History of an East Berlin engraving workshop

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bophead
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History of an East Berlin engraving workshop

Post by bophead »

In German by Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin

https://artsandculture.google.com/story ... GOJA?hl=de
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Fred G. Unn
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Re: History of an East Berlin engraving workshop

Post by Fred G. Unn »

Nice find! That site works well with Google Translate too.
bophead
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Re: History of an East Berlin engraving workshop

Post by bophead »

Fitting into the context: picture of lithographic plates for the reproduction of sheet music originally engraved into lead plates. The plates were rather soft and would wear out soon so the main reproduction was done through lithography (and later through photomechanic processes). Alois Senefelder (1771–1834) invented lithography originally for the reproduction of music. The potential of the technique for reproduction of pictures in book printing and art was only realized a little later.

https://34-magazin.de/ausstellung-ueber ... useum/830/
bophead
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Re: History of an East Berlin engraving workshop

Post by bophead »

Yesterday I read an old thread about treble clef design in the “Notation Practice” sub-forum which made me aware of the differences in design that may occur in this regard. Looking at many examples of 19th and early 20th century sheet music on archive.org made me realize that treble clefs used to be much more slanted to the right than they are today. The same goes for the tango example video on top of that site by Technikmuseum Berlin. (BTW is that bandoneon notation –– treble plus bass?)
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Fred G. Unn
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Re: History of an East Berlin engraving workshop

Post by Fred G. Unn »

bophead wrote: 01 Mar 2022, 14:28 BTW is that bandoneon notation –– treble plus bass?
I don't know, that notation is new to me! I actually just played with a bandoneon player at Birdland in NYC two days ago with Emilio Solla's Tango Jazz Orchestra. We won a Latin Grammy for "Best Latin Jazz/Jazz Album" in Sept. 2020, but then everything was shut down, Emilio was travelling, etc., so this was our first gig in a while.

I just looked in the Dropbox account and none of his bandoneon parts look anything like that. His are all either one or two staves. The bandoneon players he uses are all good improvisers though and sometimes he just writes chord changes. Emilio posted the score to one of his compositions "Sol La, al Sol" on YouTube if you want to see his bandoneon part. He changed the Bass Clarinet / Bari. Sax. part a bit at the recording date to make the instrument change easier, so with that change the audio doesn't quite match the score he posted.

(The title is a double pun on his last name Solla. The first two notes are G-A, sol-la, and it's a happy, sunny vibe.)
Rafael Velasco
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Re: History of an East Berlin engraving workshop

Post by Rafael Velasco »

bophead wrote: 01 Mar 2022, 14:28 Yesterday I read an old thread about treble clef design in the “Notation Practice” sub-forum which made me aware of the differences in design that may occur in this regard. Looking at many examples of 19th and early 20th century sheet music on archive.org made me realize that treble clefs used to be much more slanted to the right than they are today. The same goes for the tango example video on top of that site by Technikmuseum Berlin. (BTW is that bandoneon notation –– treble plus bass?)
Yes that is for bandoneon, but not something you can expect today. That is a type of notation known as "Wäscheleine" that was introduced as an art of "tablature" for people who played bandoneon but couldn't read the traditional notation. Actually i would think that the example in the site of the Technikmuseum is kind of a hybrid that uses both notations simultaneously. I do not know if somebody uses this kind of notation nowadays, it was very popular in Germany at the begining of the 20th century, but i guess (almost) nobody used it in South America.
See the third example in the following link
https://www.oabandoneon.com/teknikk#Notationsystems
bophead
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Re: History of an East Berlin engraving workshop

Post by bophead »

From another museum:

Second picture shows different sizes of engraving rastrums, the tools for engraving the staff lines

https://bawue.museum-digital.de/object/1372
bophead
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Re: History of an East Berlin engraving workshop

Post by bophead »

I did not know Germany has so many museums covering the craft of printing. Here the second picture shows a Schumann example in movable type:

https://www.druckkunst-museum.de/de/mus ... druck.html
bophead
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Re: History of an East Berlin engraving workshop

Post by bophead »

From the same museum in Leipzig pictured in a online magazine of Germany’s biggest trade union “ver.di” / department “printing and paper” :

Detailed view of some punches

https://drupa.verdi.de/archiv/ausgaben- ... 540059119e
bophead
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Re: History of an East Berlin engraving workshop

Post by bophead »

Rather dramatic: the motto of Vienna’s engravers guild set to music

“In praise of song, in honor of art, sound chords, in a pure and noble way!”

http://www.fischerweb.at/mysite/index.p ... wahlspruch
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