Hickey's Orchestral Parts PDF's

[koricancowboy]

Anyone check these things out?
http://www.hickeys.com/pages/excerpts.htm
Seems pretty awesome if they're done well.

[bejoyous]

I have the Mozart/Haydn edition. You just pop the disc in the CD drive, the pdf opens, you click on the thumbnail you want and press print.

This publication has its good points and bad. The good points are you have the complete orchestral part. It looks pretty much like the real thing but I've only printed off one symphony so far. There are no fingerings or bowings to hamper what you want to write on the paper. You only print off what you want to play. Each CD hold a lot of music. For the Moart/Haydn edition i have, there are lots of pieces included which are not in the Zimmerman book. There are also no little edits Zimmerman did for what ever reason, it is just the origional part.

The bad points. You can't have it on your stand and just thumb through it and play randomly; you need to sit at your computer, go through it and make a concious decision to print a work. You need to print it off using your own paper and ink. Then you need to tape them together (tape gets weak and brittle over the years) Then you need to store them somehow. There are no fingerings or bowings to help you out. This could add up to a big paper mess if you want, say all the Beethoven symphonies or all the Mahler symphonies. You can't just print off an excerpt, you need to print the page as it is supplied.

[LOBass]

I have bought all but the last edition of these and find them very useful. For a relatively low price you get a large library of many of the most commonly played symphony parts. You can print them out, tape them up and you have a clean copy of a bass part to put your own notes, bowings and marks. If it gets too messy or worn, just print another copy. I find this very useful to prepare for a upcoming concert before the music is distributed, or to work on the tough passages while having the entire part to put it in context of the entire piece. The only downside I see is that the music is printed on 8 1/2" x 11" paper, so the print is not as large as many original parts, thus making it little harder to see from a distance.
Tom

[koricancowboy]

I think the rest of the guys in my studio and I are going to split 'em.

[Sevitzky]

Can anyone comment on the urtext-ness quality of these parts? Are they faithful to the articulations? (at least to the quality of Dover?)

PDF's sound great, but those volumes are so cheap, it sounds like they might be kalamus type editions or something.