IMSLP Forums

Generoso wrote: "(I suppose the flash would somehow change the ink or the paper?)"

Just in case anyone else has an opportunity and permission to do something fabulous like this, the flash accelerates the fading of the ink, which is obviously damaging to the long-term preservation of the manuscript. This may be why they didn't allow photocopying/scanning either. But at any rate, well done!!!

It's just a WOW to see his manuscripts, in RV401, he is using a soprano clef instead of a treble clef, and violins 2 and viola are in unison...

Yes, these are incredible to see!

Behind a stately facade built in 1873 for the stables of the Prince of Carignano, the National Library is a no-frills barracks from the 1950s. The Vivaldi manuscripts are kept on the 2nd floor of the Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria di Torino, in metal cabinets behind an enormous fireproof door. Here there are clean autograph copies of his music, many where never published during his own lifetime: some 450 works, including 110 violin concertos, 39 oboe concertos, more than a dozen operas and a raft of sacred music...and all these cello concertos! There are no white gloves for readers handling rare books and manuscripts, the institution does not even require their use. The turning of each autograph page reveals the beautiful, swift, fluent strokes that ripple evenly across the staffs, virtually uninterrupted by strike-outs or corrections. “Vivaldi said he could compose faster than a copyist could copy.”

What good are these scores locked in a vault? There are so many of his pieces out there for people to discover.

Generoso you are my hero!
Thanks!!!
Ctesibius

Incredible!

Hi.

I have been searching EVERYWHERE for RV416 (gm) and RV420 (am), for free. (Have found Ricordi Milan versions.)

ANY CHANCE ANYWHERE? MIDI's?

Manuscripts will do.

Generoso (I think...):
Belatedly, as to taking photos of manuscripts (or notated published scores) with one's phone's camera page-by-page, I've been considering that as an alternative to my (probably no longer adequate) flatbed scanner (at least, now that I have a phone with a camera. How was your phone camera's resolution, for instance, when it came to the task? (I tried a few days ago taking photos of a manuscript of my own music, just for giggles, and am pondering the various difficulties that resulted- and what I can learn from them; but that's - well, neither exactly the same nor entirely different...)

What is the resolution of the photos from your camera? In pixel size?

Eric wrote:Generoso (I think...):
Belatedly, as to taking photos of manuscripts (or notated published scores) with one's phone's camera page-by-page, I've been considering that as an alternative to my (probably no longer adequate) flatbed scanner (at least, now that I have a phone with a camera. How was your phone camera's resolution, for instance, when it came to the task? (I tried a few days ago taking photos of a manuscript of my own music, just for giggles, and am pondering the various difficulties that resulted- and what I can learn from them; but that's - well, neither exactly the same nor entirely different...)

If by any chance you have an iPhone or Android, there are several apps that turn those into quite decent scanners, although it's still harder than using a flatbed.

Experimenting with a new iPhone - no special app (though I could look for one; the one I did find turned out to be an OCR sort of thing that tried to read and play the music I photographed, a very interesting but understandably not-ready-for-prime-time idea, I think...) - have uploaded one result of such photographing to Variations for String Quartet (Op.3 in A) by Vladimir Pogozhev (parts available from Edition Silvertrust; I interloaned the score from Queens College (CUNY, New York State) Library) and photographed/scanned that. Hopefully better job next time; it's due back in a few days though...

&thanks!!