Opera vocal scores without full orchestral scores

[Starrmark]

There are a huge number of opera vocal scores on IMSLP without orchestral scores. Only a few operas on IMSLP with full orchestral scores also have instrumental parts. While the presence of all these vocal scores on IMSLP offers singers and the general public an extraordinary opportunity to familiarize themselves with a vast range of repertoire that is rarely if ever performed in the theater nowadays, the lack of orchestral scores (and, to a lesser extent, the lack of orchestral parts) means that most of these works have little chance of being performed again in the theater. For this reason, it would be of considerable significance if the orchestral scores were posted as well.

However, in many (if not most) cases, the question arises: where are the orchestral scores for these operas? For the vast majority of published operas, only the vocal scores were sold to the public. The relatively few copies of the orchestral scores that were printed or hand copied were rented by publishers to opera companies for the use of conductors. Consequently, most never made their way into music libraries -- except, perhaps, the private music libraries of opera companies. Many of these opera companies and music publishers are now defunct. The fate of the orchestral scores and orchestral parts for countless operas (and also choral/orchestral works) is unknown or uncertain. For any hope of these orphaned vocal works to be revived, the orchestral scores (at the very least) have to be located.

A typical example of this problem is today's posting of the vocal score for Henry Hadley's opera Cleopatra's Night. I browsed through it, and it looks very interesting -- quite possibly worthy of a revival. It was published in 1920 by Oliver Ditson Co. -- which no longer exists. The IMSLP info page lists a huge instrumentation. But there is no clue as to whether the orchestral score still exists and where a copy can be located. Nor is there any information whether the orchestral parts from the first performance still survive or where they might be archived. Of course, the person who uploaded the vocal score for this work may not have this information. But, possibly, others on IMSLP do know.

I think it might be of considerable importance to the prospects of opera revivals if IMSLP would provide this information on the location of orchestral scores and parts (in lieu of posting orchestral scores and parts themselves.) It could encourage users to contribute information on the location of missing orchestral scores and orchestral parts.

MS

[Allan]

I had never heard of Henry Hadley, until reading this just before leaving the office yesterday. Imagine my surprise when the piece of music playing on the radio, when I started my drive home, was "The Ocean" by Henry Hadley!

According to the radio DJ, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine has started to record a number of his works under the Naxos label.

[Carolus]

Mark raises a good point. One of the core missions of IMSLP is to provide as much information on works as possible. There are plans to add a vastly improved discussion page for each work in a future upgrade of the wiki. Ideally, we will see the day when the manuscript full score and original parts to works of this nature will be scanned and uploaded. In the case of Cleopatra's Night, Ditson was absorbed by Theordore Presser in the late 1930s, so it is possible that a full score and parts reside in the Presser rental library.

[cypressdome]

There would appear to be hope for Hadley's Cleopatra's Night as his ca. 500 page manuscript score and 5 archival boxes of orchestra parts are in the Performing Arts Research Collection of the New York Public Library together with many other Hadley manuscripts.

[Carolus]

Good luck getting a scan of that. NY Public is one of the absolute worst libraries in the USA for taking the peculiar attitude that all of their holdings are subject to a super-secret form of copyright that only specially-anointed librarians have knowledge of - regardless of how long the composer has been dead or when the work was published.

[Starrmark]

I always find it amazing that American musicians and writers on music can be so profligate with our cultural heritage that they can totally ignore or dismiss a major early-American figure like Henry Hadley.

As a conductor, Hadley was Music Director of the Seattle Symphony and then the San Francisco Symphony. In 1921, he was named Associate Conductor of the NY Philharmonic, the first American conductor to hold a permanent post with a major symphony orchestra. As I recall, he served under Leopold Damrosch.

As a composer, he wrote a large number of large-scale orchestral works (including 5 symphonies), operas and chamber music in an advanced Romantic style. He knew Brahms and Richard Strauss, and studied with Thuille. His works were widely and oft-performed while he was alive.

As for libraries hoarding his compositions -- what are they waiting for? Hadley died in 1937.

Someday, after orchestras, opera companies and CD companies finally exhume Hadley's scores, they can take a look at Hadley's contemporary Zygmunt Stojowski (who also resided in New York.)

MS

[cypressdome]

Of the works of Hadley posted on IMSLP there appear to be seven for which the NYPL have full score, orchestra parts, or vocal score in holograph or manuscript. I've posted links to the NYPL catalog entry in the "miscellaneous comments" section of each work's page. Would that appear to be a better solution than posting it on the work's discussion page?

[Lyle Neff]

As to the question of why so few full orchestral scores of operas on IMSLP, I would imagine that, besides the difficulty of access to some scores because they are only in manuscript or had only limited distribution, the main problem is the sheer monumentality of scanning them.

I've scanned Rimsky-Korsakov's Snowmaiden and one of Schubert's longer stage works for IMSLP, and I can tell you that it takes a great amount of time to scan 500+ pages, even if you've got good equipment available.

This reminds me that I sort of said earlier on the Board that I'd scan the full scores of Les Troyens and Boris Godunov some time...

[Carolus]

We've got Les Troyens (albeit in the incomplete Choudens scores from the late 19th century in a so-so reprint from Kalmus). I've been looking into getting a copy of full score of the Lamm edition of Boris, which would indeed be a huge project.

[daphnis]

I can tell you that it takes a great amount of time to scan 500+ pages, even if you've got good equipment available.

Yes, it most certainly does. I can't even begin to estimate how many thousands of pages to opera full scores I've scanned, much less how many hours it took to do all this. Scanning opera is a commitment and a large one at that.

[Starrmark]

The size of orchestral scores of operas is certainly an impediment to scanning and posting these works on IMSLP. One solution is to divide the task of scanning an opera orchestral score among several contributors.

But an even greater obstacle is finding surviving copies of these orchestral scores -- and eventually also a set of parts. It is only with these performance materials that there is any hope today for these orphaned operas to be revived, either in the theater or on CDs.

Recently, I was in touch with the Bibliotheque de l'Opera de Paris -- which is now part of the Bibliotheque national de France. There are countless operatic treasures in this library -- whose archives go back to the 17th C. But there is no comprehensive catalog of its holdings (just partial lists for various time periods.) It scores and parts are not listed in the BNF's general catalog online. Virtually none of the operas in these archives have been scanned and made available online. The librarian is available for inquiries at jean-michel.vinciguerra@bnf.fr.


With proper ID, the Library of the Paris Opera is open to onsite research. Perhaps one day, some foundation or the French government will decide to provide funds to make the riches in this musical goldmine available online to the world.

MS