Joseph:  While I agree completely about Lasso, wasn't he unique in that his sons collected his works after his death and DID publish them in a Magnus Liber?

 

Perhaps William's confusion stems from the artificial distinction he seems to be drawing between works that have NEVER been published (which offer the obvious problems in actually FINDING them to work on!), works that were published in their own time (like the works of Lasso), works that have been published in modern Collected Works editions, and works that have been published individually as choral octavos.  And it IS an artificial distinction.  How many of us (at least those of us working in colleges or universities with decent libraries) have not gone to those Collected Works and Denkmäler and so on to find the music we wanted to perform, photocopied those pages, and gone ahead and performed them without worrying about the artificial distinction between "scholarly" and "performing" editions?  (Many of New York Pro Musica's scores from its early decades were not just photocopies but the earlier photostats from those editions, all in original clefs and at original pitches, because those were the ONLY sources for that music.)

 

So perhaps William really needs to define exactly what he is looking for, before trying to pin it down to a single composer or a single work.  "Little-published" is, unfortunately, a rather slippery term.  What he really needs for a DMA study is something that has not been previously studied in depth, NOT necessarily something that is "little-published."

 

All the best,

John

John Hetland, utilizing the recent Reiner-Schneider-Waterberg reconstruction edited the "In Summis" (1511) Wedding Mass for his upcoming concerts. Some of his previous Finck is on CPDL.

http://www.streetsingers.org

SIR

I'd just like to underscore what Tom Tropp wrote, regarding 18th century sacred music (and that of earlier centuries as well):  "sacred music was simply not frequently published at this time."

 

Why?  Because sacred music was functional, everyday, COMMERCIAL music, written because there was an immediate need for it, written by working composers who knew the people they worked with every day and understood exactly what their needs and capabilities were, and written in virtually every case for immediate rehearsal and performance.  That music was NOT written "for the ages," and I doubt that anyone even thought in those terms.  That was SO true that Bach's B Minor Mass and the few other works that were NOT intended for immediate performance stand out as amazing exceptions to the general rule.

 

Music was not written for publication, period.  Some of it may have been published, certainly, but almost always as an afterthought and after it had been thoroughly proven in practice.  Bach's keyboard music, which he considered teaching music, was published in his lifetime.  His many cantatas, Passions, and oratorios were not.  They were functional music for weekly or yearly use.

 

And because that was the case, churches and courts hired musicians who were proven composers as well as demonstrated masters of performance and improvisation.  There were no specialists who only conducted, and few if any specialists who only composed.  To be a musician was to be a performer, first, last, and always, and if you had additional talents (including, let's not forget, the talent for administration and management!), so much the better.

 

Now my question has to be, what does this suggest to our many living choral composers who want desperately to get their music performed, and if possible to get it published in order to get it performed even more widely?  That perhaps composing to satisfy your own taste and feelings might not be quite as "commercial" in terms of success as composing to meet the existing needs of existing markets?  That starting locally and writing for local choral organizations--whether or not you get paid for it at first--might make some kind of sense rather than trying to go from obscurity to publication?  And is self-publication really the answer, or just a way to sidestep the original question?

 

I'm not writing this to insult anyone or to suggest that anyone should NOT write what you feel needs to be written.  I'm just suggesting that there is a huge difference between the 18th century outlook of the composer as a craftsman (or -woman) filling an immediate need through his or her craft, and the 19th century outlook of the composer as an "inspired artiste" who simply must follow his or her muse and not worry about pleasing anyone else.  And to me that's the difference between someone involved in a business involving creative craft, and someone doing what they love and what fulfills them simply as an avocation. 

 

And I'm probably the worst possible example.  First, I'm much more an arranger than a composer, and I realize it.  (And I consider arranging to be composition using preexisting material.)  And second, every note I've ever written WAS written for immediate use by performers and ensembles I've personally known, and not for publication.  Sure, publication would be nice, but it's not my goal and it's not WHY I write.

 

I've suggested the same thing on the OrchestraList, without changing any composers' minds, and I don't expect to change any here, either.  But there IS a market for new choral music, and it's a HUGE market.  And it's currently being exploited by publishers whose commitment to high musical quality is, to say the least, questionable.  So what have you written lately for middle school chorus or for singers with perfectly normal technical ability rather than world-class vocal technique?  I know that Julia, among others, has asked exactly that question:  What kind of music DO you look for?  So what's the answer?

All the best,

John