These MuseData files were used to print the PDF scores for Beethoven's string quartets found on the Beethoven String Quartets website which are also linked to in the PDF column below. The IFF and Stage 2 files can be converted to PostScript using muse2ps from the command-line, or within the dmuse environment.

The stage2 directory contains stage-2 (notation-level) MuseData files for the string quartets. One file contains all parts for a single movement (73 files total for 72 movements). The file beethoven-op135-04a.md2 contains the melodic fragment at the start of the fourth movement of Op. 135. Op. 133 (Grosse Fugue) is a single-movement work.

Files in this directory can be converted to PostScript files with the muse2ps command-line utility, or processed inside of the dmuse environment.

Here is a basic example of converting a MuseData file into graphical notation. This example uses the muse2ps to automatically typeset the symbolic musical data in the MuseData file. Various options are available for controlling the automatic layout of the music on the page.

   cat musedata/beethoven-op018n1-01.msd | muse2ps =z16j \
      | ps2pdf -sPAPERSIZE=letter  - - > beethoven-op018n1-01.pdf

The pages-score directory contains IFF files that are generated from the stage2 files. Each IFF file contains all of the pages for one string quartet. These files contain manually typeset music using the Dmuse environment (muse2ps is a command-line version of several processing programs found in Dmuse).

These page files can be converted into PostScript files with the muse2ps program by using the =p option:

   cat pages-score/beethoven-op018n1.iff | muse2ps =p \
      | ps2pdf -sPAPERSIZE=letter  - - > beethoven-op018n1.pdf

The footer directory contains descriptions of page footers which are added to the final PDFs of the graphical music.

Part IFF files are not yet available. Basic parts can be created by extracting a single part file from the concatenated parts in the stage2 directory. The examples directory contains separate stage2 MuseData part files for the first movement of string quartet No. 1, op. 18/1.

When a part is extracted to print by itself, you will have to change two lines in the header for the part. For example, change line 15 of the cello part from:

score: part 4 of 4

to:

score: part 1 of 1

Before sending it as input to muse2ps. The muse2ps program only prints scores, so the "parts" line underneath the "score" line in the file header is ignored (muse2ps does not contain the part-generating code from dmuse).