On 4 Dec 2006 at 12:16, John Howell wrote: > At 11:17 AM +0100 12/4/06, Eric Fiedler wrote: > >Exactly! Petrucci's print runs were of the of the order of magnitude > >of a couple of hundred copies maximum, and Telemann's (two hundred > >plus years later) were quite certainly no larger. EFF > > One thing to keep in mind is that a good many publications, including > some of Telemann's, were by subscription. In other words, the > composer knew in advance exactly how many copies to print (and > probably had the $ in hand, as well). The study of the Parisian music > printer, Pierre Attaignant in the mid-16th century points out that the > cost of paper was very high, and a printer who misjudged his market > could go bankrupt quickly.
Printing from engraved copper plates had completely different economics than printing from musical type. You didn't have enough type to keep the already-set pages around, so once you had the pages set, you had to print all the copies you'd ever need, as they type would need to be re-used for a different editions (or even for different pages within the same publication). With copper plates, you could run off as many as you needed at any point, and never have to worry too much about exceeding demand. My memory is that André c. 1800 did print runs as small as 25 and 50. > But Petrucci is a good example of something else as well. Since he > printed from movable type, any reprinting (which he did for his most > popular publications) involved the whole expense of setting up the > pages just as it did for the first printing, which is the problem for > modern publishers as well. (I would think they could keep the film > from the first printing, but apparently not.) (I should read to the end of a post before replying) I don't see that the print setup costs for modern printing technology are going to be any different than the print setup costs for copper plate engraving. It's mostly a matter of scheduling what you're going to be using the equipment to print and having the materials on hand, rather than needing to recreate some part of the masters for reprinting. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
