Glossary entry

English term or phrase:

authorial/authored/authorship

English answer:

avoid "author" and derivatives in relation to composers

Added to glossary by Charles Davis
Nov 23, 2012 19:57
11 yrs ago
9 viewers *
English term

authorial/authored/authorship

English Art/Literary Music authorship
Hi there,

I am looking for help with the terms authorship; authored and authorial in the context of classical music. Namely the context related to the publication of a CD containing compositions by one composer. The emphasis in the descriptive text is on his authorship (opus?) and that the CD contains only the compositions written by this particular author.

My questions are:
When talking about his opus, can I use the word authorship to denote the activity of composing, including his opus?
In the description of the CD, can I say an authored/authorial CD?

Thank you very much in advance!
Change log

Nov 28, 2012 07:14: Charles Davis Created KOG entry

Responses

+3
13 mins
Selected

generallygenerally avoid "author" and derivatives in relation to composers

You can talk about "authorship" in relation to a composer, but it nearly always refers to attribution: as in "Beethoven's authorship of work X has been questioned. It's not commonly used to refer to the act or process of composing in general. It is unusual and generally to refer to a composer as an "author" in English. For "authorship" in the context you describe, it will depend on how you phrase it, but "composition(s)" and "work(s)" are your main options.

"Author" and its derivatives are mostly confined to writing in English. An "authored/authorial" CD definitely doesn't work. You would have to say something like "A CD of his works/compositions" or "entirely devoted to his work", or something like that.

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Note added at 17 mins (2012-11-23 20:14:48 GMT)
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Sorry about the double "generally"!

And in the third line I meant to say "unusual and generally unnatural, or even confusing".

In paragraph 2 I meant that these words in English ("author" etc.) are mostly used only when referring to writers.

This question arises in relation to the visual arts too. In Spanish, it is very common to refer to a visual artist as an "autor", but it usually doesn't work well in English.

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Note added at 1 hr (2012-11-23 21:20:51 GMT)
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The one way you might find "authorial" used in relation to music is when referring to details in the score; to say that the accidentals, or dynamics, or metronome markings, for example, are "authorial" would mean that they were put there by the composer rather than an editor. I can't think of another way it might be used when talking about music. So it's rather like "authorship": its use is confined to questions of whether or not something can be attributed to the composer in question. These are very limited special cases.

As for "authored", you might find someone writing that a work was "authored" by a composer, but it's forced and rather unnatural, and there are better alternatives: composed or written. Indeed, "write" is a verb you can often use.
Note from asker:
Thank you very much for this extensive explanation :)
Peer comment(s):

agree David Moore (X) : I've never seen "author"or any of its derivatives used in an educated CD cover dealing with classical music. And "authorial" - where did that come from???
46 mins
I don't remember having seen it either. As I've hinted here, I suspect that the equivalents of "author" are more widely used in other languages; this is certainly true of Spanish. Thanks, David!
agree Tina Vonhof (X)
20 hrs
Many thanks, Tina :)
agree Phong Le
2 days 9 hrs
Many thanks, Phong Le :)
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thank you!"
5 mins

composer (and its verbal derivatives)

In the context of classical music, I've seen "composer," "composed," and "composition more frequently than "author," "authored," and "authorship."
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7 hrs

self-composed

I would say ... all composed/written by the person concerned
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