EVE (Electronic and Virtual Editions)
UNDER DEVELOPMENT
Electronic editions have diverse purposes and therefore pursue different avenues of development. Most are open-ended: further development and refinement can be expected. As pioneers, all share the possibility that changes in hardware, software, and internet protocols may necessitate changes of design and delivery methods. Our listing is limited to open-access projects from which music may be downloaded and in some cases searched, analyzed, listened to, visualized, and re-edited.
Contents
Analysis-enabled Scores
Du Chemin Chansons
Website: Du Chemin Chansons
The Du Chemin project, carried out mainly by Richard Freedman and Philippe Vendrix and hosted by the Centre d'Études Supérieures de la Renaissance in Tours, is intended for both scholars and musicians. It is based on the sixteen sets of partbooks of chansons published by the Parisian house of Nicholas Du Chemin between 1549 and 1568. Facsimiles are viewable on the website and PDFs of the images can be downloaded. Transcriptions of full scores are also available. Underlying encoded data facilitates analyses. Freeman's companion site, Lost Voices, offers PDF transcriptions of incomplete works indicating which parts survive and which do not.
Josquin Research Project
Website: Josquin Research Project
The Josquin Research Project, developed at Stanford University by Jesse Rodin and Craig Sapp, enables users to view and search the musical content of the music not only of Josquin but of many other composers active in the later fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. At this writing it contains 675 works, of which 81 are securely attributed to Josquin, while 221 further works are attributed to him. To study cross-attributions and clarify distinctive traits of musical style a the remainder of the works (more than half of the currently available scores) come from Antoine Busnoys, Loyset Compere, Guillaume Du Fay, Pierre de la Rue, Johannes Martini, Johannes Ockeghem, Marbrianus de Orto, and several others. Mass settings, motets, and songs make up the bulk of the repertory.
The extensive analytical apparatus provides downloadable scores (minus lyrics), MIDI files, files for analysis (Humdrum), for screen viewing (MuseData), for visualization in "piano-roll" banners, and in MusicXML for transfer to commercial notation software. Some features of scores can be altered to show (or suppress) musica ficta, parallel motion between parts, and various other phenomena sometimes linked to traits of authorship.
Critical Editions
Editions listed here cite curated scores, usually with a critical apparatus (a description of the musical sources and a log of differences between the present score and the original one). Some offer performing parts or downloadable files from which parts can be created. Data files with which you can make your own edition of a score are included as appropriate. Some sites are under development. All are intended for expansion. Please note that EVE is limited to open-access materials.
ASCIMA: Archive of Seventeenth-Century Italian Madrigals and Arias
Website: ASCIMA
Content: The ASCIMA website, directed by John Whenham at Birmingham University (UK), provides full critical editions of entire volumes of secular vocal music which has been edited from printed part-books. Current holdings include madrigal collections by Tarquinio Merula, Claudio Monteverdi, Martino Pesenti, Giovanni Rovetta, Barbara Srozzi, and Giuseppe Valentini. Both single works and entire opuses can be downloaded as single files. Sound files are provided for each work.
Du Fay Opera Omnia
Website: Dufay Opera Omnia
Alejandro Planchart's critical edition of all the works of Guillaume Du Fay is subdivided into eleven section by musical/liturgical genre. DIAMM intends to provide other editions at its website.
MODE: The Marenzio Online Digital Edition
Website: The Marenzio Online Digital Edition (MODE)
This online digital edition of Luca Marenzio's secular music has been under development for several years. Mauro Calcagno and Lorent Pugin are the principal investigators. The musical sources are sixteenth-century partbooks that have been scanned (and "recognized') by Pugin's Aruspix software. Scores are assembled from the recognized parts.
WLSCM (Web Library of Seventeenth-Century Music)
Website: Web Library of Seventeenth-Century Music (WLSCM)
The Web Library of Seventeenth-Century Music (ISSN 2330-2429), which operates under the auspices of the http://sscm-sscm.org/ Society for Seventeenth-Century Music], is a curated collection of music focused on music that is not available otherwise. Most items in its catalogue features a "full volume" of works with critical notes. Most publications come from French and Italian composers. A recent addition is the harpsichord music [67 short pieces) of Richard Ayleward (?1626-69), edited by Ronald Woodley. It is supplied with audio samples.
Editable Score Data
CMME (Computerized Mensural Music Editing)
Website: CMME
The idea of CMME, conceived in 1999 as a Princeton undergraduate project by Ted Dumitrescu, was to support dynamic editions based on encoding standards comparable with the most rigorous printed editions. Editions of music in mensural notation have given rise to many changes of editorial opinion. In contrast to print, virtual editions have the possibility of being easily re-rendered to express changing views. On-screen views support the presence or absence of musica ficta and text underlay rationalized to fit the music or clustered at the start of line (as in many period manuscripts). Marnix van Berchem is the current director of the Utrecht-based project.
KernScores
Website: KernScores
KernScores is a comprehensive website of musical data for analysis. (Kern is the Common Western Notation encoding format the Humdrum ToolKit, which has its own website and data repository at Ohio State University.) KernScores emphasize piano music. A large number of analytical conversions can be run on-the-fly from the long list of links that follows each title listing. Most repertories are for keyboard. The full collection can be browsed here. (EsAC data has also been translated to the Kern format, and 1000 additional pieces have been added by Damien Sagrillo.) An online Humdrum editor enables users to add their own data and run simple analysis routines on it.
The following conversions of data to sound and notation are among those supported:
- MIDI (sound)
- MuseData (notation, editing, analysis)
- MusicXML (data interchange)
- ABC+ (notation)
- Guido (online notation)
KernScores also generates piano rolls, keyscapes, and several other kinds of analytical data.
MuseData
Website: MuseData
MuseData, based at the Center for Computer Assisted Research in the Humanities at Stanford University, refers to (1) an encoding system for music, (2) the software optimized for it, and (3) several corpora of scores encoded in the system. The representation system and software have been developed with Walter Hewlett from 1984 through the present. The system is described in Beyond MIDI.
The musical corpora contain more than 1,200 fully encoded works, including symphonies, string quartets, operas, oratorios, cantatas, and other kinds of works. The names of encoders and musical sources are embedded in the files together with other metadata. A large number of works have been encoded by Frances Bennion and Edmund Correia Jr. Other contributions have been made by Jean-Pierre Dautricourt, Pamela Decker, Michael Flexer, and Steve Rasmussen. The web interface and data conversion are principally the work of Craig Sapp (also the site manager), with contributions by David Huron and Andreas Kornstaedt.
Mensural extensions by Hewlett have been adopted by the Josquin Research Project and the Tasso Music project (online in 2016). MuseData supports conversion to MIDI, Humdrum Kern, SCORE, MusicXML, and MEI. Direct conversion from MuseData code to PDF is under development.
Hybrid Digital Editions
The term "hybrid critical editions" refers to means of producing series of critical editions (usually all the works of one composer) in which the score is published in book form while the critical apparatus consists of digitized sources which are hyperlinked to one another to facilitate comparison. Underlying materials may also be linked to metadata (factual content) in a database or other structured, searchable format. The primary software tool currently in use for preparing such editions is called the Edirom. It is developed and maintained by the Detmold/Paderborn musicology seminar, which offers an annual summer school for prospective users.
Anton Bruckner Collected Edition
Website: Anton Bruckner Gesamtausgabe
The new edition currently in progress is part of a comprehensive Bruckner site, at the Bruckner internet portal of the Austrian National Library in Vienna. A work search form can be found here, a database of works here, and digitized copies of out-of-copyright works here.
Carl Maria von Weber Collected Edition
Website: Carl Maria von Weber Gesamtausgabe
The Carl Maria von Weber Collected Edition has been the proving ground for the Edirom, an MEI-based tool for viewing collateral sources and cross-linking details to corresponding points in a printed score. The edition website gives access to biographical and philological adjuncts--letters, diaries, work listings, and so forth. The digital apparatus to support the score editions (i.e. the Edirom) is described here. The Music-Encoding Initiative (MEI) has an extensive website here.
Freischütz Digital
Website: Freischütz Digital
A proof-of-concept project complementing the Carl Maria von Weber hybrid digital edition. It involves a database, musical transcriptions, and (like other hybrid editions) material encoded in TEI and MEI. In addition contributions from allied technologies are being considered.