UnderScore | The A-R Editions Blog

We are excited to announce the release of Allen Sapp: Live Piano Works on Navona Records (NV6728), which includes recordings of Sapp’s Piano Sonatas II–VIII, Suite for Piano, and Fantasy III: Homage to Mendelssohn performed by the composer and by his wife, Norma Bertolami Sapp.

Piano Sonatas II, III, and IV are published in Allen Sapp: Piano Sonatas I–IV, edited by Alan Green, Recent Researches in American Music, vol. 90 (Middleton, Wis.: A-R Editions, Inc., 2021). The Suite for Piano and Fantasy III: Homage to Mendelssohn will be published in Allen Sapp: Selected Works for Piano, edited by Alan Green, Recent Researches in American Music (Middleton, Wis.: A-R Editions, Inc., forthcoming).

For more information, and to purchase or stream the album, please visit its page on the Navona Records website.

Learn more about the piano sonatas of Allen Sapp in this blog post.

By A-R's house editors

An incipit is a brief notational segment placed before the first measure of a piece, in each staff, intended to clarify the relationship between the notation of the edited transcription and that of the source from which the piece has been transcribed. In editions of Western music, incipits are used primarily in editions of music of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and early baroque, as many of the notational conventions of these earlier eras—particularly those concerning clefs, rhythmic values, meter and key signatures, and metrical organization—differ significantly from those used in modern music engraving. In choral and vocal music of the Renaissance and before, where vocal ranges can be somewhat less standardized than those of later music, it can also be helpful to include range finders at the start of each part as a guide to performers.

By Sam Girling

The recent and ongoing subseries of scholarly editions String Quartets in Beethoven’s Europe addresses an overlooked aspect of chamber music history by focusing on string quartets from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Traditionally, only the quartets of iconic Viennese composers—Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven—have remained prominent in the repertory, but this series broadens the scope to include lesser-known compositions (and composers) and their rich contextual backgrounds. The popularity of string quartets in small musical circles during this period was significant, yet many works were published only as performance parts rather than full scores. This practice contributed to their exclusion from broader canon formation as concert culture and music scholarship evolved in the late nineteenth century. As a result, the repertoire promoted in our subseries was mostly confined to private music-making and has not been thoroughly explored until now.

Two Recent Researches in Music editions have received prestigious awards!

John L. Snyder was awarded the 2024 Diana McVeigh Prize for Best Edition of British Music (published between 2020 and 2023) for his edition of Ethel Smyth’s Serenade in D Major for Orchestra (N084) by the North American British Music Studies Association. The award committee found every aspect of the edition “to be expertly done, the scholarly apparatus excellent, the research extensive, the commentary exhaustive, and the score clear and easy to read.” They proclaimed it an “outstanding edition” that makes a “distinctive contribution to British music studies.”

Mark Ferraguto received the 2024 Noah Greenberg Award from the American Musicological Society for his project of editing, performing, and recording of Franz Weiss’s opus 8 string quartets. The Greenberg Award is a grant-in-aid designed to stimulate active

By A-R's house editors

This is the third in a series of UnderScore posts on word division in lyrics within music, covering syllabification guidelines for German. Please note that the rules given here may differ in small details from guidelines given in style manuals not primarily concerned with sung texts.

By Alex Widstrand

Even for experienced music editors, constructing critical notes often poses a challenge: how do we describe elements of music notation in a way that is concise, consistent, and can be easily parsed by a reader assumed to have access only to the edition in front of them and not the material on which the edition is based? In most cases, this question is easily addressed by recognizing the four principal types of emended source readings and the appropriate “formula” to use for critical notes reporting each type. The general guidelines presented below—not comprehensive, but broadly applicable to the most common situations in which a critical note is needed—give an overview of A-R’s preferred critical note syntax as a starting point for prospective Recent Researches editors.

AMS 2024

Members of the A-R editorial team will soon depart for Chicago and the 2024 American Musicology Society Annual Meeting (November 14-17). At our booth in the exhibit hall you can peruse our newest titles, grab a special discount offer for website shopping, pick up some A-R swag, and test drive both Recent Researches in Music Online and the A-R Online Music Anthology.

Just as importantly, we want to hear from you. Do you have a critical edition in the works? Have an idea for a Recent Researches volume but could use some feedback? Come talk to us! We’re more than happy to discuss any aspect of the proposal and publication process. See you in Chicago!

Can't make it to the conference?

Our information for prospective authors can be found on our website, and questions about your edition ideas or the proposal process can be sent to proposals@areditions.com.

A-R Editions is seeking Expressions of Interest for the position of Series Editor for the series Recent Researches in the Music of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance.

Join a team of world-renowned scholars to help shape the future of one of the longest-running and most active collection of critical music editions, Recent Researches in Music. We are seeking to appoint a new Series Editor for the series dedicated to the music of the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. The series presents editions of music from ca. 500 to 1500 C.E., encompassing the principal types of both monophony and polyphony that were composed during the period. The editions include a discussion of historical context and performance practices, complete translations of texts, and a critical report.

The Series Editor is responsible for (1) curating the content and maintaining the high quality standards of the series; (2) identifying potential projects and recruiting editors to propose editions for publication in the series; (3) mentoring editors as needed to complete their proposals in a manner that aligns with A-R’s editorial philosophy and house style; (4) reviewing proposals for the series along with the internal reader reports and giving a recommendation on the project; (5) advocating for critical edition-making and A-R Editions both within and beyond the realm of musicology; and (6) maintaining general communication with the editorial staff at A-R Editions.

The Series Editor is an appointed, non-employee role of indeterminate term, although a tenure of 10 to 15 years is common. A-R Editions provides a modest annual honorarium and a complimentary copy of each title published in the series during the appointment period.

Link to further information and application

By A-R's house editors

This post lays out some general rules for the notation of triplets and other tuplets within A-R’s house style, illustrated by examples from our volumes.

On 26 August 2024, MakeMusic announced the sunset of Finale music notation software. This is not happy news for us at A-R Editions, because Finale has been our official music engraving platform since 2007. (Prior to that, we were pioneers in the development of music engraving by computer with our proprietary program, MusE. You can read more about that story here.)

So, what will we do? For the time being, we will continue to use Finale for all of our music engraving. There's no urgency to change, as the software and all of our customizations are working fine. 

But we are also preparing for the future, when Finale is no longer viable for us. Our production team is learning about and testing Dorico Pro. We are only in the initial stages of evaluation, and no decision has been made. Any updates to the situation will be announced here.

Current and future volume editors, do not fear! Our submission guidelines allow for music manuscripts to be submitted using any engraving software, as well as handwritten music pages and marked-up photocopies. This will not change, although we now ask that digital files be submitted in three formats: native files, .musicxml, and PDF. Our house editors and production team will take it from there!