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Everything you ever wanted to know about the Music Library
Hi. My name is Mary Plaine, and I am the Principal Orchestra Librarian for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Many times audience members say that they never knew an orchestra had a librarian. They are curious about what the librarian does for an orchestra, so I thought that I would put together some thoughts about the job for the musicians' website readers.
Traditionally we say that an orchestra librarian is the person who is responsible for having the right music on the right stage at the right time.
When you attend a concert, by the time the audience comes into the concert hall, the music stands already have folders of music on them. If you watch the stage you may see someone put the conductor's score out on the conductor's stand before or during the concert. And if you hang around after the concert, you may see someone removing the folders of music from the stands. Outside of these exceptions, the orchestra librarian is rather invisible to the outside world.
And quite frankly, that's the way I like it. If I do my job correctly, once I get those folders out on the stage for rehearsals, I'm invisible until the end of the concerts. All the work needed to prepare the music for its use on stage is done long before that first rehearsal.
The normal way an orchestra operates is that the conductor sets the program, which then gets circulated around to the people who are responsible for seeing that the concert takes place. The librarian is one of those people.
When I am given a program, I need to determine if the orchestra already owns the music, and if we do, are the parts okay to use again. Do they need to be replaced? Is there now a better, more scholarly edition available, and if so, does the conductor care to use it? Are there enough scores and parts on hand or do I need to buy more?
If the music is not in the library, can I buy it or must I rent it? Much standard orchestral repertoire that is in the public domain is for sale either from its original publishing house (or some publisher that took over the original company) or from a reprint house. Luck's Music in Michigan and Kalmus Music in Florida are two of the major reprint businesses we deal with.
When I purchase music, I am as specific as I can be about what edition I want, how many scores I need, and the total number of strings parts I require . If you are observant when you watch an orchestra, you'll note that every wind and brass player has his or her own music stand, but that the string players usually sit two to a stand. This means that if there are 16 first violins, I need only 8 parts. In addition to purchasing string parts, when I order a set of parts, the publisher should supply one part for each wind, brass, percussion, harp, and keyboard instrument the composer has written for.
One way I learn about what editions are available is by consulting a database I purchase from a music dealer, Educational Music Service in Chester, New York. The database is updated annually and lists orchestral repertoire by composer and title. There are also books that have similar details and are known simply by their authors' last names, such as The Daniels, compiled by David Daniels. These valuable reference materials contain information on hundreds of composers and titles, giving instrumentations, durations, and publishers.
Also, when ordering music, I like to let the company know if I need the music in a week, a few months, next year, or tomorrow.
Frequently, if the music is still under copyright, the composer or his or her estate has an agreement with a publishing house to manage the music for the composer, and rather than making the music available for purchase, the managing company will rent the performance materials.
Music publishers rent music, rather than sell it, for several reasons.
While every orchestra may want to own the scores and parts to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, and that work will be performed every year or so, this is probably not true of a contemporary symphonic work. Rather than print up a hundred sets of materials that will never sell and only sit on a shelf, better to make up only a few sets of parts. And better still to receive a fee for performance every time that works gets played than to sell it and get paid only once.
When I rent music, I first have to know which company has the rights to a particular piece of music. Right now I am trying to find the publisher of some works by Piazzolla that we are scheduled to perform in February. I think the music is controlled by a company in Milan but so far my e-mails to them have not been answered. I would like to be able to rely on the conductor or soloist to give me some helpful information, but those are not always avenues one can count on.
Databases and websites and experience - and other orchestra librarians - usually direct the librarian to the right music publisher from whom to rent a specific title. The publisher wants to know the composer and title, and if there is a specific arrangement needed; the dates of performance; when the music is to arrive; the numbers of scores, sets and string parts required; the name of the orchestra, conductor and soloist if there is one; and the venues. Based on all this information, I get a contract spelling out the rights of each party in the use of the music, what I can and cannot do with the music while I have it, and the rental fees.
In addition to the fees paid for the rental of music to the publisher, orchestras also pay performance rights fees in the United States to ASCAP and BMI for the performance of copyrighted concert music. The moneys collected go to the composers. An orchestra the size of Baltimore that plays a great deal of copyrighted repertoire pays a large annual fee to each of these collection agencies based on a number of factors. Smaller ensembles pay a performance fee only when they play a piece of music which requires a payment.
As music comes into the orchestra library it gets prepared for performance. We check the shipment against our order. We process and catalogue it. Then comes one of our most important jobs: Bowings.
If you watch the string players as they perform, you will notice that normally each group of the five string sections - first violins, second violins, violas, cellos and basses - move their bows up and down at the same time. Why would they want to do this? It's partly tradition. And there's an understanding that it makes for a more uniform sound and better phrasing and music making - it's like 16 or 30 or 60 people all breathing together at the same time.
How do they know to move their bows up and down at the same time? Bowings. Markings that look like a croquet wicket - down - or a vee - up - are generated either from the conductor or the concertmaster, the first violinist who sits outside on the first stand to the left of the conductor. When David Zinman was the BSO's music director, he would give us the score of a Beethoven symphony in which he had bowed all five string lines; it was then our job to transfer the markings into the 30 or so individual string parts. Our practice now is to give the first stand, first violin part to our concertmaster Jonathan Carney. He will play though the part and put in pencil markings, up or down, over notes to indicate the direction of the bow. We give a copy of his part to our principal second violinist, Qing Li, who coordinates the markings in her part with his. These two parts go to our principal violist, Richard Field; these three parts to our principal cellist, Ilya Finkelshteyn; and our principal bassist Robert Barney wants to see to concertmaster's part and the cello part.
As the principals return their markings to the library, we copy the bowings into the other parts for each section. This is always done in pencil because once the players get into the actual rehearsal and see how the conductor leads the music, sometimes the bowings have to be changed on the spot to make the phrasing match the conductor's interpretation. Changes to bowings can become a real point of contention among string players.
Sometimes conductors ask that the librarians put other markings into the parts, such as dynamics - indicating loud or soft - or instructions to tell the players that here the conductor will conduct in four, here in two.
Printed music is just like any other printed material - it can contain errors. Sometimes these are mistakes the composer made, sometimes the copyist. Inconsistencies in dynamics show up, or wrong notes, or missing measures in a particular instrument. When time allows, especially when the music is new and clean, an orchestra librarian will take the time to proofread, to check each part against the score for differences. Many orchestra librarians document these errata and share them with others.
Frequently in ballet, opera, and for children's concerts, a conductor will want to use only specific sections of a work - and cut the rest. If these cuts were given from the podium at a rehearsal, you would end up with each player trying to hear and interpret what the conductor is saying, the cuts would be marked inconsistently and incorrectly with players blotting out the offending measures of music with heavy pencil marks (which the librarian would have to erase when the cut is taken out for a future performance), and just general chaos. If a conductor has the ability to give cuts to a librarian in a timely manner, the cuts can be marked professionally, clearly, leaving no room for guessing. At this point the librarians can also deal with problem page turns that result from sections of music being cut.
I believe that a good orchestra librarian can save an orchestra hundreds if not thousands of dollars in rehearsal time by having fully prepared music on stage. The conductor and orchestra should spend their allotted rehearsal time on making music in the big picture sense, not on stopping and correcting mistakes made because the printed page contained errors or was marked unclearly. Well prepared parts also contribute to good morale. It makes the players feel cared for and respected.
Once the parts are marked properly, the orchestra librarians put them into the folders that will be used for a particular set of concerts. We can have simultaneously many folders of music in various stages of preparation, each representing a different concert. A folder may have a single work of music in it, such as an opera, or in the case of a Pops concert, it may contain thirty different titles, each title requiring the work outlined above.
Following a concert we "tear down" the folders. The music we own is collated, checked in and filed. The music we rent is returned to the publisher.
With the exception of some down weeks in late summer, the two BSO librarians are always on this merry-go-round of ordering music, prepping parts, building folders, tearing them down, and putting music away. As the orchestra is on stage rehearsing music for the weekend, we are putting the final touches on next week's folder, working on music for a couple of weeks away, or a couple of months away, or planning for a program a year or two down the road.
When attending to concert performances, many librarians use stopwatches to time the durations of movements and works. This information is useful for future programming. At the BSO we keep this data, along with other performance information, in a FileMaker database.
Sometimes before a concert program is chosen, the orchestra librarian is asked to do research on composers and repertoire. Music publishers used to print and mail out brochures on their composers, and there are plenty of reference books on older composers. Today, one has only to type a specific name into a search engine to come up with titles and timings and instrumentations that one can then relay to the people making the programming decisions. I am frequently asked to contact publishers for perusal scores of works, and sound recordings if available, so a conductor can see and hear a work to help decide if it's something he or she wants to conduct.
In addition to music prep, database management of holdings and performances, and timing concerts, orchestra librarians act as a resource for many members of the organization and the general public as well. We also have our share of bureaucracy to contend with, such as creating budgets and approving invoices. Some librarians write program notes, prepare copy for the program magazines, and speak before concerts to the audience.
On another subject, I've had the opportunity to see many orchestra libraries. Some are very nice with beautiful wooden shelves and acid-free boxes holding the scores and parts. Many now have moveable shelving units on tracks that create extra storage space. Some librarians still put their music into large envelopes and keep it in file cabinets.
The BSO Library is unique and was designed by my predecessor, Joseph Fischer. The library's long walls and shelves - with equally long counters - contain built-in spaces that custom-made boxes fit into horizontally. Each box normally contains the scores and parts for a particular piece and has a unique number. The boxes are stored in numerical order.
Joe used to keep a card catalogue by composer and title in order to look up music. We currently have our holdings in a FileMaker database that allows us to look up a work by composer, title, genre, duration, or any other of the many fields for each record. In addition to the record giving us the box number for an individual piece of music, the database also contains other useful information about the work, such as its instrumentation.
Instrumentation or orchestration describes the musical instruments that the composer has used to make a piece of music. It might be all strings, as in Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik. Or it may be two of each of the four woodwinds and a couple of horns, trumpets and timpani, plus strings, as in a Haydn symphony. Or it might be fours of all the woodwinds, plus their doublings, maximum brass and percussion, harp, a couple of keyboard instruments, and a chorus.
Orchestra management people like to know the instrumentation requirements when creating programs in case extra musicians need to be hired, or existing personnel can be given time off. Will the the players required fit on the stage? This can be a really important thing to know.
The BSO librarians belong to a professional organization for orchestra librarians. In 1983, 25 orchestra librarians from the USA and Canada met in the home of the then Philadelphia Orchestra librarian. Today the Major Orchestra Librarians' Association, or MOLA, has over 170 member libraries from around the world. We hold an annual conference that in February 2005 took place in Los Angeles and next year will take place in Zurich and be our first conference outside North America.
With the growth of MOLA and the advancement of technology, some of our special work has changed.
In the "old days," when a player would show up without their music, he or she would get handed a full score and be expected to find their tiny notes on that big page, or told to turn around and go home and bring in their part. Sometimes a call to a spouse would send the part to the rehearsal or concert in a taxi.
Today we phone a librarian in another orchestra, or put out an all-points-bulletin via e-mail: We need the 2nd trumpet part to Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony in five minutes. And lo and behold - across the wires and out of the fax machine comes page after page of the needed part.
MOLA has a list-serv where members can post questions and get answers to just about anything. Where can I get music for the Norwegian National Anthem? The military bands are the place to go for foreign national anthems. What about an opera aria in a particular key? Maybe one of the opera librarians can help.
While most orchestra librarians have enough traditional work to keep them busy, several have also learned the difficult task of music copying, either free-hand or using one of the professional music notation software programs, such as Finale or Sibelius. This technology is changing the business of music and putting demands on orchestra librarians that didn't exist earlier. Some publishers or guest artists now prefer to send .pdf files of music with the expectation that the librarian on the receiving end will have the time to copy and bind the single sheets of paper into acceptable parts.
One of the wonderful things about using the same music concert after concert is that mistakes are corrected, players personalize the sheet music through their individual markings, and future musicians feel a sense of connection to the creation of the art. Some orchestras may still use music that is 100 years old because of its historical significance and musical value. There may be newer editions that are easier to read, but perhaps something is lost in the antiseptic cleanliness of that white paper compared to the fading ink of some old Italian master's pen on heavy brown paper.
Who is an orchestra librarian? Although the occasional singer becomes an orchestra librarian, most of us are classically trained orchestral musicians. Few of us have academic library degrees or backgrounds. There are no formal, accredited training programs for orchestra librarians. The best way for someone to become an orchestra librarian is to apprentice with one, and then, when the time is right, to apply for a job of one's own.
There are actually auditions and tests for those who apply for an opening. Questions range from "How many symphonies did Beethoven write?" to "It's ten minutes before the start of the rehearsal and the following things need to be dealt with. Prioritize them in order of importance."
Several major orchestras have three full-time librarians. Most have two. In some orchestras the librarian is thought of as a staff member. In other orchestras, such as Baltimore, the librarians are recognized as musicians and are members of the same collective bargaining unit that the players belong to.
I think a good orchestra librarian needs not only musical knowledge but the capabilities to be flexible, to work well with difficult people and in difficult situations, and to have a sense of humility. I am no longer surprised when - long after I thought I had finished putting together a folder of music for a concert - a player walks in and innocently uncovers something I haven't dealt with properly.
A symphony orchestra is a team, a family - that off-stage can be as bad as any disfunctional family you care to imagine - but on-stage can produce transcendental magic. It can't be taken for granted. Players need to know that they are supported and that what they do is important if they are to do their best work. Having a professional orchestra librarian - or two or three - is a wonderful way to demonstrate that an orchestra is well-cared for.
Mary Plaine |
