.....why the editors of the San Francisco Chronicle, The New Yorker, and San Francisco Classical Voice all think they know better than the composer how to style the title of a particular work?
- Those publications all styled Esa-Pekka Salonen's recent work for clarinet and strings as Kínēma.
- The San Francisco Symphony program note, Salonen's publisher's web site and the title page of the score style the work as kínēma. (I believe that it was italicized in the SFS program.)
- The SFS program page listing the works on the program capitalizes the K.
- Below is a screen shot from the publisher's web site.
- Below is a screen shot of the first page of the score.
I submitted my linked review with the title in all lower case. If I were guessing about this, some kind of amorphous style guideline about capitalizing titles, although since TNY and the Chron enclose titles in quotation marks and SFCV (more correctly, SORRY TNY and Chron) italicizes titles, there's no ambiguity that's resolved by capitalizing a work title against the composer's styling.
UPDATE, December 5: There were several updates to this post on the 4th. SFS communications responded to my query with ""kínēma (lower case) is correct, and based on Esa-Pekka’s note and the score."
Nope.
ReplyDeleteSalonen's own website: capitalized.
SFS program listing: capitalized.
The score itself has all caps on the cover and all lower-case on the first page of the score itself. Which do you think is more likely to be correct? The score itself or the various web pages and program notes?
ReplyDeleteI've updated the blog post to correct my error vis-a-vis the SFS program and to add a screen shot from the score.
ReplyDeleteBecause the composer's and performer's web sites seem to me the most authoritative sources of information. The web site of the publisher, whom I didn't even know who that was, I wouldn't have rated it as highly. Anyway, if I'd looked at the score, I'd have seen the all-caps on the cover and found it ambiguous.
ReplyDeleteAnd I know this was SFCV's reasoning, because I was the sub-editor who did it.
I would definitely give precedence to the publisher, because composers proofread (or should proofread) the printed score before it's published.
ReplyDeleteI queried that change when I saw my published review of From the Edge.
ReplyDeleteYou'd give preference to the publisher? So composers don't check their own websites? And performing groups don't care about the pieces they play?
ReplyDeleteI don't have any experience with proofreading scores, but I have a lot of experience with proofreading books, and I wouldn't give precedence to the publisher over the author.
While, despite that, the printed score does have some authority, I wouldn't have known without looking that I'd find the printed score reproduced by the publisher. And I would emphatically not give authority to a mere listing on the publisher's website, which is what I'd expect to find, because I have found errors in such sources in the past.
And that's even assuming that 1) I knew who the publisher was, which I didn't; 2) I didn't already have an authoritative answer from more authoritative sources; 3) I had infinite time to check sources. If I had seen the score, I would have concluded both from the score itself and from the conflicting sources that the spelling was ambiguous, in which case I would still have gone with the capitalization which a) was on the more authoritative sources and b) is the standard in most Latin-alphabet languages.
I think that composer and conductor web sites are typically managed by their agent or publicist. I do not know whether any particular individual reviews their web site or how carefully they review them. They're musicians, not editors. I would expect them to proofread scores carefully, though as you say that doesn't mean there aren't errors. I have seen mistakes on any number of performer and organization web sites.
ReplyDeleteI routinely seek out the scores of works that I might be reviewing. I found this one with a web search.
They're not editors. For exactly that reason I don't trust their publishers to get everything right. I'd expect better of their personal websites. Publishers often override authorial preferences; agents and publicists should be more responsive.
ReplyDeleteIf I'm looking for authoritative information, I prefer to go directly to the authoritative web site, not to rely on random web search, which is often untrustworthy.
It's lower case in the program notes for the concert.
ReplyDeleteThe web site with the score is at Wise Music, which is a prominent publisher of classical composers. (I took that into consideration when evaluating the search results.)
ReplyDeleteHere's a page of some of the composers they publish. It's "featured composers" whose names start with S.
Well, in my field, the most prominent publisher is the most renowned for getting things wrong, so I wouldn't rely on prominence.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, the publisher's entry for this piece quotes a review which capitalizes the title, did you notice that?
I did not.
ReplyDeleteOh, the full navigation to the score, since you're doubtful about the reliability of web search -
ReplyDeleteSalonen's web site has a link to the publisher, where the navigation is:
Click Composers -> Type Salonen into the All Composers text field -> Click the result Esa-Pekka Salonen -> Click Soloists and Orchestra -> Click kínēma (2021)
Regarding reviews, I see that Zachary Woolfe of the NY Times uses lower case. I'll have to ask Jari, with whom I am slightly acquainted, why he used upper case.
I no longer worry about this so much because so many style rules are inconsistent, or inconsistently applied, and because some keyboards and fonts are limited. At one point, I did wonder why the title of your own website was
ReplyDeleteO puissante mer, l’enfant de Dindyme!
Instead of
Ô puissante mer, l'enfant de Dindyme.
or
Ô puissante mer, l'enfant de Dindyme!
But I assumed it was attributable to a difference in Berlioz era printings, thus ancient history, as opposed to the contemporary issue you're addressing. Or that yours might be an issue with diacritics and the title font you use.
I also note differences in how various websites and blogs treat honorifics such as music director. We don't capitalize them on our sites, but many do. And so on. The style books at most publications are called books for a reason. They really are books!
Hi, Nancy! The title of my blog is Iron Tongue of Midnight. I have had several subheads, including the current text quotation. At one point there was a jpg of something from Elektra. I don't remember the source of the current quotation, but I will check it against the score later today.
ReplyDeleteThe reason for the omission of the diacritical is very likely my terrible eyesight. If I typed in the quotation, I could easily have missed it. Alternatively, if I copied it, the source might have omitted it.
ReplyDeleteI consulted the critical edition and have updated the quotation from the Troyens libretto to match the punctuation and diacritical.
ReplyDeleteReceived from SFS:
ReplyDelete"kínēma (lower case) is correct, and based on Esa-Pekka’s note and the score."
If that is not satisfactory and definitive, I am happy to query Salonen's publicist to try to get confirmation directly from him.
The question was not: what is the absolute right answer? The question was: what could be determined from the available evidence in the short amount of time available for editing? The evidence pointed toward capitalization. If that was wrong so were a lot of authoritative sources. Complain to them and not to SFCV.
ReplyDeleteIt's weird that I managed to reach the correct conclusion from the available sources. If SFCV didn't locate the score and didn't query SFS, well, what's a writer to do?
ReplyDeleteThe evidence pointed toward capitalization. It was the best reliable evidence. If it was wrong that only proves that anything can be wrong. Publishers can be wrong too. There was no need to query SFS: we had their program information. Even had there been time to inquire - which there wasn't - they might have just relied on that. In which case we'd have wasted our time.
ReplyDelete