Getting permission to arrange music?

[nolan]

Hello,
I am a college student and I'm really interested in arranging music for piano ensemble-type groups (ex: 4-hand, two-piano, 8-hand, etc.). I have a few questions about copyrights and creating derivative works. If I were to arrange, say, a Beethoven symphony, would I need to get permission from whoever published the source score I am using? Or would any Beethoven edition be fair-use?

Also, how would I go about getting permission to arrange a copyrighted work? I do not plan on selling my arrangement. I would most likely perform the arrangement at one of my universities' weekly student performers concerts with a few other piano majors. Any advice?

Thanks,
Nolan

[kapellemeister]

I may be totally wrong with regard to this opinion, and I'd gladly be corrected, but I think as long as you are arranging for concert situations where there is no admission charge and you are not making any money on the performance (especially in a college/conservatory setting), that basically you have free rein to do as you wish, even with copyrighted material. But then I may be wrong.

I don't think Ludwig would have a problem with you arranging his stuff for other instrumentation.

Lynn

[nolan]

Thank you for the reply. It would seem to me that something like Beethoven would be fair-use as he has been dead for quite a while, but copyrighted works remain my big concern.

I would really like to arrange Orff's "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana. The copyright date in my score is 1937, also renewed in 1965. I'm wondering if arranging this selection for my purposes would be considered fair-use. Carmina Burana has 25 pieces in it and I would only be arranging the one. My usage would be purely academic...after arranging the piece, it would probably be performed once (or twice) at a music department gathering, with no admission charges.

Any advice?

[bartolomeo_]

One way to approach it is to find copies of the source work where copyright has expired.

Even if you do not, while I am not an attorney I think you will find that in the USA copyright in recent editions of older works only covers any creative material newly added by the publisher.  You would then have to decide for yourself whether anything that had been added by the publisher was in fact going to be present in your new arrangement.