2022: a publishing-year in review (Episode 1)

At the beginning of 2022 I realised that if I wanted this publishing business to become anything more than a free-time pastime, I had to do change course, and decisively. I therefore resolved to challenge myself: I was to publish at least twelve editions in 2022, that is, one per month. If I failed, I would have stopped doing it, but if I succeeded, I would have invested more efforts (and money) into it. Another important detail of the challenge was that the quality of each edition would have had to be of the highest standards, so cheating wasn’t allowed.

To accompany this, I resumed writing my monthly newsletter, which also helped keeping track of where I was going, and how I was going. In this article, I go through each of the editions published during 2022, to see whether I overcome the challenge or not. Sit back, relax, grab a tasty drink, and enjoy the ride.

January

January actually saw no editions published. “Who starts well…” the saying goes… I was very much invested into learning the C Programming Language and writing my blog series on it that I could find no time for anything else. Then, something clicked.

February

1. Piatti, Pioggia d’Aprile, for cello and piano

A friendly reminder from the worldwide-Piatti-expert Annalisa Barzanò that 2022 was the 200th anniversary of Piatti’s birth convinced me that I finally had to continue this project. In previous years, I had published the 7th Caprice with piano accompaniment and the Quartettino “In Vacanza” for four cellos, but then I had almost abandoned the project, lacking time. Now, I made the time out of nowhere and proceeded.

Pioggia d’Aprile is a nice short virtuosic piece, not too difficult for an advanced player, and certainly charming, lasting about three and a half minutes.

Here is a sample page of the score:

And here is the link to purchase it. This blog article described the piece in greater detail.

2. Popper, As in the Old Das, Op. 64/1, arr. for two cellos.

Just a week after the first edition came the second, an arrangement for two cellos of a piece a student of mine had to play for an exhibition.

Here is a sample page:

And here is the link to purchase it. This article goes deep into the arranging process that brought to the publication of this piece.

3. Dotzauer, Twelve Original Pieces, Op. 58, for two cellos

February also saw the official start of the Dotzauer Project, in which I plan to publish everything that Dotzauer wrote. It will be a long journey, but a truly fascinating one! The First Phase of the project (just completed in November 2022) covered the five books of original pieces for two cellos, starting with Op. 58. I decided to publish those books in what appeared to me as an ascending order of difficulty. The first of these pieces is an arrangement of the most-famous “God Save The King” melody.

Here is a sample page from N° 2, a fugue for two cellos:

Here is the link to purchase it. In this article, you can read more about these pieces.

March

4. Marcello, Six Sonatas, Opera Prima, for cello and basso

While Benedetto Marcello’s Sonatas have been widely available in many editions all the way back from Piatti’s own arrangement for cello and piano, no truly Urtext edition had ever made it before. Henle is releasing one Sonatas at a time, at the eye-watering price of EUR 10 per Sonata, but I have not heard of more development after the first one. This edition is the first-ever Urtext of these beautiful pieces. If you are a subscriber of my free mailing list, you will receive an entire sonata for free in your inbox.

Here’s a sample page from the first sonata:

Here is the link to purchase the full bundle. It was with this edition that I started to create promotional videos of my editions. You can find the scrolling score video of this edition here, on my YouTube channel.

April

No new edition came in April, as I was very busy with notational projects. What this challenge taught me, among everything else, is to be constant and regular with what I do. Before, I was just taking care of these editions when I had spare time from everything else. Now, at the moment of writing this, at the end of December, I allocate at least two hours per day to this activity.

May

5. Dotzauer, Twenty-Four Exercises, Op. 159, for two cellos

At the end of May came the second episode of the Dotzauer Project. These twenty-four pieces are a thorough collection that brings students from the very first steps to the fifth position and beyond, all the while being nice music and potential concert pieces. It took extremely long to create, and I recall being quite frustrated in the end because no one seemed to care about what I was doing. Now that I look back, I believe that to have been quite normal and expected. We live in a world where, if you do not post every day on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, etc., …, you simply do not exist. How could I demand that publishing a couple of posts per month would have done anything at all?

Regardless, here is a sample page from this edition:

And here is the link to purchase this edition. It was the first time when I tried to propose the concept of a Standard and a Collector’s Edition. The idea of paying more to get all sources has not really gained traction so far, but I am not abandoning it. This edition will be updated in 2023 with some nice new addition. A massive article describing this edition in detail is available here, while a promotional video can be watched here.

June

6. Lindley, Twelve Capriccios & Exercises, Op. 15, for solo cello

This edition was a backlog from many years ago when I had promised my dear friend and fellow cellist, Antonino Saladino, that I would have published this. I didn’t expect it selling anything at all, but a promise was a promise. Instead, this edition surprised me, selling much more than more blazoned editions. I will certainly explore more of Lindley’s music in the future, as it seems worthy of my time and attention.

Here is a sample page:

And here is the link to purchase it.

7. Piatti, Elegia sulla morte di Antonio Rubinstein, for two cellos

Back to Piatti’s music, continuing the focus on his late pieces. A detailed article on this beautiful piece for two cellos can be found here. Here is a sample page:

And here is the link to purchase it.

Clarinet fingering template

While this is not properly an edition, I count it as a creation. At the end of June, I finally managed to upload the finalised version of my clarinet fingering template for Sibelius. This allows users to input fingerings for every note, microtonal and multiphonics included, for the clarinet.

If you are into contemporary music engraving, you can find it here.

8. Goltermann, Cello Concerto n° 4, Op. 65, piano reduction

On the very last day of June, I published the piano reduction of the piece that has proven to be my absolute bestseller over the years. It all started as a string orchestra arrangement of the most famous 3rd movement, then, two years ago, it continued with the world first edition of the full score with orchestral material. This has been a present for my teacher, who loved this concerto as a kid, and never had the chance to perform it with orchestra.

Here is a sample page of the piano reduction:

At this link, you can purchase any of the available versions of this beautiful piece. There is a cello and piano reduction, a full score, a set of parts, then a personal arrangement of the full concerto for string orchestra accompaniment, and the relative set of parts.

Bottom Line

Thank you for reading through the first part of this article, the second part is coming in a couple of days.

In case you are not already part of my mailing list, please consider joining it now, it’s free, and it rewards you with weekly gifts and discounts. An always up-to-date catalogue of all my products is available here.

That’s it for today!

Michele