On physical existence
I think a lot about the fall of civilizations and the fact that almost all the knowledge produced by ours is digital and so, functionally, completely ephemeral. Not that paper survives very well over the course of centuries and millennia either, but information on paper at least has presence, if not permanence. I do really hope people are recording the important stuff in stone somewhere.
Personally, given the choice between digital and physical media, I always prefer physical books, physical scores. I recognize the practicality of digital libraries and workflows, but there is something about being able to look at an unchanging page, not backlit, not giving me the feeling I’m somehow being monitored, if only by myself. Working with paper makes me feel alone and unplugged and at peace; my brain can slow down enough to be aware of the present moment and my own thoughts. The texture of pulp in the paper is revealed under my pencil. The score is lit by my environment: ceiling lights or desk lamps, or maybe indirect sunlight; this means I am undeniably in a place, not drifting unmoored in the screen’s non-place.
The principled digital existence of Henselpushers
I also recognize the necessity of digital collections and archives in preservation and distribution in today’s world. The original vision for Henselpushers was to provide free digital scores of Hensel’s work to anyone in the world with an internet connection. I was influenced by IMSLP (and more specifically Angela Mace’s work on the Easter Sonata), which provides free access to PDF scores to any denizen of the internet; no need to sign up for a subscription, a mailing list, a free trial. No need to exchange some small part of your identity or mind in the form of personal data or attention, which have been so excised from each of us at this point that it’s hard to feel intact.
From a publisher’s standpoint, digital scores also have the benefit of being quick, easy, and cheap to engrave, export, and upload. This was especially important early on, when I was just learning Hensel’s handwriting, markings, and idiosyncrasies. I knew there must have been mistakes in my editions, but I made the conscious decision to prioritize making the scores widely accessible, even as they were still being edited. I set up user comment fields for each score to gather feedback and embraced iteration as a principle.
These choices had the added benefit of making the daunting task of engraving hundreds of scores feel beginnable. I adopted the mantra “the perfect is the enemy of the good.”
A physical need
But it wasn’t long before people started asking for henselpushers editions as physical scores. Some inquirers just preferred working on paper (as I do; even though I acquire most of the pieces I play in digital form, I always print them out). But some requests revealed something bigger.
aside:
Something people often get wrong when describing my work on henselpushers is this: that I was publishing works by Hensel that hadn’t been published before. That is not the case. Nearly everything, with a small handful of exceptions, had been published as physical scores by the time I started posting PDFs. (see the second to last column in the piano directory for print publications). I was not the first to publish most of this work; I was just the first to publish most of it digitally and for free.
/aside
I think a lot of people who wanted my scores in print were responding to one of the two big issues with print editions of Hensel’s work:
first: even when the editions themselves are affordable enough, international shipping fees are not, and
second: most of Hensel’s works exist in only one print edition, and many of those have errors.
It’s not hard to make the case that the reason works by women and other marginalized composers are more likely to have errors is because of systemic inequities (see Sharon Su’s article about Schirmer’s edition of Florence Price (and then celebrate that you can now purchase Samantha Ege’s edition instead)). It is certainly true that systemic inequities are to blame for the fact that most of Hensel’s works, all long out of copyright, have only been published once.
But some requests I received for printed scores shone light on structural barriers in even starker terms. A couple requesters were looking for printed editions of specific Hensel works to perform in competitions or festivals. Those competitions required entrants to submit professionally-printed and bound scores to the judging panel; photocopies and printouts (including of scores which were published only as PDFs) would not be accepted. In the case of one person who reached out in this situation, I was able to point her to a print edition of the work she was looking for, but it had a few pretty exposed errors (and a $30 shipping fee).
It may seem reasonable for festivals to only accept bound scores (if you know music organizations, you know they are absolutely nuts about photocopies for fear of cumbrous copyright laws). The problem with this policy becomes clearer when you realize the extent to which works by marginalized historical composers—women and composers of color—disproportionately exist as PDF ephemera. Marginalized composers’ works are often preserved and engraved by independent and/or un(der)funded scholars, or just passionate amateurs, and therefore are more likely to exist only digitally, as opposed to Beethoven sonatas which exist in dozens of print editions.
So this is not purely an issue of the medium, of paper versus pixels; it’s highly correlated with structural racism and sexism. The seemingly innocuous requirement of physical scores actually does a lot to keep women and other marginalized composers out of competitions and festivals, which would be a great venue for musicians and music lovers to be introduced to new repertoire.
(If you’re looking for a cause to champion, diversifying competition repertoire is right there! Look at most concerto competition repertoire lists and you’ll see the problem immediately.)
So, I’m starting to publish physical scores.
I feel like I can do this now because:
Having worked through Hensel’s complete instrumental catalog, I am now very familiar with her writing—both her musical/harmonic language, and her literal handwriting and markings. I am much more fluent now in reading her autographs and confident in my interpretation of her intentions, which is essential for scores that can’t be edited once printed.
I found a print-on-demand vendor that sits at a good intersection of affordable price and decent quality printing. They also have a global network of printers so they can ship from a location closer to the destination, meaning shipping fees are less exorbitant.
I’m only making physical editions of works that have been through many rounds of edits and analysis. My original, digital-edition philosophy of embracing iteration doesn’t really work with print.
Today, there are ten works available, from the Ten Piano Pieces 1836-1837 collection. You can purchase any of the ten pieces individually, or the whole collection as a coil-bound book (if you care more about aesthetics than practicality and want a perfect-bound book, you can buy that through amazon). I’ll be adding more works and collections to the print library as I revise the editions on the site.
So whether you’re entering a festival and need a printed score to submit to the judges, or you just prefer reading your music from paper, now you can access henselpushers urtext editions in physical form. I can’t promise these scores will survive the fall of civilization, but they are a small hedge against ephemerality. If you’re a tablet person, you can disregard.