Last week BTMI spent a very busy but rewarding week in Stockholm working with the wonderful team at Gehrmans Musikförlag introducing them to the world of HLMSW and Zinfonia.
One aspect of this install that was new for us all was the introduction of the UIC to catalogue their stock. Being first can be risky, but the week went without any major hitches and it revealed one of the most useful aspects of the system.
If you check out the entry of Hugo Alfvén’s Besvärjelse in Zinfonia, the orchestration that is listed here is actually quite different to the orchestration in the Gehrmans catalogue. This is because the catalogue orchestration did not really match the parts. While you add instruments to a UIC template (usually with the physical parts in front of you), HLMSW can create an accurate abbreviated orchestration automatically based on the input. The abbreviated orchestration can be created in a variety of formats (with the Daniels format being the default) and this can be used instead of the published orchestration in HLMSW and Zinfonia.
This situation was not unique – in fact the first 4 pieces we added to their HLMSW ended up with different orchestrations from the printed catalogue.
It will take some time to input all of these UICs, but as we do, the Zinfonia resource will continue towards our goal of the most complete and accurate resource of its kind. Very exciting indeed!