Bordogni Transcriptions

[muschem]

In my spare time, I'm making slow but steady progress on transcribing Bordogni vocalises with accompaniment into musescore format. The first 30 (using Rochut's progressive numbering) are complete and available here:

https://musescore.com/user/35220672/sets/5110656

To avoid copyright infringement, I went back to some very old sources. I've been retaining the original phrasing, dynamics, etc, rather than updating them to align with more modern editions. These markings are most certainly inconsistent with well-known versions, and at times they seem inconsistent even within themselves. Some of the ornaments, which make sense vocally, don't make a lot of sense for our instrument - but, I left in trills, etc. from the original sources as well for reference. Also, in cases where I have included both the original key as well as Rochut's, note that the latter is a simple transposition of the same, original arrangement - not Rochut's actual version. In short, you probably don't want to rely solely on these transcriptions as-marked for lessons or performance purposes.

While I do find it an interesting study to compare older arrangements with modern interpretations, the real value here is in having clean digital copy for easy display on tablet devices, and also in having access to audio for the accompaniments. You'll need to download the files and open them in the musescore software in order to view the parts - unfortunately, I don't believe there's a way to do that just viewing the scores on the website or mobile app. However, the software is also free, and the install is easy. Each score does have the canto and accompaniment parts already broken out, so you can print the trombone part and listen to the piano separately this way. In addition to printing to hardcopy, you can "print" to PDF via the export function, which is what I use for display on tablet in forScore.

I'll keep chipping away at these and hopefully have the full set of 120 available at some point. I can update this thread occasionally, but you can also subscribe to my musescore feed to get immediate updates when new transcriptions are available.

Enjoy!

[muschem]

It occurred to me that downloading musescore, downloading each of the files from my set on their website, and then exporting the parts to audio and/or PDF versions is a non-trivial amount of work. So, I've started doing the exports and hosting the files on github:

https://github.com/muschem/trombone/tre ... s/Bordogni

Here, you will find:

* The original, editable files in musescore format
* Exported PDFs of the complete scores, as well as piano and trombone parts individually
* Exported mp3s of the synth playback for the full score as well as just the piano accompaniment

This should lower the barrier somewhat for using these files. For those familiar with git, you can simply clone the repo using: `git clone https://github.com/muschem/trombone.git`. If you haven't worked with git before, not to worry - you can also just download a zip of the repo using: https://github.com/muschem/trombone/arc ... s/main.zip. I plan to add other transcriptions in this repo as well, but for now, there are just the Bordogni Vocalises.

I have the first 20 in the repo now, and I'll work on moving over the rest. I got a bit side-tracked over the holidays, so I'm only up to around 47 of these transcribed. If you spot any mistakes or have requests for the export formats, give me a shout.

[harrisonreed]

What source did you use, IMSLP?

[muschem]

For all but one set, I pulled copies from the National Library of France, and I include the PDF sources in the repo, here: https://github.com/muschem/trombone/tre ... ni/Sources

[muschem]

For the one IMSLP reference I included, which is the outlier vs. the rest of the sources from BnF, the equivalent original appears to be this set of 36: Trente-six vocalises pour la voix de soprano ou tenore composées selon le goût moderne. BnF has a partial copy:

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9751872f

This is only the first 12 of the set of 36, which may have been originally published in 3 volumes. I'm working to track down a hard copy of the full set of 36, and I have a couple leads. By the time I get to transcribing those later vocalises, I hope to have the missing ones procured. If I'm able to source original versions, I will try to coordinate with BnF to have the missing volumes scanned into their collection, so that everyone may benefit.

My fallback option is to transcribe the version available on IMSLP for these (#74-105,107-109), which is what I currently have listed. This was a later edition edited by Max Spicker and published by Schirmer. It is also PD, but I'd rather have a consistent set of transcriptions from the originals if possible.

I'll update the repo soon with tables mapping transcribed versions to the original sources.

[Shiny]

This is a lot of work you’re doing. Thank you. I like the idea of using GitHub. Is there a way to download all of them at once? I had a play, admittedly only on my phone, and could only open them individually.

[Savio]

Thanks a lot for this. Nice to have the piano score!

Leif

[muschem]

Is there a way to download all of them at once?

You can grab the entire repository directly, using:
https://github.com/muschem/trombone/arc ... s/main.zip

If you don't want the entire repo, which I can see as a common use-case, then there are methods to download a sub-folder of the main branch. Probably one of the easier methods is using a free online tool called DownGit:

https://downgit.github.io

You'd navigate the GitHub repo to the folder you're interested in, and copy the url. Then paste it into DownGit and it would provide you a zipped archive of the files from that directory. As an example, say you only want the trombone parts in pdf format from this repo. You could use this:

https://downgit.github.io/#/home?url=ht ... 2FTrombone

There are other methods, using svn, etc. but DownGit is probably the most user friendly.