Let’s say you write an orchestral score with some flows. Would you show your year of birth next to the composer, e.g. “My Name (*1999)” or only the composer’s name? Is there a latest recommendation or standard for this?
If you decide to show it, would you show it everywhere next to the composer’s name or only on the title page of the score or additionally the part layouts, on the first page of the score or additionally the part layouts, at the beginning of each flow?
I’m sure there are some who put the year of birth in the score, but it’s generally not standard. Birth year will go in the concert program. What I do for my own music and for clients (and what I teach my students) is put the year of composition in parentheses underneath the composer’s name. For example, if the piece was written in 2024:
Joe Composer
(2024)
Justified right of course. This acts as a substitute for an opus number or other cataloging system. Yes, it would appear in both the score and all the parts on the first page of music, but not necessarily at the beginning of each flow. If your flows are separate movements of one larger work, it would only go on the first page of music.
If you are publishing music by a large range of different composers in different time periods, then it’s useful for your customers to know what ‘era’ each composer comes from, particularly if it’s not a household name.
You can do it that way too, although I think that’s more common with standard works. Ultimately I don’t think it really matters. Year of composition under the composer’s name is the Schirmer/AMP standard, although you’ll still find variation even among their scores.
I once had a student confuse the conventions and write it as a range from their birth year to the year of composition, like (2002-2024). We had a good laugh in class with that one (“It’s your final composition!”).
Generally if a date is a birth year, it will be labeled as such with “b.” before the year or the hyphen i.e. (1990-), so honest confusion is unlikely.
Some score examples you can find of composition year under the composer’s name:
Corigliano Symphony No. 1 (AMP)
Corigliano Conjurer (Perc. Concerto) (AMP)
Reich Music for 18 (Boosey)
Anything by Richard Danielpour (AMP & independent pub)
But then you also have exceptions like Corigliano Symphony No. 3 and Adams Harmonielehre (both AMP) where no year is present at all, so it’s not 100% consistent.
These are also all American composers, so by no means a comprehensive collection.
I used to make a big deal about doing everything to the book (or should I say, Schirmer’s book), but now I’m more of the mind that as long as you like the way it looks and all necessary extra-musical information is present, clear, and consistently formatted, it doesn’t matter all that much. Of course, if you’re working with a publisher who has a specific house style, then it’s a different story.
It happened to me, years ago, to write the year of birth of the still living composer who conducted the orchestra, but to have also inserted a question mark by mistake in place of the round bracket: (1962 - living?
(1962 - vivente?
General laughter that lightened the orchestral rehearsals a bit.
We can, of course, indicate the year of composition of the piece.
But I can’t give my date of birth because it wouldn’t seem credible given that I’m about to celebrate my 476th birthday, which is normal for a Jedi.
