"The Planets" Now in Dorico. Enjoy!

Dorico
21

In my case the reason I was making it wasn’t for the sake of having an edition but because I intend to do a YouTube series on Dorico playback and part of that will involve using a test piece that sufficiently puts an extended orchestra (but not crazy extended) through its paces. Film composers would be the target. I felt like the Planets was perfect because it is public domain and has enough use of brass to really test that as well as the choir and organ and a lot of different textures. But it doesn’t have as many extended instruments as Rite of Spring or something. It is almost exactly like film orchestras from the 70s-90s in its makeup aside from the bass oboe

So, now I can work on the video series instead and can use yours as the template test piece I would have the viewers download to help fine tune their playback templates - I assume that would be OK with you given what you said above?

22

Of course!

It was always intended to be a true open source edition (including the Dorico source project) with no restrictions for either personal or professional use. You may do whatever you need or want with the Dorico project, make modifications, or even produce your own edition from it.

I’ve tagged it with the Creative Commons CC0 license for those reasons. I decided to post it on the forum here because I just knew that some could use it, and am glad that is already being used. :smiley:

23

As nearly 100 people have downloaded it (Wow!!), I’ll list the corrections here, but I’ll also post a revised version on my site when it’s done.

Delete Organ 2 from Setup — not used.

MARS (also see post 6 above)
133, and 165-166: Piccolos are swapped: Pic 2 has higher notes, though no indication in source. (Nor in Condensed score, interestingly.)

VENUS
16: The tenuto marks are written in, so no need for ‘simile’.
24: Clarinet 1 has written Eb: should be En.
32 on: Solo Violin missing slurs (as Section Violins at 37.)
37: incorrect piano marking in Solo Violin. Delete.
53: (Playback) Animato tempi are much faster than I’ve usually heard it. (A piacere.)
78-79: Clarinet slurs don’t show in score. (Cla 2 has double slurs. Delete one.) (Source score shows all three slurs in the Condensed staff from 77.) Don’t know why. Manual Condensing?
106-7: Flute 4 has slur when it should tie.
127: tenuto and simile is on Flute 3 (and shouldn’t be); and hidden on Flute 4. As before, the tenutos have been added anyway, so no ‘simile’ needed.
131: Sub-bracket in divisi Violins is wrong. Should be 2 firsts and 2 seconds, but 3 staves are sub-bracketted. Not sure why. A Manual bracket change will fix it.
141: Only 2nd Violins have fermata in original score. Fermata in Dorico score should on 3rd beat? (Thus on rests for all others.)

MERCURY
1: Playback: Tempo mark should be set at Dotted crotchet, not crotchet. (Exact tempo a piacere.)
83: Solo Violin stems are flipped. (The source has it on the same staff as the 1st, in an up-stem voice.)
59: Horns 3 & 4 missing p dynamic.

JUPITER
12 - 15: Piccolos are swapped.
111, 115: Cello chord: Bottom two notes should be A D, not C F.
124-128: Clarinet notes are all wrong.
194: The System Text tempo equation only shows the equals sign (for me). Revised.
283 - 286: Staccatos shown here are not in source (though there’s an argument for some of them on the quavers); tenutos are missing.
325: Flutes should be dotted crotchet (as Oboes).

SATURN
Bass Flute label has dot. “Bass Flute. in G”. Deleted.
Also: Bass Flute is written octave higher than in the source. (Adjust custom instrument transposition.)
12: Double Bass has “Ends voice”, losing all rests after.
41: Double Bassoon has staccatos, which are not in the source. Also, Bassoons at 47.
44: Clarinets have D#s; should be Eb.
45: Trumpet 2 has written E. Should be D.
45: Bass Cla has C#: should be Cn.
52-53: Harps have wrong notes in Chords.
87: Page override due to text frame, with “a 4 Soli”. Override removed, and text added as Custom text on Player label (trumpets).
(There are a couple of other page overrides through the score that don’t seem to do anything.)

I’m also wondering if it’s possible to reduce the width of the abbreviated staff labels a bit…?

Will do the last two planets soon! (Didn’t he actually write a Pluto later? Poor old planetoid.)

I also attempted this work myself, but started by downloading files from MuseScore, which were absolutely riddled with errors; and all the condensed staves were actual chords or voices that needed ‘uncoupling’, so I put it on the back-burner. As said, these are footling by comparison.

If anyone else has spotted anything, do contribute!

I really do think that having quality material like this readily available in Dorico format is a really important resource for users and a ‘draw’ for potential users.

24

How are you doing this Ben? I’m amazed you can review the whole thing so quickly. It’s very impressive.

25

Agreed, but even so impressed I am with the little number of small errors @SuperG has put in :slight_smile:

26

Colin Matthews wrote “Pluto the Renewer” as a companion piece.

Still copyright protected, though…

27

Just listening to playback and having the original score alongside. It’s just a large game of “Spot the Difference”.

I’ve also just made the mistake of looking at the Proofreading panel, which has uncovered a few anomalies like duplicate hairpins on top of each other, which don’t actually affect the look or playback, but which should be fixed for the same of good digital hygiene.

28

But is it a piece or a coda…? :grin:

29

Pluto is a rather odd piece – although there is some violence, there isn’t really the emotional upheaval and transformation which the astrological meaning of the planet suggests.

Actually, as far as I know, I’m the only person who has written a Zodiac Suite with at times rather scurrilous portraits of the 12 signs. Anyone who knows of any others, please let me know where it can be heard!

30

A separate piece.

Not at all in the style of Holst, btw.

31

George Crumb Makrocosmos II for piano, written in 1972.

You can find a recording on YouTube.

32

that’s true - though Crumb is not generally my sort of composer and from what I know of it, they are not really psychological portraits of the signs in the way my piece (largely) is and indeed Holst (for the most part reasonably accurately) is of the Planets.

33

This is awesome! While there are already serviceable transcriptions for wind band, I’d like to do my own for a more modern version of the ensemble. This will be a great starting point, with all the hard work already done, allowing me to focus on how best to assign parts.

I just finished creating a corrected edition full score to Haydn Woods’ Mannin Veen, and was looking for a new project… :zany_face:

34

Exciting news—I very much look forward to watching it!

35

Thanks. (Just a silly riff on the “is-Pluto-a-planet?” question)

36

Super glad to hear it is going well, Ben. :grinning_face:

I would suggest to just go ahead to change the instrument labels as needed. I would also go ahead and just change the title fonts and such things to Academico if we intend to make this a didactic work for everyone.

Yes - the MuseScore files had a boatload of errors. A good sense of pitch and dozens of them can be aurally spotted.

I used some of those MuseScore flows to get some note entry and had to do some entry myself. Any of the metric metered stuff imports as a total mess. Anyway, it all needed to be checked against my Dover copy. Suffice it to say that musicxml imports from MuseScore is merely a partial time saver. It will be a very long slog just to correct them to the point where you can even begin to cross check against a printed original.

Issues like swapped piccolos are from exploding a MuseScore flow and getting it wrong somewhat. (It appears correct in the condensed layout, but you see the problem in the galley view).

If anyone would like to to do the parts layouts - IMSLP has sort of requested them. You can take co-editor credit, eh? :grinning_face:

I can update the final copy of the finished project once it’s done there and everyone here is satisfied.

37

I can probably do the part layouts once Ben is finished. It is the best way to find issues anyway, comparing the original parts with the new ones side by side

38

Mducharme,

Super awesome!.

I will be looking forward to seeing parts in the future, and your new video training series too. Exciting times! :blush:

39

I wonder if, since the roman numeral rehearsal markers from the original are not really possible in Dorico, it might make more sense to use rehearsal letters instead of numbers? Not a big deal either way, and the way you have it is closer to the original, I’m just thinking about avoiding potential confusion between rehearsal markers and bar numbers in the final version. Ex. If the conductor says “start at 5” - do they mean bar 5 or rehearsal 5?

I usually personally use either letters as rehearsals, or bar numbers as rehearsals, rather than using an independent numbering system, unless it is to match an original.

EDIT: Thinking about it some more, I guess there is a good likelihood of someone wanting to use a part from this with the rest of the parts from the original or vice versa, or this score with the original parts, so probably keeping them numbers is best for situations with mixed parts.

40

Why not? With letters as the sequence type, you can obtain IV by setting the Index property to 9 and the Suffix to V:

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