IMSLP Forums

Quote from anonymous donor:

Regarding the Verdi opera full scores published by University of Chicago Press (Casa Ricordi in Germany and Italy), here are some more information:

http://www.ricordi.com/critiche/critiche_uk.htm
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Complete/ ... WGV-O.html
http://humanities.uchicago.edu/orgs/cia ... ihist.html

The scores are huge. It appears to be a new engraving rather than the typical Ricordi engraving. There is an introduction to each opera edition, a few pages of the autograph manuscript and appendices (for example, extra scenes or music in La Traviata).

He would like to scan these scores, but is not sure whether they are public domain or not. Speaking of which, I am myself curious as to how the US treats critical editions (if that's what they are)?

I am familiar with the Ricordi/University of Chicago series. It's a modern critical edition with all new engravings, with extensive critical notes, commentary, etc. It is also all under copyright in the USA and Italy (and therefore Canada as well).

The US statute has no special provisions for critical editions and treats them just like a performer's edition such as those issued by International. For anything published after 1977, the term of protection is life plus 70 for the last surviving author. In the case of the Verdi edition, that would be far in the future as the editorial team involved (including Philip Gossett, among others) is still alive. I don't know of any special provisions like Germany's Sect. 70 in Italian law, either.

As a matter of case law, there really haven't been very many court cases to determine to what extent a critical edition would fall under copyright. The big issue would be the 'standard of originality.' It's certainly obvious that 'team Verdi's' prefaces, notes, and comments are all completely original and therefore the subject of copyright. How such standards of originality would apply to a score itself is a matter of debate among lawyers. Naturally, there are two main schools of thought. One holds that the combination of the new layout/typography/engraving with choices made by the editors from the various source material constitutes an original compilation and is therefore protected as such. The other school takes a narrower view: only the editorial prefaces, notes, and comments are protectable, while everything that Verdi wrote is free. The compliation is not really original, since the editors are merely re-creating the work as the composer had it at some point.

It's a curious situation because the sort of editorial practices most entitled to copyright protection under the law are the very type things that modern editors try to avoid! Also, the farther back one goes, the more editorial interpretation is needed to make something performable. Thus, modern editions of pre-Baroque works woth lots of realization are indeed protected because the originals are little more that bare-bones sketches.

I personally think that the German law does a reasonably good job of balancing the legitimate interest of the publishers and editors on the one hand and the interests of the musical public on the other. Most of the Baerenreiter volumes for both the Mozart and Bach editions are already public domain in Germany, for example. In the USA, only those volumes that were not renewed are free, and the only thing that prevented their "restoration" under GATT was the fact that they had already entered the public domain in their country of origin. Quite a few of the NMA and NBA volumes from the early 1960s were renewed, and everything after 1963 was revewed automatically. Absent an actual court decision declaring them insuffuciently original to qualify for copyright, they'll be protected in the USA for a long time.

Well, the problem is sort of no more actual now, but I have a reply. There have been a couple of cases in Italian courts about the critical editions, but without a clear outcome. So, in a recent revision, it has been decided that a critical edition can be copyrighted in Italy, and the copyright term is 20 years after publication date.

Art. 85-quater of law no. 633, 22 aprile 1941 (amended):
http://www.interlex.it/Testi/l41_633.htm#85-quater

To aslsp-fi,
Hi, do you mean that at least in Italy, the copyright term for these critical Verdi editions is 20 years after first publication?
Does that mean that if the scores that are published before 1986, they are PD in Italy? I wonder if this can be applied in Canada by the Berne Convention.

That's very interesting. The status of the Verdi edition would depend on whether the revision to the law was retroactive or not. If not, it would apply only to those works published after the effective date of the law.

The 20 year protection term for critical editions was estabilished in Italy in 1997:
http://www.camera.it/parlam/leggi/deleg ... 7154dl.htm

The 20 years term was made retroactive, so it has to be applied even to critical editions published before 1997.

As far as I remember, only very few Ricordi critical editions were published before 1986, and most of them in a provisional version, so that they will claim copyright from the moment the definitive edition, with the critical discussion, comes out. I would say the only important Ricordi critical edition now in public domain should be the 1969 Zedda's revision of Rossini's Barbiere di Siviglia (a new critical edition, superseding the Zedda one, is due to come out in the next years).

Also remember that directive 93/98/EC gives the possibility to all EU member states of protecting critical editions (but the term should be no longer than 30 years).

It's a shame that these critical editions are still copyright. I find them better than the older Ricordi editions in terms of engraving and editing. Although, someone pointed out to me that these publishers are merely making money (again) by editing Verdi works originally in the public domain.

Ricordi made a lot of money out of Verdi and Puccini when they were copyrighted. As these operas fell in public domain, they began making critical editions to renew copyright. Again, while the business of selling scores is quite thin, the real money is on performance fees and broadcasting and recording fees. It is not unusual for a large opera house to spend something like 15000 to 30000 euros (sometimes even more) in hire and performance fees for a single performance if you choose a critical edition. On a recording the fees are even heftier, as well on broadcasting.

There was, about a decade ago, some rage against Ricordi because they tried to force European opera houses to use their new editions - while, say, if you do not want to spend money on a Bärenreiter Nozze di Figaro you can always choose Breitkopf, Ricordi now refuses to hire you the old and glorious Traviata edition, trying to hire you the much more expensive critical edition. - The only alternative are good old Kalmus reprints, often really bad for performance, full of errors and lacking reharsal numbers, but the only alternative to overpriced critical editions.

Kalmus edition were almost unknown in Europe till 1990 or so, but now they are getting quite popular even among professional users as the alternative is so expensive - and not always worth the extra expense.

Please note that, from a professional point of view, critical editions are not always as good as they pretend to be. You see the full and piano scores, but only persons who work with performance materials have a complete perspective. I know some cases in which the new critical editions turned out to have much more time consuming misprints than the old editions. I was told that a Ricordi telephone line went hot the day a major conductor discovered that in a new edition he had to premiere, they simple forgot to put in orchestral parts guides in recitatives as it is always done, so that the players got lost quite easily.

I have no problem with a limited term for critical editions. I think that the German section 70 is an eminently fair compromise between the legitimate interests of editors and publishers on the one hand and the general musical public on the other. After all, why should Ricordi, Henle, Baerenreiter or any other publisher invest the often considerable funds to engrave and carefully edit a new score of a public domain composer like Verdi if it were perfectly legal for Dover or another competitor to reprint that very score and sell it for half the price or less?

Those who invest the time and money to prepare such editions should have the opportunity to make a return on that investment. (Yes, I realize that sometimes these editions are payed for via government and foundational grants, etc. - but that's another issue.) It's a different class of copyright than the normal, full-blown copyright term and generally limited to print and associated rights like rental of parts. It should be of limited term, however. That's what the German and Italian laws have wisely done.

aslsp-fl also makes a very fine point about the fact that the actual quality of critical editions varies widely - from wonderful and informative to being worse than the original - when it comes to the real-life world of actual performing. The quality of an edition depends on the editors, the proofreaders, the engravers, and the project directors for the different publishers involved. I am not sure that assigning full broadcast rights to a critical edition is the right thing to do. Opera companies and orchestras should be free to choose which editions they prefer to work with - and publishers like Ricordi need to understand that works eventually become public domain which means that they then have to compete in an open market with reprint houses like Kalmus. If the critical edition they offer is not that much better, even worse than the original, or ridiculously overpriced, orchestras and opera companies are going to choose the best option in light of their own budgets and rehearsal time. Puccini's now public domain, he "belongs to the ages" as the saying goes. Ricordi would be much better off looking for and supporting the next Puccini than trying to force their customers to use their overpriced edition in a free market.

I am very critical of the Puccini critical editions. The standard - mostly public domain - editions were compiled under the direct control of the author, often by editors chosen with his consent. Most of the edictions were reworked several times, as Puccini was never satisfied with the very first version of his work and on main reprises he readapted his operas, reaching their final versions sometimes years, sometimes decades after the premiere. Frankly, I have little faith a modern editor could understand the matter better than Puccini's own editors.

I have a similar reservation for Verdi editions, but the matter is here much more complex and unless the manuscripts get published I would say it is not possible to solve. For Rossini the critical editions are much better than the standard editions.

Hi aslsp-fi,
Thank you for your extensive information regarding the copyright of the critical Verdi editions.
Regarding the Puccini critical scores, would you say that the original Ricordi editions published in Puccini's lifetime are better than the current critical Ricordi editons? I happen to have a few opera scores by Puccini (Madama Butterly, Tosca, Turandot) which are published by Dover. Even if the engraving looks old and cluttered, if the engraving and editing are supervised by editors in Puccini's lifetime, then I would imagine the engraving would be accurate from the composer's point of view, or true to his intentions.
I would also like to know from a music student point of view, are the Verdi critical scores better as a study score rather than a performance score since you mentioned the variation of quality and music editing of these critical editions? The only reason I can afford them is because my university library has them - Rigoletto, La Traviata and Il Trovatore.
Speaking of which, I somehow recalled that Rigoletto is the oldest edition among the three. I'll dig up more information. But if it really is published before 1986, then would it be PD in Canada even with the retroactive 20 year copyright law?

As for the protectability of such editions in Canada, it would appear that a critical edition is not really protectable at all because of the failure to meet the "threshold of originality" required to qualify as an "adaptation." This is the case in most countries around the world, BTW. The EU grants a maximum term of 30 years from publication, leaving individual countries the option of a) protecting them for a lesser term (25 years in the UK and Germany, 20 years in Italy) or b) no protection whatsoever. IMSLP voluntarily imposed a term of 25 years on such editions. Yet, despite all our efforts to be fair, a certain Viennese publisher chose instead to behave like a thug.

Agreed. In this case we don't have to worry about that particular publisher from Vienna because these Ricordi critical editions of Verdi operas aren't published by them. Besides, even if IMSLP voluntarily imposed a 25 year copyright protection, the Rigoletto opera I was talking about would still be PD in Canada because it was first published in 1983. I just hope the Italian publisher doesn't follow the footsteps of the Austrian publisher as well.

Correction. Since the Rigoletto critical edition by Casa Ricordi was first published in 1983, it would be in PD on 1st January 2009 according to the publication+25 year rule IMSLP will adopt for these kinds of editions.