I'm in the midst of creating a prop for a film: a concerto written by a composer in Paris in 1799, and found in contemporary times. As much as possible, I'd like to replicate what this sheet music might have looked like.
What kind of paper did they use? Was there a particular kind of quill and/or ink? Was there anything that would be specific among the composers of that time and place, in terms of how they wrote and/or created their work?
To clarify, the piece is written, and our special f/x department can age the pages in a pretty realistic manner. But before applying the aging process, I'd like to craft written sheet music that is at least somewhat realistic.
Thank you for any thoughts or advice!
Well, it's not my expertise, but first, you might look at some music autographs here. There is a variety: there are some jottings of Beethoven that anyone would have a hard time deciphering, some working manuscripts, and some fair copies for a scribe to separate into parts and transcribe. The distinction is, of course, that not only were some composers better with a pen, but that sometimes they were writing parts for themselves alone, and sometimes for someone else to read. The task of music calligraphy was something that could often be done by someone else- much earlier, Andre Danican Philidor wrote out most of the music played at the court of Louis XIV at Versailles, whether it was his own, or Lully's. And unless a composition was going to be actually sold, it seems to have been normal for composers to pay someone to transcribe parts and copies of their works, rather than have the expense of setting up for printing them.
Quill pens were the norm. Perhaps there was a way to sharpen a quill for music that was different than other writing, but there are various sites that show how to do it: here's one that's clear. I am not sure about steel pen nibs...they certainly only become common in the 19th c. , with industrial manufacturing, but they apparently did exist earlier. Nor am I sure about music paper printing. Eventually there would be an ingenious special press for making music paper, which used inked silk threads to make the lines of the staff- but I have a hunch that, like the steel nibs, that was a later 19th c. phenomenon, and music paper was printed in some other way, probably with wood blocks set with metal strips. Here's an example of something printed- not 1799, but slightly later, one of Thomas Moore's Irish Melodies, circa 1806. It would be printed in about the same way as something circa 1799.
OP, you might consider also asking at /r/MuseumPros
