MUS 690 – FA18 - Assignment 7

I. Issues in Sources and Editions (part 2)

Task: Insert your responses to the following questions in the spaces provided between them.
Please upload your completed document to the Assignment.
1. Review (for discussion purposes):
a. What is a manuscript?
b. What is a holograph manuscript?
c. What is a published edition?
d. Why might a manuscript score be especially important or interesting?
e. What do you consider the qualities of a “good” score?
f. What do you consider the problems of a “bad” score?
g. What is a critical edition?
h. What is a performing edition?

Introduction
In nearly all the Western musical traditions (art music, jazz, pop), musical compositions are
generally preserved in some form and for some purposes in a written score. The score may be
part of the composer’s creative process, a means for conveying the composer’s intentions
(instructions) to the performer, or even a means of preserving the composer’s ideas for posterity
(even when there might be little chance of performance). Scores differ in their characteristics
depending on their intended uses. Much music research involves the location and interpretation
of musical scores.

Manuscript scores vs. published scores

Most all music written before ca.1500 was written and copied as needed by hand. After 1500,
works initially written by hand in manuscript were frequently published (i.e., printed for
commercial distribution and sale by mechanical processes). By 1750, a growing percentage of
composed European music is intended for publication—writing by hand is part of the creative
process and is meant to be followed by mechanical reproduction.

For any given composition, there may be one or more manuscript scores. Manuscript scores,
being hand-made, or relatively rare. They tend to be written once by their author. One doesn’t
needlessly write out musical scores manually without good reasons. What reasons might there
be to do so?
Manuscripts are usually found in collections of major libraries and other research institutions.
Many other manuscripts may be privately owned, or in the hands of dealers and auction houses.
Some manuscripts may be available for public inspection (either in publically accessible research
collections, reproductions in freely available publications, or digital image collections). Others,
especially those in private hands, may be inaccessible or accessible only by particular
individuals, such as specialized scholars. Some are lost, destroyed, or not yet rediscovered.

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In contrast, there may be one or many published editions of a musical score. While a minor work
by a minor composer might have been published only once by a single publisher in a single
location, works by major composers might be published dozens of times by many publishers in
many locations. Works by Bach, for instance, have been published and republished countless
times since ca.1800 and continue to be published in new editions.

Task:
At the end of this series of steps, you will produce a properly formatted bibliography of
manuscript and published scores for a single work by a composer. Consult Turabian, Chicago,
and Holoman for solutions to specific formatting problems.
Choose only one of the following composers:
 Franz Schubert
 Giuseppe Verdi
 Leonard Bernstein
 Charles Ives
 Duke Ellington
 Thelonius Monk
 Barbara Strozzi
 Scott Joplin
(Be aware that locating and understanding the scores of these composers is not
equally difficult—choose according to your interests and love.)

2. The tasks below address the following questions: How are the compositions of your
chosen composer preserved in some kind of score(s)? Do handwritten manuscripts of
your composer’s music survive? Where are they preserved: in a library, archive, private
collection, or elsewhere? Are they available in facsimile editions? Are they scattered
around the world or concentrated in one location?

What resources can you use to locate scores of works by your composer? Be sure to
examine:
 Composer work indexes (if one exists for your composer and is accessible)
 Grove
 Other music dictionaries and encyclopedias
 The information contained in complete critical editions of your composer’s
works, if one exists and is accessible
 Secondary scholarly literature about your composer (books, articles, etc.)
 Scholarly Websites and digital databases that contain information about your
composer.

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 For the following steps, pick only one composition by your composer (it does not matter
which—its best to choose a work you know, and certainly one for which you can find a
score in the UNLV Library. (If you are not sure what to pick, you may need to explore
a bit to identify a suitable work, or ask the instructor’s advice.) Do NOT attempt for
this exercise to locate information or create a bibliography for ALL your composer’s
works.

a. Locate the Grove article about your composer. Does it contain information about
the location of your composer’s manuscript and/or published score(s) for the work
you have selected?
b. If a manuscript(s) exists for the work, where is it? How did you find out? Record
information about the manuscript(s) for inclusion in your bibliography.
c. Create a RefWorks folder named for your composer (e.g., “Charles Ives”). Give
Anthony.barone@unlv.edu access to the folder.
d. What published score(s) exists for the work? Does the UNLV Library possess or
have access to a published score for the work? Import bibliographic information
for the published score(s) into RefWorks for later inclusion in your bibliography.
e. Prepare a consolidated bibliography of citations for all manuscripts and published
scores you locate for your selected work. This will include manually collected
citations as well as those you stored in RefWorks (which must be exported for use
in your bibliography. Arrange your bibliography by date (from most recent score
at the top to the earliest at the bottom). If a publication date is entirely unknown,
indicate “n.d.” and place this item at the bottom of your bibliography.
3. Does IMSLP have any scores of your selected work?
a. If so, record bibliographic information about each score so that you can add it to
your bibliography at the end of this task.
4. Does the Alexander Street Scores Library have any scores of your selected work?
a. If so, record bibliographic information about each score so that you can add it to
your bibliography at the end of this task.
5. Does a “critical edition” of a work by your composer exist?
a. If so, take a photo of the title page of the score (only one is needed for this
exercise), the page containing publication information, and the first page of the
score; store these photos in OneNote.
6. Does a “performing edition” of your selected work exist? (If there are more than one,
select the one you think is the best.)
a. If so, take a photo of the title page of the score (only one is needed for this
exercise), the page containing publication information, and the first page of the
score; store these photos in OneNote.
7. Copy and insert all these images in a document you can upload for this assignment.

II. Editorial and Writing

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Readings:
Turabian, 2.2 (“Understanding Research Problems”) through 2.3.2; and 3.1 (“Three Kinds of
Sources and Their Uses”) through 3.1.3.
Review Barone, “Elements of an Effective Introduction in a Research Paper” (handout)
Task:
Begin to develop one of your original XYZ formulations of a research problem into an
introduction of no longer than two pages. If you are unsatisfied with your original XYZs, you
may invent a new one of greater interest to you. In any case, this introduction will not lead to a
fully developed research paper in this course, so you can use this opportunity to experiment with
your topic without tremendous investment.
Integrate your XYZ formulation with the elements appropriate to a scholarly introduction. Your
draft introduction will be accompanied by a bibliography of sources relevant to your research
problem. Your draft of an introduction together with a bibliography will be due 10/29 (not
10/22). There will be a reminder of this in Assignment 8
We will share our introductions in class for criticism at an appropriate time.

End of the assignment