Post by davidmonks on Aug 26, 2010 13:58:33 GMT
A Saga
There is no doubt about it. Synchronicity works in the weirdest way. I am beset by the quality of Norwegianness at present. Two Norwegian choirs want to vist - all in the wake of my finding a lovely Norwegian tune that I thought I could set as a carol, and do a better job of the arrangement than the one I had discovered. So here I am, in torrid temperatures like 38 C, working out a schema for the choral setting that will be THE BEST.
I knew I was ok on the copyright element because the composer, on Lars Soeraas (yes, it does sound like you are thinking!) died in 1926. No problem! I thought. I should have known better. There was one thing that ought to have bothered me. In my research sometimes the composer was Lars Soeraas DY, and sometimes he was Lars Soeraas DE. My Norwegian is only of the 'hvar er sykehuset?' kind (Where's the hospital?). Then the penny finally dropped... DE = den eldre. DY = den yngre.... Father and son! With the dawning of that realisation came also the certainty that the music would have been written by Den Yngre. And so it was. Sod's law works so well!
Not to be deterred, I wrote to the publishing house in Oslo that seemed to hold the copyright. I got an immediate response by Email: "We are on holiday but will be back in a week". The whole place had closed down for holidays. Odd. They don't even do that here in France, by and large. Eventually another response came informing me that yes, they were back at work, but the copyright was now vested in another publisher elsewhere in Norway. They were kind enough to give full contact details.
So I wrote again. Draw a deep breath! A reply winged its way back same day: "We are on holiday but will be back in a week". Word for word the same reply as the first one from Oslo. For a moment I thought I had got the issue confused. But no. It was as they said.
I waited for their return to work - and I waited, amd waited. Eventually I got a Norwegian friend to telephone them and in a few days - Monday last - they replied. "Sorry we cannot allow you to use the tune, but if you submit your arrangement to us, we will consider it for publication".
The moral of this is that if you should wish to arrange a piece of music, Sod's Law is immediately invoked and dictates that it will be Norwegian; and the publishers or copyright holders will be on holiday. And the only insurance against having to deal with them is to take an immersion course in Norwegian.
However, something good did come out of this, at least the publishing house will consider my work. That's better than a kick in the teeth, I suppose. I'm in with a chance. Meanwhile my choir is not going to be able to sing it for Christmas unless, apparently, unless I buy copies of my own work from a Norwegian publisher - assuming they approve and publish it!
If they don't accept it for publication, I expect I have just wasted my time. I'll come back here when I get home from holidays (I too will take a holiday!) and let you know how things have progressed.
