Blog #5 (Oxford Definitions, Oppermann, Rahmer, Struck, Making a Book, and Letterpress)

In this set of sources I found the “urtext” idea to be most interesting. It seemed to come up in almost all of the readings but the Oxford article didn’t seem to be impressed with the concept of an urtext. At least not in the way that some people in the music community are. The whole concept of an urtext being the “most original” or somehow the “best” in it’s “originalness” is a strange one. We know that composers, especially in the Baroque, reworked music all the time and expected performers to embellish and vary their music. So in that way, an “urtext” is not really relevant.

As preferences changed the concept has more merit, but I think is still flawed. No matter how hard we try, and edition issued now will have bias on the part of the editors. That’s just how it is. We’re not the composer and we can’t ask what they meant. Nor can we know if they would actually have preferred an option that didn’t come up, or wasn’t possible in their lifetime. Now all that to say, perhaps I did misinterpret the definition. The Oppermann article and both Struck pieces seemed to me to say that an urtext should represent a piece as closely as possible as we can to how we think the composer would have liked it. And if we get more info we’ll update our version. Something about the initial concept of URTEXT = ORIGINAL made it seem less flexible, and that editors might be stubborn, or unwilling to update. The very fact that Oppermann is saying, “look, we’ll have to change these things as we learn” seems to negate that idea.

The Struck example is to me just a great piece of detective work. Good job! That sounds like some hard research that was done well. Hopefully it stands up and turns out to be correct. A note about the musical example in this one. The composer put in hairpin crescendos in a measure on piano, but tied two 8th together. Weird marking. And from the discussion it seems like pianists have been arguing over how to do this for a while. It strikes me as a bit ironic that discovering the way in which the composer most likely intended it, is actually as an aleatoric, choose-your-own-adventure type of figure. Play some more notes so you can do the dynamics…Of course I don’t know anything about piano performance, this particular piece or the rest of piano lit, so who am I to judge.

The other definitions we had to read I didn’t find as interesting. Autographs and holographs seem useful, and would be somewhat exciting for a moment to get to examine, or certainly discover. Along with “sources” I can see their value in research terms. I was a little confused that sources were only tangentially used for learning about a composer’s process, as in draft forms of a composition. I had assumed that’s what was being discussed. My revised understanding is that a source, as it was explained in Oxford, is just an old manuscript. Not necessarily an autograph or holograph, maybe even a printed version but something that we can learn from and compare to other available sources. Still a little unclear on this point. On the topic of historical editions I was mildly surprised to learn that they had begun so early, even in the 1600s. The difference between the critical edition and the performance edition makes sense to me. It was interesting to see so much work with these done during the 1800s, and then redone later, especially the works of major composers – Bach, Mozart, Handel, etc.

Finally the facsimile seems like a really valuable tool. Interesting that it was such an innovation to reproduce an autograph/holograph copy of a full score for others to study. This article that we read about it seems pretty out of date now though. The author doesn’t know the future of CD-ROMs, and here we are where those are already obsolete. So, my question is then, where are all the scans of autograph copies of Mozart, Bach, Handle, Vivaldi, Hadyn, Beethoven and so on. Are those coming down the pipe? Or the fiber as it were?

Final thought: The videos were really cool to watch! Great to get to see the craftspeople at work, rather than read about it. The descriptions in the facsimile article of this technology and that technology really were not engaging. But to get to watch and see the gears move and the workers’ hands place the type, or fold the leather just works so much better. My last connection is about types of learners vs types of content. Mostly likely we have all heard about different “types of learners.” People who prefer to see, or hear or feel. There is a counterargument, and I think it’s a good one, that it is actually the type of content you are learning which dictates the modality in which it is best communicated. So, learning about how typesetting, or a printing press works, is not well communicated through words (ironically). Probably this one would be best done through touch. A master typist(?) physically showing you what to do. Second best would be visual, so that’s why the video did such a better job engaging me than the article. On the other hand, most of the other articles communicated their ideas very well through written language.