At 08:51 AM 5/28/03 -0400, Daniel Dorff wrote: >And the most important rule-of-thumb (that our composers all love) is to >standardize notation except when there's a good reason not to; the good >reason can be the composer's strong feelings about a notational element, or >a gesture that's best expressed in a novel way. That means I clean up their >notation on elements that don't matter to them but respect an individual >composer's caring about certain things - which is actually pretty rare. Part >of my work with composers is to figure out which quirks are just shortcuts >or bad habits, and which they want to hold on to.
Interesting. I just had a look at the Presser catalog on line. (OT: 63 composers, only 8 women? In 2003? How did *that* happen? Even our K&D show guest list of 290 composers includes 70 women, and we weren't even trying.) Anyway, Presser's composer lineup is a reasonably conservative lot (I've done some rendering work for Mayer -- exquisitely detailed yet absolutely traditional on the page). But even so, are you saying that composers like Jalbert, Kim, Ran and Wernick rarely used original or nontraditional notational elements? Or that you argued the points and they caved most of the time? Or that our mutual use of 'rare' is different? :) If I sound dubious ... I am, a bit. Or perhaps it's that Presser chooses not to sign composers whose work will likely include nonstandard notation? Based on the website, Presser isn't publishing the Berios or Ferneyhoughs or Stockhausens or Barretts or Crumbs. (I know one of the [happy-to-be-]former Stockhausen engravers, and his life was just hell getting each detail of KS's work to be exact.) So maybe in Presser's case, notation follows the A&R department in acquiring composers likely to write with familiar notational styles? Easier to market, cheaper to edit, more of that marvelously minuscule profit to be had in nonpop? I know, it's a crass question, but your post seemed so, well, broad. Even so, the question for me is not about Presser and house 'style'; it's about the views of a given house 'culture'. (This started as Los Angeles sight-reading question, I think, which is in reality a cultural question). So I'd imagine, say, that Universal's house 'culture' is substantially different (with composers like Boulez, Feldman, Moravec, Kagel, Ligeti, Essl, Henze, Stockhausen, etc.) from Presser's house 'culture'. Does that contribute to a different respect for a composer's notational imperatives? (Their male:female ratio is really really terrible, though, speaking of house cultures!) Dennis _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
