Ever since antiquity, music transcription has been the intrinsic way of visual representation of sound, sometimes in detail and sometimes in the form of a guide. Throughout time, the visual capture of music has been the only way to store and preserve it over time, but also the exclusive means of reproducing it. In any case, visual transfer should be considered as an auxiliary tool, since oral dissemination and storage in the memory of artists have been the most timeless techniques for the diffusion of music through time and space. During Europe's so-called "classical" musical period, with its most powerful centers of production, such as today's Austria, Germany, France and Italy, and especially in its path towards Romanticism, music transcription, that is, the musical score, was considered by some composers as the very embodiment of their work.

Understandably, in the modern capitalist world, music transcription, as the primary tool for the substantialization of music, brought under its purview repertoires that were not connected, were not disseminated, and did not function on the basis of their transcription. This offered to the music product sales centers an additional tool to expand their action network: non-scholar musics acquired a convenient way of circulating them, enhancing their popularity, even in places very far from those of their original creation. At the end of the 19th century, however, the phenomenon of sound recording and reproduction rearranged relationships and disrupted the status quo of publishing houses, claiming a share of the market, offering a product that was extremely complete and immediate. The publishing houses tried to react with legal measures, but it became impossible to stop the dynamics of the new phenomenon: the prevalence of commercial discography was now a fact, for most of the 20th century.

As far as non-scholar music is concerned, commercial printed musical scores were publications of the musical texts of songs or instrumental pieces (for the publishing activity in Greece see Lerch-Kalavrytinos, 2003: 4-5). For the needs of musical scores, the songs were arranged mainly (but not only) for piano or for piano and voice, generally without complex performance requirements. Multi-instrumental or technically demanding orchestrations were systematically avoided. The lyrics were printed below the notes of the melodic development of the singing parts and, sometimes, their translations into other languages. For the most part, the musical scores were two or four pages long, and came with a themed front and back cover.

This eight-page musical score with the title "Beneath thy window" includes a trilingual edition (English, Neapolitan and Italian) of the Neapolitan song "O sole mio", set to music by Eduardo Di Capua and Emanuele Alfredo Mazzucchi and lyrics by Giovanni Capurro. The English lyrics were written by Edward Teschemacher.

The color cover features a graphic design of a woman's face. It bears the title of the song (English - Italian), "Neapolitan Serenade", "Même que: 'O sole mio' Waltz", the printed dedication "Alla nobil Donna Nina Arcoleo", the composer, the lyricist, the publishers and the three versions of the song in different keys. The present version "No 1 in G (Original). No. Cat. 4032" is underlined. This tactic was common in similar cases. Creating a single cover for more than one version of the song significantly reduced the cost of musical scores production. It also bears the stamp of the Calderon music publishing house, Cairo - Alexandria.

The Neapolitan lyrics as well as the translated Italian ones are included on the second page.

The musical text (pages 3-6) consists of a system of three staffs (two for piano and one for singing) and is accompanied by the lyrics in English.

The black and white back cover includes an advertisement for the G. Ricordi & Co. (London) publishing house for the musical scores of songs performed by Richard Tauber. There is a photo of the singer, "Standard Successes from Richard Tauber Repertoire" is written, and the first bars from the musical scores of five songs are listed.

The song is also found in Greek-speaking discography, characteristically outlining the dialectical, multi-layered relationship between the various "national" repertoires, the subject of the ongoing research "Cosmopolitanism in Greek Historical Discography".

For more about the song and its recordings in the Greek repertoire, see here.

Research and text: Leonardos Kounadis and Nikos Ordoulidis