Living in Australia, on the other side of the planet from Europe has certain challenges for my job... the primary problem is the lack of specialist period instrument and bow makers, and the lack of a large pool of instruments and bows for potential purchase... Instruments, I'm not so fussed about.. I have a good set at the moment, but bows... violinists tend to collect a few... and period instruments players even more so, as we will have different bows for different periods of music... and different types (dance or sonata...)... and also different styles within a similar time period.

Nothing was standardised back then... and the right tools make playing the music significantly easier!

Anyway, this isn't about that... but more about the lack of specialist music stores where you can just walk in and get dead-tree versions of facsimiles and reproductions of original music source material (not the modern edited scores that you normally see...).

... and sadly, many musicians are moving to digital scores... which means that more and more of these specialist editions are either moving to digital prints or going out of business completely. Now, the digital route for publishers is difficult... as much of this music is out of copyright... but generally, it was difficult to get decent digital prints of the single existing manuscript from archives, libraries and private collections. And editions would be able to do that, then sell them.... but these days, it is possible to write to a archive and request a digital copy... and if they have already done it, then it is quick and easy (depending on the country...)... but if it is not done yet, it can still be done, it just costs a little bit more.

... but also for me personally, I still prefer dead-tree to screens. I hate ready music on a screen, and I will only do it if I have to read from a multi-instrument score... or for teaching or practice instead of lugging around large books around.

And, as many of you will know from having photos, having a digital collection... means that you hoard them... and don't look at them. But having books lying around, means that you trip over them and pick them up and have a browse... and in our case, my wife and I will spend an hour or two just playing through things!

... and one of these publishers has just discontinued their physical book line and is fire-selling everything that is still left in stock. And I couldn't resist... even with a 200 euro shipping charge, my wife and I picked out about 300 euros worth of music... which at original pricing would have been closer to 3000 euro!

Anyway, lots of interesting things to read through... quite possibly lots of fairly ordinary and non-inspiring things that we will likely never program... but hopefully a few things that are really worth it!

Yes... we are Early Music nerds!

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