NOTATIO

What software is being used by the various large music publishers at present? I've heard that Henle and Wiener Urtext use Finale. Is that correct? Also Alfred. Perhaps Schott as well?

Very few publishers use only one tool, because very few publishers rely entirely on in-house engravers or otherwise mandate the use of specific software. Some publishers do have a strong preference, certainly: Henle, for example, use Finale, Amadeus and Sibelius (and I challenge you to work out which editions use which software!); Faber in London mostly use Sibelius; Hal Leonard use Finale for their band, choral and orchestral pieces, and Sibelius for their rock/pop/guitar material. But most other publishers use a mixture. Boosey and Hawkes in London still have (or had, when I was last there) three SCORE engravers working on pieces from the old guard of composers who still submit manuscripts rather than digital files; but most publishers expect and receive files in a variety of formats from their composers, and it's very rare for a file that comes in from a composer in one format to end up being published in another. Instead, they pass it on to an editor or engraver skilled in that program to finish the job.

Dorico is used by a growing number of publishers, by the way, though because it is new and publishers are very conservative, it's not widely used, though there are works in the catalogues of major publishers including Schott, Boosey and Hawkes, Chester Music, Ricordi and others that were originated in Dorico.

Thank you, Daniel. That was very informative.

Amadeus? Is that their in-house one?

Yes

dspreadbury wrote: ↑24 Oct 2021, 21:38 Henle, for example, use Finale, Amadeus and Sibelius (and I challenge you to work out which editions use which software!);

I've seen several recent Henle editions in which the slurs are too arched and unlike what one sees in fine engraving of the past. They look like suspiciously like something done in Finale without modifying the slur settings.

I find that a bit unlikely, John. I've met Henle's two Finale engravers, and I can tell you that more than any other Finale users I've ever met, they use Finale as closely as they can like the proverbial metal engraving plate. No detail is left unchanged, and I'm certain that they spend more time per page tweaking things from their defaults than pretty much any other user you could name.

benwiggy wrote: ↑25 Oct 2021, 10:52 Amadeus? Is that their in-house one?

No, not in-house. Amadeus was a brilliant program, which initially was delivered on a DMA-dongle for Atari-Computers including an operating system 'idris' (unix like) and producing excellent engraved scores, en par with Score, the only real competitor at that time. It was a compiler, the input was an abcmusic-like language, the tweaking possibilities were immense, so the engraving results were stunning and ready for publishing. But the price was in the thousands and so the interest was limited to a very small group of professional publishers.
At the same time we watched Steinbergs "24" and Dr. Ts Copyist entering the stage, the engraving quality was... ahem... you know what I mean, but for many people this was enough and the price affordable.
So Amadeus never got out of its niche and then declined soon.

Very interesting! Thanks for that.

John Ruggero wrote: ↑24 Oct 2021, 20:16 Also Alfred.

It's probably worth pointing out that Alfred and Finale have the same parent company, Peaksware. I've been curious what effect, if any, that acquisition has had on Finale's development. Obviously there would be an incentive to keep the Alfred folks happy, but other than SMuFL and compatibility updates, Finale's development has been pretty much non-existent since then. MM's SmartMusic clearly seems to be their focus now anyway, and in the COVID era I'm sure has been a much more lucrative revenue stream.