This is a README file for a data repository originating from the DCML corpus initiative and serves as welcome page for both

• the GitHub repo https://github.com/DCMLab/medtner_tales and the corresponding
• documentation page https://dcmlab.github.io/medtner_tales

For information on how to obtain and use the dataset, please refer to this documentation page.

Nikolai Medtner – Tales (A corpus of annotated scores)

Getting the data

• download repository as a ZIP file
• download a Frictionless Datapackage that includes concatenations of the TSV files in the four folders (measures, notes, chords, and harmonies) and a JSON descriptor:
  • medtner_tales.zip
  • medtner_tales.datapackage.json
• clone the repo: git clone https://github.com/DCMLab/medtner_tales.git

Data Formats

Each piece in this corpus is represented by five files with identical name prefixes, each in its own folder. For example, the first tale has the following files:

• MS3/op08n01.mscx: Uncompressed MuseScore 3.6.2 file including the music and annotation labels.
• notes/op08n01.notes.tsv: A table of all note heads contained in the score and their relevant features (not each of them represents an onset, some are tied together)
• measures/op08n01.measures.tsv: A table with relevant information about the measures in the score.
• chords/op08n01.chords.tsv: A table containing layer-wise unique onset positions with the musical markup (such as dynamics, articulation, lyrics, figured bass, etc.).
• harmonies/op08n01.harmonies.tsv: A table of the included harmony labels (including cadences and phrases) with their positions in the score.

Each TSV file comes with its own JSON descriptor that describes the meanings and datatypes of the columns ("fields") it contains, follows the Frictionless specification, and can be used to validate and correctly load the described file.

Opening Scores

After navigating to your local copy, you can open the scores in the folder MS3 with the free and open source score editor MuseScore. Please note that the scores have been edited, annotated and tested with MuseScore 3.6.2. MuseScore 4 has since been released which renders them correctly but cannot store them back in the same format.

Opening TSV files in a spreadsheet

Tab-separated value (TSV) files are like Comma-separated value (CSV) files and can be opened with most modern text editors. However, for correctly displaying the columns, you might want to use a spreadsheet or an addon for your favourite text editor. When you use a spreadsheet such as Excel, it might annoy you by interpreting fractions as dates. This can be circumvented by using Data --> From Text/CSV or the free alternative LibreOffice Calc. Other than that, TSV data can be loaded with every modern programming language.

Loading TSV files in Python

Since the TSV files contain null values, lists, fractions, and numbers that are to be treated as strings, you may want to use this code to load any TSV files related to this repository (provided you're doing it in Python). After a quick pip install -U ms3 (requires Python 3.10 or later) you'll be able to load any TSV like this:

import ms3

labels = ms3.load_tsv("harmonies/op08n01.harmonies.tsv")
notes = ms3.load_tsv("notes/op08n01.notes.tsv")

Version history

See the GitHub releases.

Questions, Suggestions, Corrections, Bug Reports

Please create an issue and/or feel free to fork and submit pull requests.

Cite as

Hentschel, J., Rammos, Y., Neuwirth, M., Moss, F. C., & Rohrmeier, M. (2024). An annotated corpus of tonal piano music from the long 19th century. Empirical Musicology Review, 18(1), 84–95. https://doi.org/10.18061/emr.v18i1.8903

License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

File naming convention

The file names listed in the Overview below refer to the following pieces:

Opus	No.	Key	Title	Included
8	1	C minor		yes
8	2	C minor		no
9	1	F minor		no
9	2	C major		no
9	3	G major		no
14	1	F minor	Ophelia's Song	yes
14	2	E minor	March of the Paladin	no
20	1	B flat minor		no
20	2	B minor	Campanella	no
26	1	E flat major		yes
26	2	E flat major		yes
26	3	F minor		yes
26	4	F sharp minor		yes
31	3	G sharp minor		no
34	1	B minor	Magic Violin	yes
34	2	E minor		yes
34	3	A minor	Wood Spirit	yes
34	4	D minor		yes
35	1	C major		yes
35	2	G major		yes
35	2	A minor		yes
35	4	C sharp minor		yes
42	1	F minor	Russian Tale	yes
42	2	C minor	Phrygian	yes
42	3	G sharp minor		yes
48	1	C major	Dance Tale	yes
48	2	G minor	Tale of the Elves	yes
51	1	D minor		no
51	2	A minor		no
51	3	A major		no
51	4	F sharp minor		no
51	5	F sharp minor		no
51	6	G major		no
54	2	C minor	Bird's Tale	no
54	4	E minor	Scherzo	no
54	6	D minor	The Organ Grinder	no
54	8	E minor	The Beggar	no
deest		D minor		no

Overview

file_name	measures	labels	standard	annotators	reviewers
op08n01	81	213	2.3.0	Wendelin Bitzan (2.2.0), John Heilig (2.3.0)	Adrian Nagel, DK
op14n01	85	265	2.3.0	Wendelin Bitzan (2.2.0), John Heilig (2.3.0)	Adrian Nagel, DK
op26n01	47	180	2.3.0	Wendelin Bitzan (2.2.0), John Heilig (2.3.0)	Adrian Nagel, DK
op26n02	65	166	2.3.0	Wendelin Bitzan (2.2.0), John Heilig (2.3.0)	Adrian Nagel, DK
op26n03	81	116	2.3.0	Wendelin Bitzan (2.2.0), John Heilig (2.3.0)	Adrian Nagel, DK
op26n04	77	300	2.3.0	Wendelin Bitzan (2.2.0), John Heilig (2.3.0)	Adrian Nagel, DK
op34n01	237	669	2.3.0	Wendelin Bitzan (2.2.0), John Heilig (2.3.0)	Adrian Nagel, DK
op34n02	48	195	2.3.0	Wendelin Bitzan (2.2.0), John Heilig (2.3.0)	Adrian Nagel, DK
op34n03	144	408	2.3.0	Wendelin Bitzan (2.2.0), John Heilig (2.3.0)	Adrian Nagel, DK
op34n04	61	323	2.3.0	Wendelin Bitzan (2.2.0), John Heilig (2.3.0)	Adrian Nagel, DK
op35n01	75	272	2.3.0	Wendelin Bitzan (2.2.0), John Heilig (2.3.0)	Adrian Nagel, DK
op35n02	139	422	2.3.0	Wendelin Bitzan (2.2.0), John Heilig (2.3.0)	AN, JH, AB
op35n03	80	320	2.3.0	Wendelin Bitzan (2.2.0), John Heilig (2.3.0)	AN, AB
op35n04	122	345	2.3.0	Wendelin Bitzan (2.2.0), John Heilig (2.3.0)	AN, AB
op42n01	134	479	2.3.0	Wendelin Bitzan (2.2.0), John Heilig (2.3.0)	AN, AB
op42n02	67	178	2.3.0	Wendelin Bitzan (2.2.0), John Heilig (2.3.0)	AN, AB
op42n03	182	504	2.3.0	Wendelin Bitzan (2.2.0), John heilig (2.3.0)	Adrian Nagel
op48n01	553	871	2.3.0	Wendelin Bitzan, John Heilig (2.3.0)	Adrian Nagel, VZ
op48n02	186	282	2.3.0	Wendelin Bitzan (2.2.0), John Heilig (2.3.0)	Adrian Nagel, VZ

Overview table automatically updated using ms3.