At 9:31 AM 11/15/02, d. collins wrote: >What's the standard abbreviation for mezzo-soprano (along the lines of SATB >for other voices): Ms? Mz? And for baryton?
Depends on where you plan to use it. If you've got a quartet of soloists, like in the Verdi Requiem, and you want abbreviated staff labels, then "M." is definitely standard, along with "S.", "T." and "B.". For identification of voice type in text, the old Ricordi scores used lowercase "ms" with no period (along with "s", "t" and "b") in their table of contents. I think I've seen baritones as "bar" in that context, but I can't find an example. Baritone became a standard label right about the time that they stopped writing numbers operas, so there isn't so much overlap. I think "Bar." makes sense as an abbreviation for baritone in just about any context, but I can't think of any usage where there's a whole lot of tradition. The idea of a baritone voice isn't so new (early 19th century), but in most contexts you're going to label the name of the character. In many other context, the baritone is going to be "B.1", or not labeled at all. Incidentally, "mezzosoprano" is a single word in Italian. The insertion of the hyphen (as well as the shortening to "mezzo") is an Anglophone development, which many would argue is simply incorrect. I would also advise against the spelling "baryton", unless your goal is to appear (1) French, or (2) pretentious. mdl _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
