Choral Public Domain Library

Fantastic piece-Anyone got it/know where I can get a version?

Thanks in Advance

I couldn't find it for sale online, but I have just come across an on-line dissertation from the Music Faculty in my city, and in the acknowledgements the author thanks to "Fannie Vernaz, musical assistant of the group Les Arts Florissants, for her kindness in providing the scores of Rossi's compositions recorded by the group: Spargete sospiri (Un peccator pentito), ..."

You could try to contact Fannie to discover where they got their copy from.

The Italian on-line library system reports that a manuscript copy of this work is present at the "Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana" (http://www.vaticanlibrary.va) here in Rome. I don't know whether it can be accessed and copies can be made. If this is of interest for you, you may try to contact Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (the website is in Italian and in English), or I can do it for you.

Max

I was sceptical of contacting Libraries, but the national in paris sent me the whole score for the Airs sur les stances du cid, so I'll try both, thanks.

I got no reply from the Library or the creator of William Christie's edition (the work has gone out of print) so a few months ago transcribed it for my own personal use. I was thinking of uploading it, as a thankyou to CPDL for the tons of music I've used, but wondered whether that would be illegal, and I should own it strictly for my use if at all? thanks

What's the source that you used for your transcription?

Max

Thanks for thinking of CPDL. Unfortunately, merely because an edition goes out of print and the copyright holder cannot be reached does not mean the work is copyright-clear for the purposes of CPDL. Essentially, the work should be either out of copyright or else used with permission of the copyright holder.

(Oops, choralia's message slipped in while I was composing my reply, so I hadn't seen it.)

From which madrigal book by Rossi is it and when was it printed?

IIRC, I have seen some madrigal books by Rossi (it might have been Salomone Rosst, however) in a low cost facsimile catalogue. They drew my attention, because they had a written out theorbo continuo realization, something which is very unusual and interesting.

Chris

Cdalitz wrote:... they had a written out theorbo continuo realization, something which is very unusual and interesting.

That would get my attention, too!

I had believed that the Vatican Library may do me a photocopy (national in paris did the same for some charpentier I needed) but didn't even reply to my enquiry. Then, as the recordings I have of it come with Rossi's 'Oratorio per la settimana santa' I assumed it was part of that, but after finding the music found Spargete nowhere to be seen.

I know very little of Rossi's work, but don't think it's part of his madrigals, which are mostly for 2-3 sopranos...If anything it's from his 'peccator pentito', but the internet yields nothing other than this recording of spargete:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oIPcw6SWUw

In the end I transcribed it from this and 2 other recordings by Christie's lot, to make sure I had every voice correctly notated, which has only just struck me as being illegal if I wanted to perform it

DeCapo wrote:In the end I transcribed it from this and 2 other recordings by Christie's lot

Transcription of public domain music from sound recordings is probably a rather gray area in copyright legislation. I'll investigate about it.

Max

I got an answer from an IMSLP expert:

If the original is clearly public domain, transcribing it from a recording into music notation does not violate sound recording copyright, which covers the sound recording itself only. The only case I can think of where this would be a potential problem would be if the original work had never been published, where your transcriber could be running up against the EU's editio princeps rule, author's heirs moral rights, etc.

As far as I understood from previous posts, this work was published already, so there shouldn't be any problem with the "editio princeps" rule.

Max

What about diminutions added by the performers? If the singers are worth their money, their performance should not represent the written music.

Independent from the copyright question, I wonder how it is possible to obtain a reliable edition from a performance. While it might be possible to subtract obvious fixed formula embellishments (e.g. groppi), it will generally be difficult to figure out what was added by the singers. Moreover there were even editions with some (or even all: think of Caccini) written out embellishments.

Please note that IMSLP's view does not reflect CPDL's policies. Despite the assessment by IMSLP, please note that it does not reflect CPDL's policies. Our view on the copyright question is as follows:

It is hard to tell (unless the recording categorizes all deviations against the original) whether a recording interjected their own copyright-protected variations in ficta, underlay etc., especially when you are unable to find a facsimile of the original to check against. It is possible that a transcription from two recordings would have isolated only public domain elements, but this is unlikely. If you are not confident of that it's using only the public domain elements without infringing copyrighted contributions by other parties, CPDL cannot advise you to post it on CPDL. If you are confident that the edition does not infringe the intellectual property of third parties, then CPDL would be glad to host your edition.