Composer vs Arranger?

[Rosuav]

Hi! Not sure if I'm asking this in the right place, please redirect me if there's a better place to ask.

I have a number of hymn tunes which are arrangements of music by Sir Arthur Sullivan. Now, clearly he is the composer, and should be credited as such; but Sullivan never wrote a piece of music called "Roseleaf". (In that case, what he wrote was the score for an opera named "The Beauty Stone".) What's the best way to submit these kinds of pieces?

They're hosted on my web site at http://rosuav.com/hymns/. (Also, side point: They're currently licensed CC-BY-SA, is that suitable for inclusion?)

Is this something worth incorporating?

[carlos]

Hi Chris,

If I understood it correctly, your hymns could be considered contrafacta of Arthur Sullivan's works (i.e., you added sacred texts to his secular compositions). Whether or not his name should appear in the title as composer is a bit complex. In my opinion it depends on the degree in which his music was changed in the process. If the changes were minimal (just in order to make the text fit better) then he could be cited as the composer. On the other hand, if you just used a melody by him and created the harmonization yourself, then I'd be inclined to consider you as the composer, specifying in the Description section that it was based on a work by Arthur Sullivan. Others may have a different opinion, tough.

Regarding the CC-BY-SA license, it's fine for CPDL.

Regards,

[Rosuav]

If I understood it correctly, your hymns could be considered contrafacta of Arthur Sullivan's works (i.e., you added sacred texts to his secular compositions). Whether or not his name should appear in the title as composer is a bit complex. In my opinion it depends on the degree in which his music was changed in the process. If the changes were minimal (just in order to make the text fit better) then he could be cited as the composer.

Thank you for introducing me to a new word Yes, they would be contrafacta, if my understanding of the term is correct. The changes were generally a recasting from SATB into accompaniment, possibly some editing (eg Roseleaf had a section removed to make the meter fit), and then non-significant metrical adjustments - for example, compare "Let Her Go" in the two forms, one of which packs rather more syllables into the line than the other does.

My "gut feeling" is that Sullivan wrote the music, and I'm making no more changes than there would already be in, say, a piano reduction played by an incompetent musician. Also, I've had people ask if the piece I played was Gilbert & Sullivan, which means his fingerprints are still visible.