scan" is poor!

Mike,

You may be experiencing some issues with the display of that typeset score. I noticed that it takes a long time to paint itself onscreen when displaying through the PDF viewer within Firefox. If I try to zoom in it practically brings my system to a halt. Furthermore, when zoomed in it is apparent that anything that isn't a straight line has jagged edges. Whether these problems result from the typesetting program the composer used or from the Win2pdf program that was used to generate the PDF I cannot say. Perhaps if you try viewing it in a different PDF reader you will see better results. If the issue is in fact with the manner the author has typeset the score IMSLP does have a page of typesetting guidelines but trying to enforce them for every score submitted by every composer, arranger, and editor probably isn't realistic.

As for the issue of inferior works one of IMSLP's stated goals is "to gather all public domain music scores, in addition to the music scores of all contemporary composers (or their estates) who wish to release them to the public free of charge." I cannot imagine that any admin on this site would want their subjective judgements on the inherent worth of musical scores to be the deciding factor as to whether those scores are allowed to stay on IMSLP or not. If the site did operate in that manner I would probably be quickly kicked off for deleting Arnold Schoenberg's category! At least his removal would make room for more works by unknown Romantic composers.

cypressdome wrote:Furthermore, when zoomed in it is apparent that anything that isn't a straight line has jagged edges.

Yes, these items seem to have been scanned at about 300 dpi with added noise! Perhaps A.A. Cotton should read http://icking-music-archive.org/scores/ ... _HOWTO.php. Our typesetting-guidelines anf file-formats pages don't handle this topic.

Melodia wrote:You really think all those 1000s of scores from unknown 19th century composers are all that great either?

Ha ha, no I don't. At the risk of getting booted off of this site, I happen to find much of Beethoven and Mozart to be trite.
However, my point was that with modern typesetting software like Finale or Sibelius, anyone can enter notes without any training.
I am not saying that one cannot be self-taught and good, but how many of you would go to see a doctor whose only medical credit was mastering the children's board game "Operation"?
Anyhow, if the rules are all is good, then that's the way it is.
Thanks for the reply!
-Mike

coulonnus wrote:

yamex5 wrote:On a side note, the quality of the scan is poor, the clefs cannot be made out, as well as several other markings.

Pleeeaaase, fo a good productivity, provide the URL of these Fugatos! On http://imslp.org/wiki/Fugato_in_D_minor ... Alexander) I found a retypeset score. Sure the form is anything you want except a Fugato but I can't say the "scan" is poor!

I apologize and will do so in the future!

Thank you,
-Mike

cypressdome wrote:Mike,

You may be experiencing some issues with the display of that typeset score. I noticed that it takes a long time to paint itself onscreen when displaying through the PDF viewer within Firefox. If I try to zoom in it practically brings my system to a halt. Furthermore, when zoomed in it is apparent that anything that isn't a straight line has jagged edges. Whether these problems result from the typesetting program the composer used or from the Win2pdf program that was used to generate the PDF I cannot say. Perhaps if you try viewing it in a different PDF reader you will see better results. If the issue is in fact with the manner the author has typeset the score IMSLP does have a page of typesetting guidelines but trying to enforce them for every score submitted by every composer, arranger, and editor probably isn't realistic.

As for the issue of inferior works one of IMSLP's stated goals is "to gather all public domain music scores, in addition to the music scores of all contemporary composers (or their estates) who wish to release them to the public free of charge." I cannot imagine that any admin on this site would want their subjective judgements on the inherent worth of musical scores to be the deciding factor as to whether those scores are allowed to stay on IMSLP or not. If the site did operate in that manner I would probably be quickly kicked off for deleting Arnold Schoenberg's category! At least his removal would make room for more works by unknown Romantic composers.

Sorry, I wasn't really all that concerned about the quality of these scores, but just trying to emphasize that overall this is not a quality submission.
And I understand your concern about weeding out music, but where I was trying to lead to was to have some set of rules about composers that have established themselves.
By the goal you stated, I know this is a moot point, but ideally a composer would be published before their works could be added here.
My concerns were not about style (say 20th century atonal versus Romantic), but just about having some sort of criteria to distinguish someone that has studied music versus someone that had found a free scoring program and a 10 minutes free time on their hands.
Thank you for your reply,
-Mike

yamex5 wrote:

Melodia wrote:You really think all those 1000s of scores from unknown 19th century composers are all that great either?

Ha ha, no I don't. At the risk of getting booted off of this site, I happen to find much of Beethoven and Mozart to be trite.
However, my point was that with modern typesetting software like Finale or Sibelius, anyone can enter notes without any training.
I am not saying that one cannot be self-taught and good, but how many of you would go to see a doctor whose only medical credit was mastering the children's board game "Operation"?
Anyhow, if the rules are all is good, then that's the way it is.
Thanks for the reply!
-Mike

I think there's no harm in allowing these scores to proliferate (seriously, no harm at all), and it seems like the people who make them enjoy doing so. We can't impose arbitrary standards because many great composers would have been censored in their time by those standards.

Don't worry, most of Mozart pre K. 200 or so is pretty trite to me too.

Hrm... the 19th symphony with its archaic minuet's in that pre-K200 area, as is symphony no.25 in G minor, as are a number of other (well, stopping there to keep this brief. though I don't want to forget piano concerto no.5, either...)... the number of exceptions for me I think would have me hesitate to agree about "most" . But personal tastes are just that!