In 2023, A-R Editions issued a volume of mine titled A Wilkie Collins Songbook. It contained twenty-seven pieces that were, in one respect or another, associated with the well-known novelist and playwright Wilkie Collins (1824–89), author of The Woman in White (1861) and The Moonstone (1868), to cite his two most famous works.

Among the pieces included there is a setting of William Mee’s ca. 1815 ballad “Alice Gray” by the little-known composer Virtue Millard (née Elwin, 1786–1854), who seems to have spent most, if not all, her life in and around the city of Norwich (about 120 miles northeast of London). Simply put, I became somewhat obsessed with both Millard and “Alice,” which, first performed in public on 21 April 1828, and published no later than 4 May, was by far her best-known song. This obsession would eventually grow into my next volume with A-R, Alice Gray: The Biography of a Nineteenth-Century Ballad. 

Having decided to pursue further research on Millard and “Alice,” I could foresee two possible paths forward toward creating an edition: either a complete edition of the twenty-four works that Virtue Millard is known to have turned out, or an edition limited only to her “Alice Gray” and the family of compositions that grew out of it. I decided against the complete edition for two reasons: Some of those twenty-four pieces seem to have disappeared (I could not locate copies), and as much as I had become a Virtue Millard fan, I will admit that there is a sameness that runs through her work.

It was, then, to Millard’s “Alice Gray,” and the fourteen pieces that I was able to identify as having been derived from it, that I turned. One question came up immediately. At just about the same time that Millard’s “Alice” appeared, two other composers issued their own settings of the poem: G. W. Reeve (fl. 1820s–1830s), whose “Alice” dates from 1827; and George Hodson (d. 1863), who published his setting of the ballad no later than the end of 1829 while working in Dublin. The obvious question was whether to include the Reeve and Hodson settings. A committee of two (of which I was one half) decided unanimously that we should. Although I still believe that that was the right decision, it resulted in Virtue Millard’s name being dropped from the title page; hers was not the only “Alice,” and to have named the entire trio of composers would have been misleading in terms of what followed. Including all three settings also meant that we would skirt strict chronological order and place Hodson’s setting before Millard’s in order to avoid an interruption between her “Alice” and the pieces derived from it.

Still another in-or-out decision led to the omission of three members of the Millard/“Alice” family. One of these was forced upon us, as I could not locate a copy of N. C. Bochsa’s Fantasia for solo harp based on the song. Another piece, Angiolina Panormo Huerta’s arrangement for voice and guitar, was already available in a fine edition of works by her and her husband, A. T. Huerta (we did, however, include a short, stemmatically significant music example). Finally, with two guitar versions already included, we decided to omit a third, this time by one Mr. S. Keene, as it simply added nothing new to the family profile.

One more early-on decision: We would omit what were essentially slightly tweaked reissues of Millard’s original “Alice.” Thus we passed over the version in Pitman’s Musical Library, vol. 1 (1877), even though it offered a unique four-part harmonization at the end (which does appear as a music example).

Pieces based on Millard’s “Alice Gray” extend chronologically from the late 1820s into the 1860s and originated in both England and the United States. We determined their order in the edition using a combination of chronology (precise or approximate date of publication) and geography: (1) nos. 4–6, from England and dating 1829–37, consist of three theme-and-variations for piano; (2) nos. 7–11, the American pieces, dating 1828–55, include two sets of variations for piano, an arrangement for voice and guitar, another for two flutes, and Millard’s original song transposed up a step to D major, which became the default key in the United States; and (3) nos. 12–14, which form a group of three diverse “ocean-hopping” pieces from the 1860s (another version for guitar and voice, a rather lovely choral setting, and a “fiddle tune”).

If many of the questions were settled early on, they kept popping up right to the end. Not least among these was, at what point to call it quits in the search for more members of the extended “Alice” family? In fact, two pieces, the fiddle tune and the flute duet, almost got left behind because I came across them only as I was packing things up (or so I thought) for submission.

Just as interesting as dealing with the music was getting to know Virtue Millard—or should I say that I did not get to know her well enough? Consider the following: When “Alice” (Millard’s first-known publication) appeared in 1827, Millard was forty-one years old; during the decade that followed (through 1837), she issued another twenty-two songs; then after a decade of silence, there appeared just a single piece (religious in nature) in 1848. While we might attribute the gap from 1837 to 1848 to her son’s illness (and death in 1840), was there anything either prior to “Alice” or after the little church piece? Is there a Norwich attic with a stash of unpublished Millard? Surely, a door-to-door canvas is called for!

There is another question that I tried to crack but failed. Five of Millard’s songs were produced in collaboration with another musician. These pieces credit Millard with the melody, while they ascribe the accompaniments and/or “symphonies” either to Philip Knapton (who wrote his own set of variations on “Alice”) or to Alfred Pettet (Millard’s main publisher, at least early on). We can only wonder what this says about Millard’s musical background and education. Indeed, one reviewer wrote the following about “Alice,” which, as far as we know, is Millard’s from top to bottom:

[Alice] owe[s] all [its] beauty to melody: the accompaniment, though free from error, contributes less than it might have done to the effect of the air. (The Harmonicon 6, no. 9, September 1828, 205).

Finally, I would like to end by offering a second round of thanks (the first appears in the edition’s preface) to a truly fantastic group of librarians dispersed on both sides of the Atlantic and above and below the equator: Heini Davis, Linda Fennessy, Rick Fox, Lynsey Halliday, Mark Hector, Jason Imbesi, Wendy Morgan, Liam O’Rourke, Nancy Richey, Rupert Ridgewell, Nora Thornton, Nicholas Wall, and Melissa E. Wertheimer. The project would not have been possible without their generous and, in every instance, same- or next-day help. Nor would “Alice” have turned out as well as she did (permit the optimistic assumption) without the firm and sensible editorial hand of Esther Criscuola de Laix.

Image credit: Virtue Millard (Mrs. Philip Millard), Alice Gray: A Ballad, 3rd ed. (London: Alfred Pettet, [ca. 1830]), first music page. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Library, WCC 2257. Courtesy of HathiTrust (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015080965133).

Now gainfully retired, Allan W. Atlas is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he headed the Center for the Study of Free-Reed Instruments and edited its journal. Indeed, it was his activity as a performer on the English concertina (including with the New York Victorian Consort) that played an important role in developing his scholarly interests in Victorian music. Other research areas over the years have included the fifteenth century, Pergolesi, Puccini, Vaughan Williams, and the great tanguista Ástor Piazzolla.

We have several newsworthy announcements to make!

New series editor

In December 2025 Neal Zaslaw announced that he was stepping down as general editor for the series Recent Researches in the Music of the Classical Era, a role which he had held since 2004. We are so grateful for the sage advice, invaluable collaboration with the A-R editorial staff and our volume editors, and countless hours of proposal evaluation that he has so generously and expertly given us for over two decades. Thank you, Prof. Zaslaw!

The new general editor for the Classical series is Mark Ferraguto, professor of musicology at Penn State University, where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in music history and performs on early keyboard instruments. His research includes publishing on and performing the music of the long eighteenth century (Buxtehude to Beethoven), as well as edition-making. He received a Ph.D. in musicology with a concentration in historical performance practice from Cornell in 2012. His book Beethoven 1806 (Oxford University Press, 2019) has been called “one of the boldest contextual studies [of Beethoven] to date” (Oxford Bibliographies Online). He has recently published on Mozart and artificial intelligence (Eighteenth-Century Music, 2025) and Boccherini as entrepreneur (Cambridge Companion to Boccherini, forthcoming).

Prof. Ferraguto’s recent work also includes critical editions of little-known chamber works by Beethoven’s contemporaries Franz Weiss (1778–1830) and George Bridgetower (1778–1860). His edition of Weiss’s two “Razumovsky” string quartets (A-R Editions, 2023) served as the basis for the works’ modern premiere (2023) and first-ever recording by the Toronto-based Eybler Quartet (2024). His edition of Bridgetower’s quintets for flute and strings, co-edited with Nicole Cherry (A-R Editions, 2025), is the first critical edition of works by Bridgetower, an Afro-European violinist who was celebrated throughout Europe in the early 1800s.

Prof. Ferraguto is delighted to join A-R Editions and looks forward to collaborating with volume editors to further expand and diversify the Classical Era series.

New delivery method for Digital Prints

We recently made some updates to our website, including a new delivery method for our Digital Prints. Previously accessed through a special browser interface, Digital Print purchases now provide a direct link to a PDF file. This link will appear in your purchase confirmation email as well as in your “Digital Library,” which is always available to you when you log into our website. You may use your preferred PDF reader to access the digital print for viewing, printing, and saving.

Engraving software update

Upon the announcement in August 2024 concerning the sunsetting of Finale music notation software (which had been A-R’s engraving platform since 2007), our production team made a thorough review of all possible replacements and settled on Dorico. Since then they have been busy learning not only the basics of how the application works but also coaxing the program to produce the very specialized notation needed for critical music editions. We have overhauled our music font, written countless scripts and codes, combed through every setting and preference, and created master pages for our most frequently used music specifications. And we are pleased to announce that after more than 50,000 hours of effort, our production team is working on Dorico-engraved publications! These editions will release later in 2026, but we won’t tell you which books they are, as our goal is to keep the “A-R look” intact.

Dear future volume editors, do not fear! The move to Dorico has not changed our manuscript submission guidelines, which allow music files made in any engraving software. We simply ask that you submit your music files in three formats: your native engraving files (Finale, Sibelius, Dorico, MuseScore, etc.), music XML versions, and PDF.

A typical Recent Researches edition includes images of the musical source material on which it is based. Most commonly, these graphics are presented as full-page plate images (for details, see pages 9–10 of our Style Guide), but smaller snippets of source images sometimes appear as figures within the introduction or critical report as well. These images illustrate the relationship between the source notation and the score presented in the edition and often reveal some of the challenges in modernizing historical and handwritten notation.

Our editions frequently also include images of source title pages, composer portraits, and other relevant photographs or illustrations. These images should be limited to those of greatest immediate relevance to the edition and that are not widely available in other sources.

On rare occasion, our production process may require a third category of image: so-called camera-ready copy of the music notation itself. This is only necessary in unusual cases such as our edition Silk and Bamboo: Instrumental Chamber Music from the Chinese South, edited by Chuen-Fung Wong (OT014), which includes pages of traditional Chinese music notation, shown in example 1. This notation could not be reproduced by A-R’s engravers and therefore had to be supplied by the author.

Example 1. Traditional Chinese jianpu cipher notation provided as camera-ready copy by author. Silk and Bamboo: Instrumental Chamber Music from the Chinese South, edited by Chuen-Fung Wong (OT014), p. 8.

In any of these situations, A-R’s requirements for image files are the same. By following the guidelines outlined below, you will ensure that all images in your edition look as neat and clear as possible. Low-quality images, which are often blurry, pixelated, or print with a moiré effect, not only adversely impact the overall look of your edition but can also prevent the reader from discerning what the image is meant to reveal about the source. An image that does not meet our minimum standards will need to be either replaced or eliminated from your edition.

It is tempting to put off dealing with this part of your project, since procuring high-quality images can be an expensive and time-consuming process. But the images are among the first things many readers will notice when they pick up your edition, and the sooner you start the process of planning, obtaining, and editing your images, the better-looking your published book will be.

Image Quality: Size, Resolution, and File Types

Regardless of the type and purpose of the graphics in your edition, all image files submitted to us for publication have the same fundamental requirements: Namely, they should have a resolution of at least 300 dpi (dots per inch) at 100% of the original image dimensions (see page 4 of our Manuscript Preparation Guidelines). You can find these measurements by opening your image file and navigating to the “file information” screen. Please note that images containing lots of fine lines (etchings, for instance) or other minute details may need to be of even higher resolution in order to print without distortion.

It is important to understand the relationship between the resolution and size of an image. An image may have low dpi but be extremely large in its vertical and horizontal dimensions. Decreasing the dimensions of such an image will increase its dpi: For example, if an image file is only 150 dpi but 200% of the original image dimensions, it will be 300 dpi when the dimensions are shrunk to 100%.

A common question is whether the dpi of a low-resolution image file can be increased. The short answer is “no.” While there are programs that will artificially increase the dpi of an image, it will not improve the image quality. In fact, it can have the opposite result: Attempting to artificially enhance the dpi by rescanning a scanned image at a higher resolution will often produce an unwanted moiré effect. The only way to improve the image’s quality is to take a new photograph or scan with a higher resolution. As the University of Chicago Press’s image preparation guidelines state, “the quality of reproductions in your book can never be better than the original materials you submit to us.”

Image files should be submitted in uncompressed TIF format whenever possible. PDF files can also be used. JPEG files are acceptable if no other format is available, but remember that, as a compressed format, the image quality will never be as good. PNG files, however, cannot be used.

All graphics should be submitted as separate files rather than embedded in your text files, which can also lower the image quality. The approximate placement of individual graphics should be indicated with a tag (e.g., “[:FIGURE 1 NEAR HERE]”). All image files should be named and numbered according to their placement within the edition (e.g., “Plate1.tif,” “Introduction_fig1.jpeg”).

Obtaining and Licensing Print-Quality Images

While many musical sources are now readily available in various online repositories, those image files are often not suitable for publication. As the University of Chicago Press notes, most images on the web are only 72 dpi, which corresponds to the maximum display resolution of computer screens. In the cases of music libraries with large digitized collections (the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, for instance), the absence of downloadable print-quality images may also be intended as a safeguard against unauthorized use. Similarly, some libraries watermark these images, which likewise renders them unusable for publication.

To obtain print-quality image files, it is usually necessary to contact the holding library or archive directly. Be sure to communicate your needs clearly: Libraries often offer different tiers of photoduplication services depending on the required image resolution. Please also be sure to honor the library’s requirements (if any) for how their permission statement is to appear in the image caption.

In most cases, permission is required to reproduce images in your edition, even when the contents of the image are in the public domain. Any photographs, scans, or digitizations are the intellectual property of the person or institution that created them, so unless you yourself are the creator of the image file, you will need written permission to include it in your edition. These permissions are often—but not always—included as part of the photoduplication agreement when you request the image files from the holding library. Once you have secured permission to use an image in your edition, A-R requires that a copy of the permissions letter or email be submitted to us for our records.

When negotiating these permissions, libraries will often ask how many copies are to be printed, how widely they will be distributed, and the selling price of the edition. If you are in need of this information, please contact your A-R developmental editor (or copyeditor, if work on your project has already begun) and they can provide the necessary details.

As always, feel free to consult your house editor when ambiguities arise.

For the complete Recent Researches in Music Style Guide, click here (PDF).

Have a question about making critical editions of music? Click here to ask A-R!

After an edition has been copyedited by an in-house editor at A-R Editions, and after the author of the edition has cleared the edits so that the text of the manuscript can be typeset and the music can be engraved, the first proofs will be sent to the author for proofreading. This proofreading stage represents the only opportunity an author has to locate and mark any needed corrections in the text and music of their edition, since we do not normally send second proofs to authors. At the same time that the author is proofreading their edition, it will also be proofread by members of A-R’s editorial staff to help ensure that any typographical mistakes are found. The proofreading stage also provides an opportunity to resolve any final editorial queries that the editor or production staff may have for the author, and any remaining unresolved issues in the manuscript itself vis-à-vis the source (for instance, a wrong pitch that has heretofore escaped notice).

It should be kept in mind that the production process, during which the computer files supplied by the author are converted to the initial typeset/engraved version of first proofs, is not “automatic.” During copyediting, there are typically changes made to the content of the original files, and it is possible for mistakes to be unintentionally introduced while transferring those changes to the proofs. This is particularly the case for music, which is typically marked by hand by the copyeditor, creating numerous places where the readings of the original files need to be adjusted to match the copyediting marks. In addition, in preparing the first proofs, the music engravers may find that several individual aspects of the original files need to be entered from scratch (for example, lyrics, continuo figures, etc.) depending on how the file transition goes. And sometimes all of the music needs to be coded from scratch by our engravers, if the author provided only a handwritten score or if the original music files are found to be unworkable. Given the various stages at which errors can creep into the proofs, then, it is important that both the text and music should be checked character by character during the proofreading stage. The present blog post focuses on the music-proofreading side of this stage.

Both text and music proofreading share two basic functions:

(1) Comparing the proofs to the manuscript to make sure that the information in the manuscript has been accurately transferred to the proofs; and

(2) Watching for inconsistencies or errors that were overlooked in the editing or production stages, which may become more apparent now that the manuscript is in proof form.

However, music proofreading differs from text proofreading in that the overall content of music is expressed on several visibly separate yet simultaneously occurring levels, whereas in text the content is essentially located in the words as they appear on the page. Of course, text has more than one level as well, from the words on the page to sense and syntax to how the topics are organized. But a musical work is made up of many discrete components, and it is impossible to properly proofread them all at once. A movement of an orchestral mass setting, for instance, includes the initial tempo indication and its key signature and meter signature, followed by later tempo and organizational instructions, with each staff having its own part name, clef, and series of notes and performance instructions, as well as sung texts for the chorus. The key to music proofreading, then, is to unpack the components and check them one at a time, understanding that in some cases, more than one notational element can be checked in a single pass so as to expedite the process. It is best to adopt a consistent routine and stay with it in the course of proofreading the entire edition. To that end, the following practices, commonly used by editors and proofreaders at A-R, are suggested.

I. Make the following overview checks:

Check the titling of each work or each major division of a work (e.g., individual movements of symphonies, numbers of operas, songs within a cycle, etc.) to make sure that they agree with what is presented on the contents page and to ensure that there is consistency from one piece to the next in the presentation of titles, subtitles, and lyricist/composer credits if they are present. Proofread for spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. It is also helpful to confirm the continuity of page numbers as part of this overview.

II. Proofread the following musical components work by work:

(1) Score order and part names/abbreviations. Make sure that the bracketing and bracing of staves match the manuscript, keeping in mind that an isolated or solo part, like a solitary timpani staff or a solo vocal staff, will have no score bracket. Part names and abbreviations may be presented in detail in the margins of the manuscript or may be provided in separate instructions. Even though these elements are repeated as needed from work to work, errors may creep in, so check carefully for spelling and capitalization.

(2) Measure numbers. Count the measures to make sure that the numbers are continuous throughout each piece. Periodically check the numbers against those of the manuscript (especially at the end of the piece) to make sure they match. Keep in mind that first and second ending measures are counted separately and that pickup measures are not counted in the measure numbering.

(3) Tempos and other score directions. Check the presence, placement/alignment, and spelling for all tempo markings, repeat indications (“Fine,” “Da capo al fine,” etc., often placed below the lowest staff), and other score instructions (including rehearsal letters if present). Note that if the presence or absence of resting staves is different between manuscript and proof, the actual staff to which a “top of score” marking is assigned (e.g., a tempo or a note value equivalency at a time signature change) may be different as well.

(4) Music staff by staff. This, of course, is the primary task of music proofreading. A few separate passes should be made for each staff, as follows:

(a) Start with the clef, key signature, and meter signature, sometimes preceded by an incipit (especially in early music) and followed by a range finder (in some vocal parts).

(b) Continue with the notation of pitches, accidentals, note values (including tuplets with the presence or absence of numerals and brackets), rests, grace notes and appoggiaturas (either clearly marked in the manuscript or explained in special instructions), ossias, ornaments, articulations (accents, staccatos, etc.), slurs, ties, beams, stem directions, fingerings, barlines (double sectional barlines, repeat barlines, final barlines), and any subsequent changes of clef, key, or meter. In orchestral scores with shared staves (e.g., Flute 1, 2), you may wish to do a separate pass on stem direction and voicing labels (“1,” “2,” “a 2”).

(c) Check any performance instructions placed above the staff. These can include indications of instrumentation such as “solo” and “divisi”; tempo changes such as accelerando and rit.; performance methods such as pizz. and arco; instrumental cues (such as when a part for violoncello and bass is marked “Vc.,” i.e., for violoncello alone); fermatas; character names in operas; first and second endings; and dynamic markings for vocal parts.

(d) Check any performance instructions placed below the staff. These can include dynamics in instrumental parts; crescendo and decrescendo hairpins; verbal cresc. and decresc. markings; expression markings like dolce or tenuto; and piano pedal markings. The idea of separate passes for above-the-staff and below-the-staff markings is to maintain horizontal eye movement and not jump from one level to another within a single pass.

(5) Special notation associated with a part. These might include brackets indicating ligatures and coloration in early music, basso continuo figures, chord charts and symbols, tablature, bowings, and any other specialized content.

(6) Underlaid lyrics part by part. Any sung text that is underlaid within the music should be proofread part by part after all of the above steps associated with the music have been completed. Such texts should be checked for spelling, syllabification, capitalization, punctuation, and placement. Checking the placement of underlaid text mainly involves making sure that the right words and syllables are under the right notes. In conjunction with this, the presence of hyphens between syllables needs to be confirmed. Protraction lines at the ends of words or final syllables that are sung to more than one note should be present as space allows. If brackets are used within the text—angle brackets to indicate repetition markings in the source and square brackets to indicate editorially added text—they should be checked as well. Spelling of foreign languages may involve accents and special characters, whose implementation should be confirmed. In addition, the “Texts and Translations” portion of the text proofs, if there is one, should be consulted here, since all the above considerations (spelling, capitalization, punctuation) need to match the underlaid lyrics in the score.

(7) Any other text, such as footnotes, stage directions, and so on. Textual elements not associated directly with titles and subtitles, musical notation (e.g., directives and dynamics), or underlaid lyrics should be considered separately. Footnotes, stage directions and scenic indications for an opera, and other textual information and instructions should be proofread as you would regular text. The placement of these texts on the page should be clearly marked in the manuscript or explained in accompanying notes. Any additional text that is hard to read in the manuscript may be provided on additional sheets.

(8) Overall layout of the music pages. The music proof pages that A-R provides to authors are meant to be a close representation of the final layout and pagination intended for the printed volume. Any cases where notational elements crash either horizontally or vertically should be marked.

Following is a detailed outline of the above instructions:

I. Overview

Titling and crediting of each work and continuity of page numbering.

II. Proofread

1. Score order and part names/abbreviations, including bracketing and bracing of staves.
2. Measure numbers.
3. Tempos and other score directions, including repeat indications like “Fine” and “Da capo al fine.”
4. Music staff by staff, including but not limited to:
   a. Clef, key signature, meter signature; incipit and range finder if present.
   b. Pitches, accidentals, note values, rests, grace notes and appoggiaturas, ossias, ornaments, articulations, slurs, ties, beams, stem directions, fingerings, barlines; subsequent changes of clef, key, and meter.
   c. Performance instructions placed above the staff, for example, “solo” and “divisi,” accelerando and rit., pizz. and arco, instrumental cues, fermatas, character names in operas, first and second endings, dynamics for vocal parts.
   d. Performance instructions placed below the staff, for example, dynamic markings including hairpins, expression markings, and pedal markings.
5. Special notation associated with a part, such as ligatures and coloration brackets, figured bass symbols, chord charts and symbols, tablature, bowings, and any other specialized content.
6. Underlaid lyrics part by part, including spelling, syllabification, capitalization, punctuation, placement (with hyphens and protraction lines), and any angle or square brackets.
7. Any other text, such as footnotes, stage directions, and so on.
8. Overall layout of the music pages.

Marking Corrections

In marking the corrections that you find in the music proofs, it is customary to mark a correction both at the point of the mistake and in the right margin. The mark in the margin is meant to call attention to the mistake and can be circled. If mistakes are light (only a few on a page), a marginal marking is sufficient, but if mistakes are piling up, especially in a single staff, it may work better to place the circled marks closer to the actual mistakes, perhaps right above or below, wherever they will be clear and there is space. In any case, colored pencil or pen should be used to mark all corrections and graphic edits so that they are easy to see.

In example 1, the traditional “delete” symbol is used to say that the marked parentheses should be removed, a corrected pitch is specified, and a lowercase letter is indicated.

Example 1. Music proof of Niccolò Piccinni, act 2, no. 21, finale, “Ombre care, amica notte,” from La serva onorata, part 2, ed. Lawrence Mays in collaboration with Lucio Tufano (C122), p. 556, mm. 128–32.

In example 2, figures are added to the B.c. part and meter signatures are corrected.

Example 2. Music proof of Tarquinio Merula, no. 2, “Cantate Domino,” from Il primo libro de motetti, e sonate concertate, Op. 6 (1624), ed. Jonathan P. Wainwright (B236), p. 9, mm. 32–36.

In example 3, a note value equivalency at a time signature change is corrected.

Example 3. Music proof of Tarquinio Merula, no. 2, “Cantate Domino,” B236, p. 12, mm. 77–81.

In example 4,  a dashed slur is removed.

Example 4. Music proof of Tarquinio Merula, no. 2, “Cantate Domino,” B236, p. 12, mm. 82–87.

In example 5, hyphens are deleted and replaced with protractions.

Example 5. Music proof of Tarquinio Merula, no. 19, “Cantate Domino,” B236, p. 121, mm. 16–18.

In example 6, a beam is added, as are bracketed sharp signs.

Example 6. Music proof of Tarquinio Merula, no. 20, “Favus distillans,” B236, p. 130, mm. 25–32.

In example 7, an angle bracket and missing syllable are marked in.

Example 7. Music proof of Tarquinio Merula, no. 21, “Beneticta tu,” B236, p. 137, mm. 5–9.

Learn more about the publication process for Recent Researches in Music publications here.

David Birchler is a house editor with A-R Editions.

This Protip demonstrates the use of the Styles menu in Word to produce a clean manuscript for submission to a publisher. In word processing software applications there is usually more than one way to create a desired layout and text format on the screen and page; however, not all of them are good practices for manuscript preparation. While a Word document might look good on the screen, under the surface there may be unwanted formatting that is at risk of being copied over into the production files and causing problems in the proofs. Understanding and mastering the Styles menu is the key to a clean manuscript, and will also save time and energy in the long run by making Word documents easier to format and navigate.

For the complete Recent Researches in Music Style Guide, click here (PDF).

Have a question about making critical editions of music? Click here to ask A-R!

AMS 2025

Members of the A-R editorial team will soon depart for Minneapolis and the 2025 American Musicology Society and Society of Music Theory Joint Annual Meeting (November 6–9). At our booth in the exhibit hall (#501–503) 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 Minneapolis!

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 version of this post was presented at the March 2024 Society for American Music Conference in Detroit, Michigan, for a special-format session titled “MUSA Celebrates SAM” (for further information, see the conference page here).

The preparation of Opera Parody Songs of Blackface Minstrels (1844–60), published in September 2025 by A-R Editions as volume 35 of the series Music in the United States of America (MUSA), presented several significant challenges. Minstrelsy’s racism was the most fundamental of these, but other aspects, such as the ephemerality and diffusion of source materials, required thoughtful and innovative solutions.

The scholarship on American minstrelsy of the antebellum period is robust, providing social context and lyrical analyses, but only a few anthologies of minstrelsy’s music exist.[1] Although music was of central importance to the minstrel show, scholars typically include scores only as occasional illustrations or omit them altogether and focus on lyrics. Good reasons exist for this treatment of minstrelsy’s music, but the genre’s essentially musical nature requires thorough investigation of extant musical sources.

Admittedly, the decision to publish a collection of minstrel scores was not easy. An anthology of such music could provide a ready-made body of materials for performance. I worked with Andrew Kuster, MUSA executive editor, and COPAM (the Committee on the Publication of American Music of the American Musicological Society, which oversees MUSA) on a Content Warning (viewable as part of the abstract on the volume’s product page) that frames the edition as a scholarly resource rather than a performance score. This caveat is atypical in the MUSA series, but COPAM recognizes the importance of appropriately framing each volume. Another measure the edition uses to communicate its scholarly purpose is short essays before each song. These essays explain each song’s parody methods, including the use of racist caricature. We hope that placing this content immediately adjacent to the scores reinforces the edition’s scholarly context. Ultimately, we are taking a calculated risk that the utility of the edition eclipses its potential for misuse.

Another challenge in planning this project was musical representation. Minstrels’ core ensemble was stringed and percussive instruments, and performers typically improvised. Most surviving artifacts for minstrel music are piano-vocal sheet music and songsters, which are pocket-sized books of lyrics. These commercial products are arranged and codified versions of minstrelsy’s music for home or amateur performance. The melodies, meters, and harmonies of sheet music publications likely resembled those of theatrical minstrel performance, but the instrumentation and predictable structures did not. Any present-day editor of minstrelsy’s music must choose between, on one hand, creating scores that speculate as to the sound of this music in a theatrical context and, on the other, editing existing scores, which are not fully representative of minstrel performance. Due to MUSA’s focus on critical editing, the latter approach was the best fit for this project.

After choosing to edit sheet music and songsters, the next question was selection criteria. MUSA editions typically have a core organizational principle, such as the complete works of a composer or a focus on a single, significant work. Minstrel publications, as ephemera, are widely scattered and inconsistently indexed. They usually are not reliably dated, and their attributions of authorship are suspect. Again in collaboration with Kuster, I defined an editorial approach that accurately represented my collection method: All musical sources advertised by minstrels as parodies located at two extensive collections, the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Because my edition has the date range 1844 to 1860, I applied alternative dating methods to undated sources, using plate numbers, handwritten dates, publishers’ addresses, and concordant sources to provisionally date undated sources. This approach may be dubbed “doing the best we can with what we have.” Clear communication of methods and limits is essential for this approach, which may be applied to a variety of atypical repertories.

A final question concerned the appearance of the scores—should they be facsimiles or engraved? Facsimiles present the scores as they are, negating the need for comprehensive editorial adjustments, which seem unnecessary—even distracting—for a repertory intended as commercial and ephemeral. However, MUSA is conceived as an edited series of engraved scores. As I began work, I realized that the process of transcribing the scores in Finale was useful in revealing details of the parody process. Transcription led to stronger analyses than likely would have resulted from facsimiles.

I am grateful to MUSA and A-R Editions for supporting this project, which hopefully demonstrates the rewards of engaging challenging texts. Minstrelsy’s racism is exactly why we cannot ignore this repertory, and recent scholarship on blackface performance demonstrates the genre’s continued relevance.[2] As we explore ephemeral sources, we can create new methods for organizing materials that contribute meaningfully to academic discourse.

[1] Hans Nathan’s Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Minstrelsy (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962) includes an anthology of scores attributed to Emmett. Steven Saunders’s and Deane Root’s The Music of Stephen C. Foster (Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990) includes sheet music for Foster’s minstrel show songs.

[2] Matthew D. Morrison’s Blacksound: Making Race and Popular Music in the United States (University of California Press, 2024) is an excellent example of recent scholarship on minstrelsy.

Renee Lapp Norris is Professor of Music at Lebanon Valley College, where she teaches music history courses and serves as Director of the B.A. in Music degree program. Her book Opera Parody Songs of Blackface Minstrels (1844–1860) was published by A-R Editions in September 2025. She also is a contributor to Foster at 200: Reappraising the Legacy of Stephen Foster, an essay collection marking Foster’s 200th birthday on 4 July 2026, and has given many presentations on minstrelsy both in the United States and internationally. Renee lives in central Pennsylvania and enjoys archival research, sailing, and hiking.

This is the fifth in a series of UnderScore posts on word division in lyrics within music, covering syllabification guidelines for Russian and Church Slavonic, as well as how to handle syllabification when those languages are transliterated into the Roman alphabet. Please note that the rules given here may differ slightly from guidelines given in dictionaries and style manuals not primarily concerned with sung texts. For an introduction and overview of musical word division in general, see the first post in the series.

Russian and Church Slavonic Word Division

A-R’s house style for the syllabification of the Russian and Church Slavonic languages—the two Slavic languages most commonly encountered in our editions—largely parallels the typographical rules outlined in the Chicago Manual of Style, 18th edition, §§11.113–17, with some additional policies and exceptions necessitated by musical concerns.

Single Consonants

In Russian and Church Slavonic, as in many other languages, syllables should divide after a vowel and before a single consonant whenever possible (ле-то, бу-дет, хо-ро-ший, и-же, кра-си-вый). However, where a soft sign (ь) or hard sign (ъ) is present, divide after that sign, thus keeping the preceding consonant together with the adjacent vowel (compare: о-бувь vs. объ-яс-нять; а-ля-по-ва-тый vs. аль-янс).

Groups of Two or More Consonants

For groups of two consonants, the division generally falls after the first consonant (Гос-по-да, мяг-кий, кон-цу, лох-ма-тый, ал-маз, жиз-ни, чер-тог, въез-жать) or after a soft sign (толь-ко, ведь-ма, горь-кий).[1] Double consonants are divided (длин-ный, ал-ли-лу-и-а, воз-звахъ) except where they occur at the beginning of a root (по-ссо-рить-ся, со-жжен-ный). Other exceptions are as follows:

1. Divide before pairs of consonants whose second letter is л or р (зе-мля, гне-вливь, до-брый, о-тре-пье) except for рл, which is divided (гор-ло, бер-ло-га).
2. Divide before the pairs ск, ст, and тв (пля-ска, до-ра-стать, не-со-тво-рен-на).
3. Divide before жд (пре-жде, у-тру-ждать).

For groups of three or four consonants, the situation is similar. Divide before the three-letter groups скв, скр, ств, and стр (о-сквер-нен-ный, и-скра, чер-стветь, бы-стро). Where these groups or any of the indivisible pairs listed above appear within a three- or four-consonant cluster, divide to keep those indivisible units together with the nearest vowel (дожд-ли-вый, здрав-ствуй-те, дост-лан-ны-е, экс-промт). Three-letter groups ending in ц divide before that letter (серд-це, солн-ца, гарн-цы).

Some Russian syllables containing the letter р do not include a vowel. Though these syllables usually appear at the end of words, the division follows р where they occur mid-word (кон-тр-при-каз).

Consecutive Vowels

Paired vowels in Russian and Church Slavonic are divided (бо-ле-е, ду-ма-е-те, на-у-ка) except where the second vowel is й, which always forms a diphthong with the preceding vowel and should be left undivided (сей-час, буй-ство, зай-цев, яй-цо). The only other exceptions are rare loanwords in which doubled vowels belong to the same syllable and should therefore be kept together (зоо-парк, ва-куум).

Prefixes and Suffixes

In Russian and Church Slavonic, divide after prefixes (вос-кре-се-ни-е, без-дна, ис-по-вѣ-ду-емъ, от-у-пе-ни-е, на-взрыд, не-зря-чий, раз-о-ре-ни-е) and before suffixes that begin with a consonant (ве-ли-че-ства, ‎ге-рой-ский, скреб-ло, круг-лый, глав-ный), even where doing so would violate the rules listed above.

Elisions

The single-letter prepositions к, с, and в (along with their archaic spellings къ, съ, and въ) are usually elided with the following syllable. In Recent Researches volumes, elision in Russian and Church Slavonic is indicated by inserting a nonbreaking space after the preposition (к кон-цу, с ним, в го-ро-де), never with an undertie or run together without a space.

Other Considerations

The letter Ё/ё, though used in many publications as a pronunciation aid, is generally avoided in modern Russian typography (Е/е is used in all contexts, regardless of pronunciation differences). It should be used consistently in your edition or not at all. Similarly, if your edition preserves period orthography, it should do so throughout.

Other Languages Using the Cyrillic Alphabet

Beyond Russian and Church Slavonic, Cyrillic is also used to write Ukrainian, Belarussian, Bulgarian, and Serbian,[2] along with a few other South Slavic languages and a host of non-Slavic languages from various parts of Russia and central Asia. Should your edition involve text underlay in any of these languages, the guidelines here may be used as a starting point but should be adjusted according to the phonological and semantic considerations of the language at hand. For example, in Bulgarian, the letter ъ is a vowel and must therefore be treated entirely differently than in Russian or Church Slavonic (въз-дух, я-бъл-ка).

Transliterating Cyrillic Text

In Recent Researches, editions with sung text in Cyrillic should include a second layer of underlay giving a phonetic transliteration of the text for the benefit of non-Cyrillic-readers, as shown in example 1. There are a variety of different systems for transliterating Russian and Church Slavonic that can be used in your edition. (The examples in this post use the ALA-LC 2012 system.) Your approach to romanization should be specified at the beginning of your edition in a prefatory “Note on Transliteration,” which typically contains a table listing the Roman equivalent and sung pronunciation of each Cyrillic letter. If your edition includes transliterated Cyrillic text in its introduction, critical report, or any other portion of the text, it should adhere to the same transliteration system as the underlay in the score.

Example 1. Giuseppe Sarti, Tebe Boga khvalim (1789), mm. 47–50, choral staves only. Giuseppe Sarti, Te Deum Settings for Prince Potemkin’s Victories, Part 1: Tebe Boga kvalim (1789), edited by Bella Brover-Lubovsky (C117), p. 11.

When transliterating Cyrillic, be careful not to divide Roman letters that represent a single letter in Cyrillic, particularly ц (t͡s), щ (shch), ю (i͡u), я (i͡a), and ѣ (i͡e). Likewise, ensure that the symbols ′ and ″ used to represent soft and hard signs, respectively, always face left and remain inside any punctuation that follows.

A concern particular to Russian is the change in pronunciation (in most dialects) of the letter г from “g” to “v” in certain situations. While most transliteration systems concerned primarily with the written language prefer г to be consistently romanized as g, you may choose to alternate between g and v in your edition to reflect the pronunciation of individual words for the benefit of performers. This policy must be applied consistently and explained in the “Note on Transliteration” at the beginning of your volume. A related consideration pertains to the Cyrillic letter Ё/ё: If you do use it in your edition, it should be consistently differentiated from Е/е in the romanized text.

Preparing Your Manuscript

Cyrillic text in music requires some additional considerations vis-à-vis A-R’s production process. Music engraving platforms do not always handle non-Roman text underlay well, and when your original score files are converted to XML format and then imported into our templates, the text may end up garbled and unusable. For that reason, we require that editions containing Cyrillic text underlay include the sung text both within the music files and in a separate Word document. The latter should give the text exactly as it will appear in each voice, including all repetitions. The Word file should also include the transliterated text. This extra step in manuscript preparation, while somewhat tedious, will ensure that production on your edition remains as accurate and efficient as possible.

As always, feel free to consult your house editor when ambiguities arise.

For the complete Recent Researches in Music Style Guide, click here (PDF).

Have a question about making critical editions of music? Click here to ask A-R!

[1] In Russian and Church Slavonic, the hard sign never occurs between two consonants.

[2] Serbian may be written either in Cyrillic or Roman.

A-R Editions welcomes several new faces to our team!

We give heartfelt thanks to David Crook and Rebecca Maloy for their service as series editors for Recent Researches in Music. Crook served as the series editor for Recent Researches in the Music of the Renaissance since 2013, and Maloy for Recent Researches in the Music of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance since 2016. We thank for of them for providing guidance and collaboration to many volume editors and to the A-R staff editors during their tenures. 

Taking over as the Renaissance series editor is Remi Chiu, professor and chair of musicology and historical performance at Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. He specializes in Renaissance music, with a focus on the intersection of music and the history of medicine. He is the author of Plague and Music in the Renaissance (Cambridge University Press), which explores the role of music in early modern responses to pestilence. His work on music and plague has been featured in The Guardian, NPR, PBS, and Pitchfork, among other media outlets. His more recent work on music and medical history has appeared in the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Frontiers in Psychology, and Historical Reflections/Réflexions historiques. With A-R Editions, Prof. Chiu has published an anthology of Renaissance plague songs, Songs in Times of Plague, and, with Alessandra Ignesti as co-editor, the first of six planned volumes of the complete masses of Ippolito Baccusi.

Prof. Chiu is pleased to be stepping into the role of the Renaissance series editor to support the immensely important work of providing high-quality and thought-provoking critical editions for other scholars and performers of early music.

Our new series editor for the medieval and early Renaissance series is Catherine Saucier, associate professor of musicology at Arizona State University. She specializes in late-medieval sacred music, hagiography (saints’ legends), and city culture in the Low Countries, specifically the Belgian city of Liège and Dutch town of ’s-Hertogenbosch, where she has conducted extensive archival and liturgical research. Her current projects focus on the musical veneration of St John the Evangelist in the diocese of Liège and beyond. Publications include her monograph, A Paradise of Priests: Singing the Civic and Episcopal Hagiography of Medieval Liège (University of Rochester Press, 2014); essays in the refereed collections Hagiography and the History of Latin Christendom, 500-1500, ed. Samantha Kahn Herrick (Brill, 2020) and Manuscripts, Materiality, and Mobility: Essays on Late Medieval Music in Memory of Peter Wright, ed. James Cook, Grantley McDonald, and Adam Whittaker (Libreria Musicale Italia, 2024); and articles in Early Music History, The Senses and Society, Speculum, Acta Musicologica, the Journal of the Alamire Foundation, the Journal of Musicology, Plainsong and Medieval Music, the Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, Viator, and Religions. She has published a critical edition of the office chants for St John the Evangelist in the Historiae series (Institute for Mediaeval Music, 2021) and is guest editor of the interdisciplinary special issue on “Saintly Voices: Sounding the Supernatural in Medieval Hagiography” for Religions (2025).

Prof. Saucier is thrilled and honored to join the A-R Editions community as the newly appointed general editor of the Recent Researches in the Music of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance series. She welcomes this opportunity to promote diverse and inclusive approaches to music editing and is eager to expand even further the wide-ranging scope and accessibility of A-R editions.

And finally, upon the retirement of long-time employee Sandy (Otto) Williams, we welcome Will Stevens to the A-R team in the new role of Customer Relationship Specialist, the primary point of contact for libraries, performing organzations, and other institutions. Will is a Chicago-based oboist and a regular member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. He is currently in the post-residency phase of the Doctor of Musical Arts program at the Yale School of Music. Alongside his work at A-R Editions, he freelances in orchestras around the Midwest, assists educational programs at the Negaunee Music Institute, coaches at Chicago Public School band programs, and contributes to Yale’s Oral History of American Music project by conducting interviews with American composers and jazz artists. Will is committed to amplifying new music and reviving works by historically underrepresented composers. Outside of music, he spends his time birdwatching, climbing, and playing board games with friends.

"Having just spent eight years in higher music education," says Will, "I’m thrilled to support A-R Editions’ mission to make high-quality music more accessible to performers, scholars, and listeners around the world."

Join us as we whole-heartedly welcome these three to A-R Editions!

In honor of the 200th anniversary of the death of Antonio Salieri (1750–1825), the music department of the Moravské zemské muzeum (Moravian Museum) in Brno, Czech Republic, is hosting the exhibition “Maestro Salieri,” on the composer’s life and works. The exhibition, which began May 30 and runs through October 12, brings together numerous autograph scores, manuscript copies, and prints of Salieri’s music from the collections of the Moravian Museum and runs concurrently in two locations: at the museum itself and at the nearby chateau at Náměšt’ nad Oslavou, once home of Salieri’s friend and patron Count Heinrich Wilhelm Haugwitz. The opening day at the museum featured performances of Salieri’s music, and according to Simona Šindlářová, curator of the exhibition and part of the curatorial team of the Moravian Museum’s Department of the History of Music, the opening at the Náměšt’ chateau had “a unique atmosphere, like Salieri and Haugwitz [had been] there.” To further enhance the atmosphere at both exhibit locations, Šindlářová prepared a recording with a representative selection of music by Salieri to be played in the background, and she reports that visitors and employees at both venues have enjoyed returning to the exhibit to hear Salieri’s music again.

Prominently featured in the exhibition alongside these priceless sources and documents are editions of Salieri’s masses from A-R Editions’ own catalog, prepared by leading Salieri expert and A-R veteran author Jane Schatkin Hettrick (professor emerita, Rider University): the Mass in D Major (1994, C039) and the Mass in D Minor (2002, C065). Professor Hettrick served as one of the scholarly advisors to the exhibition, and A-R Editions gladly donated copies of her editions to the museum.

In conjunction with the “Maestro Salieri” exhibition, concerts of Salieri’s music will be held in in Brno and Náměšt’ throughout September and November. For more information on the exhibition, please visit the exhibition’s page on the website of the Moravian Museum. For more on Salieri and his music, see Professor Hettrick’s related blog article Rethinking Salieri in 2025, the Bicentennial of His Death.