Bach in translation

[DaveF]

All,

Sorry if this is an obvious question, but I've had a look around the site and not found another situation quite like it. I've done a scan of the old Novello edition of Bach's "Jesu, Priceless Treasure" ( = Jesu meine Freude, BWV.227). I'm sure this is PD - there's no copyright notice on it anywhere, and the preface, attributed only to "H.P.A." mentions that it is based on the edition by Otto Goldschmidt (d.1907). However, the question is, does it get its own new page, or do I post it on the Jesu meine Freude page? The closest existing situation I could find was the multiple-language editions on the Nozze di Figaro page. I would like it to be possible to find this one by its English title, though, as despite any historical inauthenticity it remains very popular among British church choirs and choral societies. Any advice very welcome.

DF

[steltz]

If there is no extra material, e.g. variations on the original theme, then it wouldn't qualify as different enough to have its own page. However, if you insert the translated title into the "Misc. Notes" field for that specific edition, people can at least type "Jesu Priceless Treasure") into the search box in the left column, and it will come up.

Although my opinion is that it has to go on the page for Jesu meine freude, I would appreciate hearing opinions from others such as Carolus . . .

[KGill]

Well, I'm not Carolus, but until he sees this thread hopefully I'll suffice There are many cases on IMSLP where we have multiple editions of the same work, including different translations of operas (I'm pretty sure we have a large number of those). All editions, translated or not (and also arrangements) of a work should go on the same page - there are really very few situations in which one work would be split into multiple pages, and the existence of different translations is not one of them.
For more detailed information, you might want to see our style guide: http://imslp.org/wiki/IMSLP:Score_submi ... Work_Pages

[DaveF]

Thanks, both. Yes, I'd checked the style guide, and was aware of the multi-lingual operas. I felt this one was slightly different because of English-speaking choirmasters who might not be aware that the piece was the same as Jesu meine Freude (which is the title under which it will appear on the Recent Additions list on the main page). Perhaps it's no different really from a Nozze di Figaro in Russian.

DF

[DaveF]

And now that it is posted, it's quite difficult to find by its English title. Entering Jesu, Priceless Treasure into the Search box and hitting "Search" returns nothing - at which point I suspect that some searchers will give up. Hitting "Go", it's true, returns a page text match, but I don't know how many who are unfamiliar with the ways of wikis will go that far.

DF

[steltz]

That's interesting -- can one of the technically-minded people explain what the difference is between search and go, and why this doesn't work in search but it does in go?

[Edit] -- even more interesting, I wanted to find out if it would find things in the file description field, so I searched for "complete score" (very common file description) and got many hits, so working on the assumption that it would find something in the file description field, I added it to that field, and it still didn't find it. I've removed it again, but I find this odd

[KGill]

The reason there's a difference between 'Search' and 'Go' is that 'Go' is often impractical to use for non-wiki-savvy types, since it brings up matches in wiki-text; Google Search was therefore implemented as the regular search feature (easier to use, etc.). The downside of this is that because Google relies on their web index rather than actually looking at each page it 'searches', it cannot take the newest changes to IMSLP into account until its web cache is updated. We're a big site and get updated frequently, so I predict that within a few days Google should see the new text on that page.

[DaveF]

It works! Now maybe one day I'll do something about the descriptions - "Full Score" for the BGA edition and "Vocal Score" for the Novello should perhaps be the other way round, since the Novello also includes a keyboard realisation, whereas the BGA is just the vocal parts. But it's good for the moment.

DF

[pml]

Well yes, the use of the legend “full score” on purely vocal works is a bit of a mess, really. The Bach motets are frequently performed a cappella, also blurring the issue, when as far as historically informed performance practice is concerned, continuo is probably a minimum addition (e.g. Der Geist hilft survives with a set of wind and string parts), and only in Lobet den Herrn and the unison section of Fürchte dich nicht does the continuo actually have an independent part to play.

Cheers, Philip

[Carolus]

They probably both should appear under the heading "Vocal Scores" in cases like this, as the original work was intended (primarily) for chorus. The piano reduction is an addition - usually intended for rehearsal only. Technically, "full score" is correct, but it's a little misleading for most English speakers as the term most often refers to a score for an ensemble. Dover likes to use the term "full vocal and orchestral score" for the opera scores they sell - just so there is no chance of mistaking it for the more common vocal score (or piano-vocal score if you prefer).