Hildegard chant copyrights
  • GloriaPatri
    Posts: 2
    Anyone have experience with composing a new work based on Hildegard text/chant that might be recorded? Latin text, chant from original codex are public domain, but my initial research points toward Hildegard Publishing Company requiring licensing for recordings.
    Has anyone dealt with securing clearance to quote, develop, create and record with ideas from something of Hildegard’s music? If so, how difficult was it to gain permission?
  • NoahLovinsNoahLovins
    Posts: 23
    If anyone tries to claim copyright infringement off of melodies contained in a 900-year old codex that is freely and publicly accessible, they are wrong
    Thanked by 1GloriaPatri
  • GloriaPatri
    Posts: 2
    It’s more about the recording/distribution issue- online searches bring back Hildegard Publishing Company claiming integrity controls over her works or anything created from them.
  • irishtenoririshtenor
    Posts: 1,440
    If you’re using a modern engraved score, modern scholarly edition, or a transcription/arrangement made relatively recently, those may be copyrighted.

    Hildegard Publishing Company's typesetting, editorial decisions, translations, and layout can be copyright protected even though the original chant isn’t.

    If you're working from her original works, those are clearly public domain and certainly not under copyright.
    Thanked by 3RomanticStrings tomjaw probe
  • Xopheros
    Posts: 110
    Accoridng to its website, the "Hildegard Publishing Company" is based in the US, so the following might not apply, but for other publications made by German publishers this info might be a useful.

    According to German copyright, an editor can claim full copyright (including performance rights) for posthumously published works for 25 years. There was an interesting lawsuit in the early 2000s about Vivaldi's opera "Montezuma". The Berlin "Singakademie" had a published a scan of a copy found in its archive and claimed copyright on the opera. The main point in the lawsuit was whether the opera had already been published in the 18th century or not. At that time, opera part books were not printed, but manually copied on demand, and the question was, whether it had been possible in the 18th century to obtain such a "copy on demand" of "Montezuma".
Add a Comment