g&s Pirates of Penzance reduced orchestra scores

samthegreat · Post by **samthegreat** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 3:25 pm

Hi! I'm music directing Pirates of Penzance (why, I don't know; I've never music directed g&s before; only classic & modern broadway) and I'm trying to find some reduced orchestra scores for a pit of 6-10 musicians. I found this page http://math.boisestate.edu/GaS/pirates/ ... cores.html and I found four ones that might do the trick: PJ Music Works, Pattersong Music, G&S Works, and John Pitts. They seem to all be typeset with Sibelius. Is anyone familiar with G&S and maybe can give me some more resources? The opera company I'm working with is fine with the score rental prices I have found; we just can't afford a full orchestra (I think the pit we're using is kind of small, too).

Vivaldi · Post by **Vivaldi** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 2:56 am

Hi, you can try purchasing the full score from Dover, which I think is quite affordable:
http://store.doverpublications.com/048641891x.html

It is a new engraving and it corrects many errors present in previous editions, which I think is better in terms of studying the music. But since you are conducting it would be helpful as well. You can also use the full score to arrange a reduced score too. There are no parts though, so you might have to look elsewhere for them.

samthegreat · Post by **samthegreat** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 4:28 pm

Yeah, I'm just trying to avoid arranging the parts myself. It would take a while to typeset, and I'm really busy doing Camelot right before the Pirates show, so I'm trying to take the easy way out. =)

bleh

Post by **Carolus** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 7:18 pm

The parts for the Dover score, which is of the original full orchestra (or, more accurately, the Savoy Theatre Pit Orchestra of 26 musicians) are actually available. A chorus I am in was considering doing it a couple of years ago, and the parts are on rental from MMB Music. They were reasonable about the rental rates, but we didn't have the rehearsal time to prepare the whole thing.

Vivaldi · Post by **Vivaldi** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 2:03 am

My Dover score of Mikado also mentions the availability of parts for rental from MMB Music. But since I don't have the Dover score of Pirates of Penzance I'm not sure if the availability of parts also applies to the Pirates score.

However, I have found the link to the score and set of parts of Pirates in the MMB Music site:

http://www.mmbmusic.com/concert_music/m ... x?id=15056

Hope this helps.