Ricordi Printing Plates

The "Printing Plates of the Ricordi Archives" are a symbol of utmost prestige of the renowned Italian music printing company, which is attributed to the most important people in the musical, artist and cultural world.

HISTORICAL ROOTS

Since the 1500s, many music printing experiments have been made: xylography, mobile characters, lithography, etc. At the start of the 1800s, plate engraving involved printing musical scores using a metal printing plate and specific methods to transfer the music onto paper. This was the most popular method of transferring music onto paper since the results were of highest quality due to the precision of the printing. Copper was used to create the printing plates from 1500s to the 1700s, while afterwards it was substituted by  tin, lead and antimony, easier to use and more durable. At the beginning of his career as a publisher, Giovanni Ricordi imported his first plate engraved press from Leipzig.

At the beginning of the 1900s, despite the improvements of lithographic methods and the creation of offset printing machines, the traditional printing presses were still used to print music. Below are the steps followed during the printing process:

• The printing plates were carved using a chisel

• The initial print was done on vellum (transparent paper)

• A chemical process was used to  transfer the print from the transparent paper to a zinc plate

• Mounting the zinc plate onto the cylinders of an offset machine

The plate was engraved using complex system of geometric proportions marking where the musical symbols were required to appear on the musical score. Each sign was engraved onto the plate using a steel chisel with a wooden hammer, while the curved lines were traced freehand, using the same techniques as those used for illustrations. Precision and uniformity were a must, each sign needed to be of exactly the same depth as the others and of course the images needed to be printed on the reverse. Many years of training were required to become a qualified engraver. The advent of photo engraving only changed the change method of transiting to offset plates from the pewter printing plates that were formed using a mix of lead, tin and antimony. This technology did not really change much until the 1990s, when computerised graphics totally replaced manual engraving.

In the Ricordi Archives there are still a few printing plates that date back to the beginning of the last century until the 1960s, despite the fact that many of them have been lost over time and many have been restored. The musical printing plates, or rather, the musical matrixes are precious and unique testimonies to a rapidly disappearing art.