Friday, January 27, 2012

My ultimate engraving project

Does anyone remember the "Faerie's Aire and Death Waltz?" I remember seeing this extraordinary piece of engraving hanging on many music school bulletin boards. I had no idea that the fellow behind this work was responsible for two more lesser-known works of the same type. The story behind the man, John Stump and high-resolution scans of his pieces can be found here.

I think it would be a rollicking good time to duplicate these pieces -- they are exquisitely difficult tours-de-force of engraving, on a par with anything Ives has to offer. I will put the "Faerie's Aire" in the queue to be worked on in spare time and will post it here when it's completed.

Curiously, two of the pieces, "Fairie's Aire" and "Prelude and the Last Hope" are hand-engraved (possibly on a music typewriter), and seem to date from the early 70s. The string quartet, though, is from 1997 and looks as though it was produced in Finale (probably v.3ish). The temptation for fonts must have proved too much for him -- several are indiscriminately used throughout. In my reproduction, I will aim for a more restrained expression of the work, if such is possible!

From the Lost in the Cloud blog post referenced above:

Fairie's Aire:


Prelude and the Last Hope:


String Quartet (p.1):

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