Highlights!

an Artistic Score Engraving update from February 2024

Dear all,

I hope you are well and welcome to the second update of 2024! It was quite an exciting first month of the year, so let’s dive straight in.

NEWS

New Editions

Dotzauer 103

As teased last month, I have completed a massive modernisation process on the Three Easy Sonatas for Two Cellos, Op. 103, by J. J. F. Dotzauer, offering:

• A Critical Edition of the first print by Hofmeister (not available on IMSLP), first published in 1827.
• A Critical Edition of the revision by Alwin Schröder from 1891 (the IMSLP version). This includes a list of the over 1200 changes between it and the first print!
• A new version based on the first print with my personal fingering, bowing, and performance suggestions.

What’s unique about this edition is how changes are highlighted to allow you to see at a glance what is going on in the score. Here’s an example of what I mean.

You can find the digital copy here, and listen to how it sounds here.

Mayr Piano Reduction

The edition of J. S. Mayr’s Piano Concerto no. 1 has received a small update in its orchestral score (the table of content was missing!) and in its critical notes (a few typos). A new version, then, joined the family, in the form of the reduction for two pianos created by Fabrizio Capitanio. Here’s an extract:

You can find both the orchestral score, its parts, and the piano reduction here.

New secret project!

One more edition reached completion and, this time, it is for one of several classified projects I’m starting this year. This is part of a batch of scores for the same instrumentation that will hopefully be played and recorded all together before being released to the public. Every edition will be readied as if to be published, including the YouTube video which, in this case, has already been uploaded and kept private. Once I will have all the editions ready to go, I will start contacting performers to gather interest and to find the best match for the project.

Should this not go as planned, the worst thing that could happen would be that I would release all these editions together at the same time. To give you a tease, this project is called “Number Seven” (and no, it’s not the seventh secret project!).

Updated editions

After calling these two out for about four months, I have finally managed to update two older editions to the new design, also adding my fingering and bowing suggestions to the mix. They are both by Dotzauer (you would’ve never guessed it, right?), and they are:

• Op. 63: Twelve Original Pieces for two cellos, dedicated to beginners. Release announcement — Purchase link — Promotional video — Deep dive article.

• Op. 156: Twelve Pieces for two cellos, containing National Airs & Fugues, dedicated to beginners. Purchase link — Deep dive article — Promotional video.

One more edition of the original five collections of duets remains to be updated, and I’m almost done with the third round of proofreading on the cello.

Engravings

It was a calm month from that side, with few smaller projects. The most notable ones were:

• A new solo cello Suite that plans to be played alongside a Bach Suite.
• A piece for solo percussion that was very challenging. Due to the sheer amount of cross-staff notation, I used Dorico for this, and while it was very challenging to pull through, I eventually managed.

REVIEWS

I would like to share with you three reviews that were published during January.

The first one was an interview that the Stretta-Music network offered alongside my act of joining their ranks as a new publisher. It was lovely to chat with them about what brought me on this path and what one can expect from the coming months. You can find it here.

Then, it was the turn of the Dorico marketing team, which reached out to me following all the (positive) noise I made back in July 2023 when I released Piatti’s Capriccio sopra un tema della Niobe (find it here). I stressed a lot how their software made my engraving experience of this specific piece a sheer joy, and so, they contacted me to know more. The result was this excellent interview, with also a few quotes shared on social media, such as this one:

Finally, Strings Magazine requested review copies of my printed scores and decided to review the Two String Quartets, op. 12, by Dotzauer. It was an honour to be featured in such an incredible magazine. The printed version went out in late December, but you can find the online version here.

I would like to thank David, Anastasia, and Mary for their delightful contribution. Let’s hope more people become interested in my work.

Closing thoughts

I believe I have talked enough. Now it’s your turn.

Please, tell me any of the following, either by commenting here below (on the web) or by answering the email:

1. What do you think of what I do?
2. If you had to choose a single thing that I could do to better help you, what would that be?
3. What instrumentation are you curious to see more about?

For example, a wise and lovely lady from the US spoke some “words of wisdom”, which I could not just “let be”:

How can I pick one of your scores to purchase if I cannot try them out first?

At first, I was surprised because if you are subscribed to the mailing list, you should have already received free excerpts of all of them. But I understand how emails easily get lost. The platform I’m using for my scores doesn’t allow subscription services that just show content; it’s either download or nothing. If you subscribe to the nkoda app, though, you will find all my editions there to see. You will pay a monthly subscription, but you will get hundreds of thousands of scores beside my own.

Do you have any other idea of how to make this possible?

Bottom Line

I believe that’s it for today. Thank you for reading through this, and mark the date, February 17th, for a big announcement!

You can join my mailing list here, browse my editions here, and check what’s available for print in the HNE Store. My YouTube channel contains video renditions of most of my editions. Check it out, it would mean a lot to me.

If you want to actively support what I do, please look at my Gumroad Support Program: it starts at a couple of coffees a month, and it gives back much more than it takes.

Until next time, thank you.

Michele