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Question from the anonymous donor :

The libary also contains a few Kalmus scores (from the Kalmus classic editions) but unfortunately most of the scores already exist in IMSLP. I would just like to know that in the first page of the Kalmus scores, a company called Belwin Mills is printed at the bottom. Is this a music publisher as well or just a distributor? However, since Kalmus reprinted the music, does that mean that the score is PD regardless of the fact that Belwin Mills might have some sort of copyright over the music?

Here's a thumbnail sketch: In 1972, Kalmus moved from the New York area to Miami. A couple of years later, Edwin F. Kalmus, the founder and owner 1) went into semi-retirement and left the day-to-day running of the firm to his son-in-law, Lawrence Galison (1929-2004); and 2) sold the following divisions (study scores, vocal scores, piano, vocal, choral, and chamber music) to Belwin-Mills, a major educational music publisher at the time.

Belwin continued to issue these public domain titles (numbering in the thousands) under the Kalmus Classic Series imprint. In the 1980s, Belwin was sold to Columbia Pictures Publications (CPP), which was in turn sold to Warner Brothers Publications (1990s) which was itself sold to Alfred Publications, who continues to issue a number of titles under the imprint to this day. The Kalmus Classic Series is simply an imprint of: 1) Belwin-Mills (1970s-early 1980s); 2) CPP (mid-and late-1980s); 3) Warner (1990s); 4) Alfred (2002-?). It is only distantly related to Kalmus the music publisher.

E. F. Kalmus & Co., Inc., the original company, continued to operate in Miami (Opa-Locka) - selling full size orchestra and band scores and parts, adding new titles as they entered the public domain. After CPP's buyout of Belwin, titles that didn't sell enough started to be dropped from the Kalmus Classic Series catalog. This led to the establishment of a (Miami) Kalmus imprint called "The Well-Tempered Press", which reprints the Kalmus Classic Series titles dropped by CPP, Warner, and Alfred. With the move to Boca Raton in the late 1980s, a new subsidiary company was started, Masters Music Publications, which not only serves as exclusive distributor for Well-Tempered Press reprints, but issues an impressive catalog of both reprints and new editions on its own.

Unless the Kalmus Classic Series edition in question actually bears a copyright notice (only about 10 titles in the entire series, which mainly were for English translations stripped in beneath the original text in some opera vocal scores during the Belwin era), it's public domain. Reprinting a public domain work and affixing a corporate name on it does not confer copyright status. IMSLP advocates removing company names from scans of such reprints - especially anything resembling a logo - because of possible trademark considerations. It's perfectly fine - and actually advantageous - to leave the original publisher's name / copyright notice and plate number on a scan, as it can be a great help in dating a particular copy. One of the unforunate things about the Kalmus Classic Series is that such original publication info is usually eradicated.

Thanks for the info... now that is a pretty complex history