Throw in the illegible handwriting of, say, a Beethoven, or a composer who makes changes on routinely tossed publisher's proofs but neglects to enter them on the original manuscript, as well as the inevitable errors endemic to the typesettingandprinting process itself, and the vagaries of the score-publishing process become manifest.
As for the crudities of hot-metal typesettingand letter-press printing, all these have long been superseded by electronic setting (in which a 1970s managing director, Ian Trafford, was a pioneer, and made The Economist one too), and by the stunning quality of modern offset printing.
He became general manager of Donnelley's typesetting business in 1984, got his first job running a printing plant in 1987 and his first position running an entire region for Donnelley in 1993.