At 7:36 PM +0000 1/30/06, Owain Sutton wrote:
Andrew Stiller wrote:
On Jan 30, 2006, at 6:26 AM, Owain Sutton wrote:
Petrucci was a shrewd (or very lucky) businessman. But, we do not
know who he sold books to, or even how many he sold.
Early printed music, right up through at least the 17th c., cost
more--much more--than an MS because it looked better and was likely
to have far fewer errors. Every edition, that is, was a deluxe
edition.
Somewhere I read--it may have been in the study of the life and works
of 16th century Parisian printer Pierre Attaignant--that while
comparison of prices and values across the centuries is chancy at
best, a new book in the 16th century probably sold for the equivalent
of that same exact book sold in the 20th century as an antique. But
that doesn't stop Gutenberg's Bibles from being one (of a great many)
factors that made the Protestant Reformation possible.
And I agree with David that much surviving music--manuscript or
prints--survived because it was tucked away in a library and not
used. That's exactly why we have the six surviving Brandenburg
Concerti, while we will probably never know what else was sitting on
the shelves in Coethen when Bach pulled those six pieces out and made
fair copies of them.
So no, we can never know everything, and the farther back in time we
go the less we CAN know, but that's no reason not to use what we DO
know intelligently, even though it involves some degree of
extrapolation and educated guesswork.
John
--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
Finale@shsu.edu
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
