Artescripta is a publishing company of musical facsimiles : scores and parts, methods, manuscripts, etc. Created in 2020 by French historical horn player Nicolas Roudier, it is based in The Hague, Netherlands, and features exceptional music and prints.
In 2019 Nicolas started compiling an inventory for a private collection of original music sheets dated from the mid-XVIIIth century to the late XIXth century. Located in France, the collection gathers over 1000 titles, among them rare or unknown works and composers. The unquestionable value of these treasures convinced Nicolas to acquire them and to share them with the early music world in accessible yet beautiful facsimiles that will enlarge our repertoire and knowledge of late-classical and romantic music.
Facsimiles are hand-made in The Hague on order. They feature quality scans of the originals that will be digitally cleaned on demand, and a simple cover made of a typical Dutch rag paper (zaansch bord), with texts inspired from the original fonts of the time. The music is printed on a beautiful 100g laid paper, the same that was used during the XIXth century. A basic binding method is then used to guarantee affordable prices : a glued tape of linen, or a simple ribbon binding for items with less than 10 pages.
Your options
When ordering a piece of music, two choices are offered to you.
Cleaned scan
Once the music is scanned, you can choose to have it as it is or ask us to clean it. A normal scan will significantly reduce the cost and your waiting time (unless it has been cleaned already), but will show all the spots/stains/impurities. A cleaned scan will be clear and much easier to read, especially if the music is a bit worn out. Perspective is also corrected when necessary, as it is not always easy to scan the original music flat. Note that I will not offer to clean the scan if there is over 100 pages.
Separate parts
When relevant, you can choose to have the different parts (different instruments) of a piece all together in one single binding, or have them bound separately. For instance if you are interested in a trio and want to be able to perform out of my facsimiles, then you can choose to have each 3 parts in 3 separate bindings. If you don’t need that, you can opt for a single volume with all 3 parts together.
For more information about Artescripta’s status, orders, policies etc, read thehouse rules.