The cost of printed music

[Pulcinella]

Having thoroughly enjoyed the recent televised broadcast of the NYO Prom, I thought I'd buy a copy of the study score of Copland's S3, as there were many features that I hadn't noticed previously that became apparent when the cameras focused on particular players.
But then I saw the price: £57.

Perhaps our resident printing expert teamsaint could comment on production costs etc, but it struck me that this was really rather excessive. It certainly put me off buying a copy.

I'm interested partly because the University of York Music Press (UYMP) is about to publish an anthology of three commissions that the choir I sing in has performed, and I was in their office yesterday discussing how it would be presented/produced, and what the selling price would be.

[smittims]

I remember paying £35 for a full score of the Three-Cornered Hat and £31.50 for a full score of Gurrelieder around 1976 . I wonder what they'd cost today.


Someone I knew bought a full score of Gruppen in 1972 and it cost £5. About four years later (after a bout of inflation) it had gone up to £15.

I have no idea how much it costs to print music . The first two examples above had been engraved over fifty years previously, so presumably those costs had been recovered over the years . They couldn't have cost as much as the full-colour CD catalogues printed for EMI and Deutsche Grammophon at the end of the century which were given away free.

[Andrew Slater]

Scores are becoming very expensive. (Boosey and Hawkes, which I think publish the Copland seem to be amongst the most expensive.) I suppose the score-buying public has shrunk to such an extent that most score buyers will be libraries or academic institutions, and can (or have to) afford to pay the prices. With small numbers of sales, overheads will be significant for maintaining the score in the catalogue, storing copies once printed; any digitising and electronic storage costs will need to be recouped from a shrinking clientele, but I suspect there is some profiteering as well. I sometimes think that if they reduced their prices they would sell more copies, but then 'more' might only be a few percent. Publishers do seem to be aware of this - quantity discounts are sometimes given for popular vocal scores. However, with this high pricing policy it's understandable that individuals might turn to the likes of IMSLP, causing a further loss of sales.

Second-hand is probably cheaper - I picked up a study score of Elgar's Serenade in E minor recently for £1. I note that Presto have the Copland at £53.50, while there is a copy on ebay at a 'bargain' price of £38.31!

[Pulcinella]

...

Second-hand is probably cheaper - I picked up a study score of Elgar's Serenade in E minor recently for £1. I note that Presto have the Copland at £53.50, while there is a copy on ebay at a 'bargain' price of £38.31!

Bargain copy just ordered! It's new, too.

[Ein Heldenleben]

It’ll almost certainly be not just the type setting and (substantial) copyright costs but the costs of ink and paper. Music uses a lot of ink and paper costs have been increasing rapidly . On the plus side none of my thirty even fifty year old scores have yellowed paper and grown brittle. Schirmer , Boosey vocal scores and Eulenberg all pretty pristine . Some of the latter have dodgy spines though - must be the glue I guess. Some very old Peters piano music is in a pretty poor state but I’ve also Decades old Henle piano scores which are fine . So although the scores are expensive they are much longer lasting than a lot of hardback novels which are printed on pretty poor quality paper.

[smittims]

Henry Bohn Books in Liverpool have a stock of miniature and study scores at low prices, many of them the former property of a collector who seems to have been a true English eccentric. Inside many of them is a chart recording every time he heard the work, who was playing, etc.

[edashtav]

Many early 20th century French scores are friable. My La Mer is not dog-eared but is earless.

[Joseph K]

Last time I looked - some years ago - Messiaen's scores were prohibitively expensive. I've just looked - 132.99 pounds for a study score of Chronochromie, and just check out the price for not even the entire score of St Francois d'Assise!

Boosey & Hawkes Sheet Music Shop: Classical and Educational Sheet Music and Scores

[teamsaint]

Print costs have absolutely rocketed in the lat two years, and there are still some paper shortages from time to time. Print costs have risen anywhere between 50 and 75% I would say. There are also regular energy and transport cost surcharges from printer. Margin and profit are being really hard hit
I don’t know what RRP pricing models are used by music publishers, but ours are pretty strictly based on a multiplier on print cost,
Book prices have been all but static for at least ten years, so book publishers have finally run out of room to try to absorb cost. hardback RRPs are typically now at £22 or £22.99 compared to the £18.99 or £19.99 of a couple of years ago, as an example.

it could be that music publishers are implementing heavy price rises because they need to reflect print costs, and “correct” years of price stagnation.

Speaking from a sales perspective, I would certainly make sure my Stravinsky offer was at the Rite price……


(No excuse, though for some of the big book publishers printing on the appalling quality paper that they do. ).

[Dave2002]

Print costs have absolutely rocketed in the lat two years, and there are still some paper shortages from time to time. Print costs have risen anywhere between 50 and 75% I would say. There are also regular energy and transport cost surcharges from printer.

Presumably printed music is such a niche market that volume production isn't very profitable, and many practising musicians are working from digital copies. However print on demand ought to be possible - with digital printers and £1 per page would not seem unreasonable. Then there'd be costs for binding and distribution, and the printers/publishers would have to decide whether it is worth printing more than one requested copy to sell more. Keeping stock which doesn't sell is presumably not a good way to make money.

There has been a similar on demand market for CDs though perhaps even that has now dried up due to lack of consumer interest.

[teamsaint]

Presumably printed music is such a niche market that volume production isn't very profitable, and many practising musicians are working from digital copies. However print on demand ought to be possible - with digital printers and £1 per page would not seem unreasonable. Then there'd be costs for binding and distribution, and the printers/publishers would have to decide whether it is worth printing more than one requested copy to sell more. Keeping stock which doesn't sell is presumably not a good way to make money.

There has been a similar on demand market for CDs though perhaps even that has now dried up due to lack of consumer interest.

Print on demand , for any quantity , can work really well, but our experience is that it only tends to work cost effectively on certain formats. I suspect that POD unit costs for some formats used for sheet music might be really rather high.
stockholding and distribution , if done by a third party as is very common in book publishing ,is a major cost ( and there are currently capacity issues in the industry after a major closure) but stockholding costs are usually driven by rate of stock turn.

Costs for POD books are about to get a major tweak upwards, as Amazon, who are a major POD player, are implementing a big ( and TBF probably well overdue) price increase, and this is certain to feed through to RRPs .

[Pulcinella]

Presumably printed music is such a niche market that volume production isn't very profitable, and many practising musicians are working from digital copies. However print on demand ought to be possible - with digital printers and £1 per page would not seem unreasonable. Then there'd be costs for binding and distribution, and the printers/publishers would have to decide whether it is worth printing more than one requested copy to sell more. Keeping stock which doesn't sell is presumably not a good way to make money.

There has been a similar on demand market for CDs though perhaps even that has now dried up due to lack of consumer interest.

Eek!

That would put the price for the Copland at £148 or £158, making the eBay price I've paid (£38.31) a veritable bargain!

https://www.prestomusic.com/sheet-music/works/48154--copland-symphony-no-3/browse

UYMP opted for a selling price of £4.99 for the 40-page trilogy anthology mentioned in my OP: just paper bound, as adding a stiff cardboard cover would apparently bump the price up to perhaps £8.99 or so. Bulk discount will be available (so a choir can contemplate buying a set).

[Pulcinella]

Bargain copy just ordered! It's new, too.

Just arrived!
Not only is it new, it is a new edition.
The copyright page says:
First printing 1947
Second printing 1966
Third printing with new engraving by Philip Rothman, December 2014
Corrected July 2017

The notes (by Rothman) explain (amongst other things) the cuts that Bernstein made (now restored); there is a section labelled 'alternative ending' (should an orchestra wish to perform the version with cuts).

Thanks again to Andrew for finding this for me.

[richardfinegold]

Not the same thing, but I’ve been taking Piano Lessons and was told not to buy sheet music, as it is all free on the internet. I have found it to be anything but free