William Walton's Violin Concerto, score for piano and violin

[XavierSX]

Anyone can help me? Thanks!

[daphnis]

We can help you purchase a copy, yes.

[madcapellan]

Walton died in 1983. The concerto was written in 1939. Ironically, this means the work enters the PD in both the US and Canada in almost the same year (2034 or thereabouts). Yes, I'm sure it was technically published later, adding even more years onto the US copyright date (although nowhere near the record 200 years the engraved original version of Boris Godunov is currently enjoying). It was a potentially rare alignment of the copyright planets. You're going to be out of luck for just about any composer born in the 20th century on this site, but the questions keep coming anyways.

[daphnis]

Slight correction: If it was first published in 1939 then it would be public domain in the US on 1 January 2035 since all publications during the year of 1939 would take a minimum of 95 years. Easy rule of thumb when calculating US copyright dates is to add 100, then subtract 4.

[Carolus]

200 years? You must be kidding here a little, madcapellan, since even Mexico's insane copyright term is a mere life-plus-100. I think the first engraved full score to the original version of Boris was the Lloyd-Jones edition from 1974, which will be tied up in the USA until 2070 (assuming Disney doesn't pay to have the copyright term extended between now and then). That score is already free in the EU, since the maximum term for an urtext edition is 30 years from publication. OUP and Lloyd-Jones really cannot claim editio princeps here either, as the original version was actually published in full score (copyist's manuscript - not engraved) by Muzgiz back in 1934 or so in Pavel Lamm's amalgamated edition.

[madcapellan]

If I was exaggerating, it was only by a year. Mussorgsky finished his version in 1872, but it was never engraved during his lifetime, thanks to his "friends". This finally happened in 1975. While it's now free just about everywhere else, in the greatest country in the world, it's very much still under copyright. The piece was finished in 1872, and it will enter the PD in the US in 2071. 199 years of copyright. Yes, technically a facsimile of the manuscript score is already PD, but a real engraving that looks decent gets almost 200 years of protection (admittedly half of that was while it sat in unpublished form, but that doesn't make it any less protected by copyright laws). As I stated before, this means that of the three main versions that exist, the original one will somehow be the last to enter the PD in the US. Only the US could figure out a way to give a piece 200 years of copyright protection. Which of course benefits everyone but the childless composer.

[KGill]

It wasn't really '199 years of copyright', because it wasn't put under copyright until a century after its composition. The original work is not under copyright, just that edition. If someone prepared a new scholarly edition based only on the manuscript, that would be fine.

[Carolus]

Muzyka may have issued a full score of the original version - beaufifully engraved by the gnomes chained to the benches of the old music factory once owned by C.G. Röder in Leipzig - shortly after Lloyd-Jones' score first appeared in 1974 or 75. I've not seen any online references to this edition, so the account of its publication (which was told to me by a musicologist friend who specialized in Mussorgsky) might be anecdotal only. Maybe they were planning to do it, but never actually did. Or, the planned score became what is now known as Vol. 1 of the new Mussorgsky complete works issued jointly by Muzyka (now Jurgenson again) and Schott. At any rate, Muzyka's catalog was really quite enormous and they re-engraved things on apparent whim, so it's not impossible by any means. It also stands to reason that the folks in Moscow would be a bit miffed at being upstaged by OUP with a full score for such an important work by a native son.

So, if someone finds a Muzyka engraved full score of the original Boris dating from 1975 or thereabouts, we may have a candidate for a nice addition to IMSLP.

[amati1588]

I do believe on Amazon.com, the latest Walton Edition is available for Purchase. And mind you, these are very nice Editions in a Gorgious Green Hardbound cloth. And very easily openable-leavable (hence the book doesn't flop shut on you). But they are quite Expensive, possibly 150+ dollars.