An Artistic Score Engraving update from late October 2025
Dear all,
I hope this most belated update finds you well. I am so sorry for not having kept up with a more regular schedule, but the last three months have been so packed that I have barely been able to raise my head. This update should have been completed by the first week of October, but alas, it was not possible.
The Gratitude Corner
Considering everything that transpired recently, I am honestly grateful to just open my eyes each morning and be allowed to fight another day. My gratitude this time goes to all those people who decided not to forsake me during this most difficult time. To all of you who kept supporting and trusting me, THANK YOU!
NEWS
From the Personal World…
The two months in Belgrade (early July to early September) have been both wonderful and bittersweet at the same time. Wonderful because of the incredibly good weather that blessed us (perhaps only 5–6 days of scorching heat) and of the amazing food that I had the privilege to taste (among other things). Bittersweet because, over 74 days, I could take perhaps 3 full days off, alongside a forced 5-day city break at the beginning of September to avoid brain (and nerve) meltdown. During all the other days, instead, I worked from dawn to deep night, over and over again. I am quite a Stakhanovite—you know me—, but I am starting to suspect that this new age of AI makes certain people assume one can complete assignments in unreal timeframes. Needless to say, no engraving software has improved significantly in the last few years to provide any appreciable acceleration. It seems that the focus of AI is to completely get rid of human creators, not to help them achieve their goals, and this is sad.
In the last update, I mentioned how I had started to record videos on the cello. By early July, I had completed the editing of about 10 videos and… that was it; I have not been able to get near any of them since then. I had also rented a student cello in Belgrade, but I could not even touch it…
On the hardware side, I have not yet chosen a new display: the more I research, the more I learn, and, thus, the more I realise how much there is to learn. I have at least settled on the size, 32-inch, but, for the rest, I am still conflicted.
From the Engraving World…
All this talking about work and no mention of what I am working on? Here we go, take a deep breath!
By August 1st, I had to complete a double assignment for Spanish composer Andrea Casarrubios: she wrote a majestic Sextet for Clarinet, French Horn, Violin, Viola, Violoncello, and Piano, and Forge, for Viola and Piano. Both pieces will be premiered in early 2026. You see? One needs to plan things ahead! Six months to one year ahead is the sweet spot. Anything less, and you need to accept compromises. Here’s an appetiser from the Sextet:
By early-August, I finally delivered the complete performance material for Lee Bradshaw’s Requiem (for those left behind), a massive, 75-min long work for three soloists (Soprano, Mezzosoprano, and Bass), choir, solo viola (!), and orchestra. It was premiered on 12-13 September in Alexandria and in Cairo, Egypt, with outstanding success. Here’s a short extract:
By mid-August, then, I completed a new work for Mezzosoprano, Violoncello, and Piano by Swiss composer William Blank titled ”Darkness is about to pass”. It consists of fourteen songs set on as many poems by Emily Dickinson. It will be premiered in Geneva on October 31st, and here’s a sneak peek:
Besides all these, I have worked on a piece by Frank Martin for alto voice and orchestra, ”Le Roy a fait battre tambour”; a new Christmas work for 5 vocal soloists, choir, harp, organ, and strings which has kept me busy since May, and it is not yet completed; and a couple of new editions of piano solo music by Chopin & Debussy. Working on such giants of music is both an honour and a risk: looking at their manuscripts is so enlightening, but then you also need to consider other existing editions. There, you see surprising decisions that are not always explained in the preface or in the critical notes. In several occasions, then, we found no less than ten glaring mistakes in an edition of Chopin by a most-famous publisher. We all make mistakes, of course, but when your reputation precedes you by a light year, you may want to invest more in your proofreaders.
During late June, I was contacted by a man who had spent his whole life working outside the musical world, but who had also composed numerous pieces for piano solo during the years. Since then, we started working on one piece at a time to make sure they would get in their best possible shape. Working in music as a freelancer is a blessing because you never know who could knock at your door. It could be a big publisher; it could be a professional composer; or it could be someone who just spent his youth with music and let it accompany his life throughout.
Then, around the first week of August, I was approached by a publisher about realising the score and parts of a massive contemporary work for three soloists and orchestra bound to be premiered in mid-November. As I write, I am mid-way through completing the parts for the orchestra! What made this work most challenging was not only its 90-page-long, incredibly dense score, but the fact that I had to create no less than 450 individual graphical objects in Adobe Illustrator! Add to this how much Sibelius is not really built for this kind of pieces and how every single operation is stretching its limits in all directions!
Ah! … I almost forgot! Mid-way through August I had to take care of the design (and parts preparation) of a beautiful arrangement of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, reduced for wind quintet and string quintet by Peter Lurye! If you know how long this piece is, and that I had only 15 days to complete this—alongside everything else—, you can imagine how packed this summer has been!
From the Publishing World…
Looking back at these first two and a half years of professional publishing, I can say without hesitation that the past few months have been the most challenging yet. If you read the previous update, you might remember how thrilled I was about the sudden rise in physical sales. I even wondered aloud whether Karma would eventually balance things out. Well—it seems she didn’t wait too long to pay a visit.
The TL;DR version of all this is that, after three very complex months filled with deeply unpleasing events, the entire ASE stock safely found its way back home, ready to sail towards new horizons.
We have now reorganised our space to store it alongside the essentials for packaging and shipping. From this point on, we will be processing every order directly, meaning I will have a personal connection with each customer. Through the gift of hindsight, this is probably how the journey should have started—small, hands-on, humble, and admittedly hard. One cannot hand over control of their stuff if they have not dirtied their hands first into how hard their management is.
As difficult and exhausting as the past few months have been, I now feel relief and gratitude. Bearing full responsibility for my work again feels like a fresh start, and I’m genuinely excited to share this next chapter with you all.
NEW EDITIONS!
Even through all this mayhem, I have been able to bake two new editions. The first one is something truly special that had remained buried in unknown places ever since its inception. Presenting… Gaetano Donizetti’s Sonata for Piano and Cello! This is a unique gem that was unearthed by Donizetti expert, composer, and library curator Fabrizio Capitanio from Bergamo. The manuscript was in such a bad state that it took two years for us to reconstruct it to a satisfying level. Besides, the cello part of the third movement was fragmentary, so M° Capitanio had to complete it, using his mastery of Donizetti’s style. You can listen to it here, and get your digital copy here (or here, same price, different payment methods). The printed copy is late because, as if it all what I recounted above wasn’t enough, I’m having quality issues with my printer. Here’s a sneak peek for you:
The second new edition is one I am most proud of as well, and something I have been working on for a very long time. The musical material had already been copied for at least two years, but I couldn’t settle down on the proper format. Once that was chosen, I had to practice the parts, add fingering and bowing suggestions, write the very extensive editorial notes, and then put everything together. This is the Scales and Exercises from Appendix 1 of the Violoncello School, Op. 65, by Justus Johann Friedrich Dotzauer. This is the first title (of a handful) planned around Dotzauer’s first, revolutionary cello method, written and published in 1824. It contains a 72-page score and two parts (36 and 20 pp respectively) with the 24 scales enriched by 63 duets and exercises in raising degree of difficulty. I am incredibly proud of this edition, and I hope you will like it too. Here are five videos where you can listen to as many duets (No 22; No 26; No 28; No 30; No 47), and you can get your digital copy here (or here). The printed copy will come (hopefully) soon. Here’s a preview just for your eyes!
What’s next?
Honestly? I hope some breathing room—that is, slightly more human working hours. In reality, I have plenty of projects to take care of, and plenty more on the horizon. This is all good and nice, and I am deeply grateful for the trust you all rest in me every day. Please forgive me if I have not yet answered to your emails, but you know me: I always do, no matter what.
Bottom Line
Thank you for reading this up to the end. As always, I value your input, comments, and feedback.
You can join my mailing list to get weekly gifts and promotions; browse my editions; for printed titles, please contact me directly for now. I hope to set up an online store for physical products sooner than later, but that’s yet another thing to learn from scratch and that is totally outside my comfort zone.
My YouTube channel, finally, contains video renditions of most editions.
See you… next time for the ASE update. I hope it will be soon. Please let me know what you are doing and where your musical adventures are bringing you.
Musically yours,
Michele
Music Preparation Services 