Music Scores Title Pages
Illuminated music scores can be traced back to the 13 th century. Codex 65, reminiscent of illumination art in our Celtic collection, is one early example that is located in the archive of the Cathedral of Piacenza, Italy.
By the 19 th century, many factors made the publication and sale of music scores a lucrative business. With the economic progress of the 18 th and 19 th centuries, the expanding middle and upper classes found leisure to enjoy more secular music in concert halls and the privacy of home. The elevation of the musician as an artist and the artist in society gave new value to a musical education. Ability to sing and play the piano or violin was a desirable social asset sought, particularly, in a wife.
Famed composers often took as students the children and wives of the wealthy, while lesser known musicians found plenty of students among the upper and middle classes. Muzio Clementi and Franz List are among the most famed, teaching composers.
Special re-arrangements of music by other composers, esp. for the sheet music market, were often made by the near-famous, such as List’s student and son-in-law, Dr. Hans von Bulow. How best to attract the eye shopper if not with music scores with gloriously decorative title pages with borders and calligraphic ornaments!
In the 19 th century, Leipzig was one of the most important centers for the musical arts in Europe. And many sheet music publishing houses were based in Leipzig. Leipzip publication houses include: C.F. Peters, Aug. Crantz, Breitkopf & Hartel, A.-G. Roder, Friedrich Hofmeister, Bartholf Senff., F.E.C. Leuckart and J. Schuberth & Co.. Other publishing companies existed in Mayence (B. Schott Brothers), Regensburg (Alfred Coppenrath), Munich ( Jos. Aibl ), Bremen (Praeger & Meier), Braunschweig ( Henry Litolff ), Vienna (Universal Edition Aktiengesellschaft) and Cincinnati ( Albert J. Andraud ). Some of these publishing houses still exist.
The composers whose sheet music title pages are represented here include the famed and the forgotten: Beethoven, Joachim Raff, Clementi, A.B. Furstenau, Mozart, L. Kohler, Bizet, O. Singer, Saint-Saens, G. Hollaender, A. Rubenstein, Ch. De Berio, List, J. Blumenthal, P. Griesbacher, Wagner, J.B. Cramer, H. Vieuxtemps, and H. Wieniawski.
We are grateful to our kind Romanian patron, Antonius Ioan Plaian, for suggesting this collection of borders from music score title pages and frontispieces.
Vector Graphics
Each decorative image and element is meticulously hand-drawn. Many advanced designers will find our vector file versions with the following desirable feature: preserved, original hierarchies and groupings to facilitate modifications and enable the extraction of unique elements. Though resolution-independent vector formats insure high-quality reproduction at any size and allow complete latitude for pre-production modifications, our CD collections also include common pixel-based file formats of each graphic and a vector format supported by Office applications for desktop publication.
No special skill is required to use the images as clip art in word processing documents, to create letters, cards, invitations, posters, etc.
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