With the recent passing of Supreme Court’s decision to allow re-copyrighting of Public Domain works, Congress will pass a legislation that will implement just that–in order to satisfy their lobbyists’ deep pockets. This is the single worst decision and piece of legislation I’ve ever came across. It is more ridiculous than SOPA or PIPA.
In a form of protest, I am releasing a piece of music that should be in the Public Domain by now.
It is Handel’s Trumpet Sonata (originally for oboe). It is a wonderful piece written hundreds of years ago. Ever since the sonata’s previous copyright holders in the US, Sam Fox Publishers, has been sued into oblivion by the federal government for reasons I cannot conclude, the piece has been out of print. Berenreiter Verlag seems to be selling a cello transcription of this same Sonata.
I’ve tried to make this as pure of an edition as possible. However, it is not an Urtext edition. It contains many markings made by Dr. David Baldwin. The edition by Sam Fox Publishers had many errors and extraneous markings that were detrimental to the performance. Those have been removed, and only consistent and musically-enriching edits by Dr. Baldwin have been added.
Download
You can download the Handel Sonata here:
Donate
If you’d like to donate some money for the amount of hours I’ve put into make this as high quality of an edition as I have, you can buy me some valve oil for my trumpet. Thanks!