Undesignated
General Support
Pure patronage to sustain our ongoing archival and digitizing labour.
Historical score restoration & archive
Score Restoration Project
A collaborative initiative to restore damaged, obscure, or out-of-print scores into publication-grade digital editions.
Some works survive only as worn prints, unclear manuscripts, or incomplete sets. The full score may be hard to find in libraries or online; the parts may never have been extracted to a modern standard. The Score Restoration Project is the studio’s long work to set those sources again—and to invite others to share the labour and the cost.
This is not commissioned engraving for a single client. A hired job is quoted on the engraving page. This page is for work the studio takes on so a source can be read, played, and kept.
What the project does
Two kinds of source come in most often.
- Worn or unclear copies Old prints and manuscripts that can no longer be read at the stand. We meticulously reconstruct and engrave clean, modern digital editions from surviving fragments and historical prints.
- Missing or unusable full scores Works that circulate only as parts, or whose full scores are out of print or unreachable. We reconstruct or extract a full score and a set of parts fit for rehearsal and performance.
The work is slow. A damaged page may need collation against another copy. A set of parts may disagree. A large score—string quartets issued as one volume, for example—takes weeks, not an evening. The cost is the time of trained musicians, not a file conversion.
Collective engraving
Some titles are larger than one fee can carry: a Beethoven string-quartet volume issued as one book; a set of parts for a work whose score is otherwise unused. The project lets many people share that fee.
A title or a volume is named. People contribute what they can—one dollar is accepted. When the edition is finished, those who supported that title receive a digital copy of it. The contribution is support for the edition, not a purchase of the underlying copyright, and not a deadline you can buy.
How to take part
- Propose a title A work that is hard to read, hard to find, or missing a usable score or set of parts. Say where the source is, if you know.
- Help read the source Proof a draft, compare copies, or write what the source will not make clear. Analysis is as useful as a scan.
- Support the work General support goes to the project as a whole. Designated title support names a work; when that edition is issued, you receive a copy of it.
- Send an idea How the list should be chosen, how a volume should be bound, what a school or ensemble actually needs. The project is built in the open.
Support
Two ways to underwrite the archive. A contribution does not buy editorial control, a client credit, or a faster queue. Commissioned work for your own deadline remains a quote on the engraving page.
Specific work
Designated Title Support
Sponsor or nominate a specific work. Receive a digital edition upon completion.
Checkout will take the pledge on this page when payments are live. Until then, the amounts open a message so we can record it. One dollar is enough to be counted.
Write to the project
Propose a title, offer to proof, send an idea, or record support. Attach a source if you have one.