On 29 May 2003 at 12:28, Mark D. Lew wrote: > At 7:26 PM 05/28/03, David W. Fenton wrote:
[] > >I think that ignores a very important consideration. Most old music > >that is getting a modern edition made is never going to have another > >edition. It's not like Bach, where there are dozens of editions of > >almost any piece (more for some genres than others, obviously). In > >the case of a piece of old music being edited into a modern edition > >for the first time, I think it's crucial that performers and scholars > >be accomodated in the one edition, as there really isn't going to be > >another chance. > > > >But I do believe the bias should be toward the scholarly. The > >musician who wants to learn rare repertory is likely to do the work > >to figure out any idiosyncracies of notation that result from the > >editor's efforts to convey a full idea of the possibilities inherent > >in the source material. [] > My main musical milieu is the community of opera singers. . . . OH, well, that explains a lot. *I* was talking about *musicians*. ;) [] > Now suppose I notice some peculiar beam and stem directions, or a measure > that doesn't add up, or a missing accidental that is obviously intended, or > an inconsistency in note length for no apparent reason, or a missing tie > that is obviously intended, etc, etc? Where is the benefit in faithfully > observing the source? . . . Well, it depends on the source. If the source has any kind of authority from the composer (first edition, piano reduction by the composer, etc.), then you need to consider what you're "washing out" of your edition, whether it's significant or not. > . . . Sometimes it's clearly a typograhical error, Well, an error is an error. Of course, some "errors" turn out to be real. If the source were a third-hand edition, I'd have no qualms simply correcting the error, though I'd footnote it, so that the user of the edition could decide if I'd made the right decision in terms of how I corrected it. That's one of the points of good editing: it says to the user "here's my solution to the problem, and here's the evidence I used to arrive at my solution." It actually means "I believe this is the right way, but if you want, you can discard mine and come up with one of your own." > sometimes it's probably an idiosyncrasy of the composer or the time, > sometimes I can't tell for sure. Well, in all cases, you could be wrong in your decision, and I'd rather reveal to the performer what decisions I've made so they can take it or leave it. Of course, you don't want to compromise readability. And I would stand up for some of those idiosyncrasies -- notation has served the purposes in each period, and it has been designed to serve the musical style. Buried in those "idiosyncrasies" may very well be important clues about the music, so I'd tend to leave them in. > A Gounod scholar might track down a manuscript, study the composers habits > in other music, and so forth, and thus make a more educated pronouncement > on what the composer really intended. Maybe some day that may even happen. > (I doubt it, given how many other far less obscure operas are still waiting > their own critical editions....) Regardless, that's not my project. I just > want to make this lovely aria available to singers who might want to sing > it. Well, what's wrong with simply not obscuring your changes? > I have no desire to rewrite Gounod according to my own preferences - > indeed, I prefer to render him as faithfully as I am able - but I also want > to make the music easy to read and presentable to my likely audience. And > so I "clean up" the score a little bit, and if in the course of that I wipe > out some of the footprints which may have been useful to a > scholar-detective, so be it. . . . Why not a couple of notes listing what you've changed? For the interested person, they can revert to the original if they find your changes unconvincing. The vast number of performers will ignore the notes, but for the person who *cares*, it will be very valuable. > . . . As I said before, any serious scholar is > going to get his hands on the original vocal score and look for himself. > Even a non-scholar who has looked at a few 18th century opera scores will > easily see that I have modernized the notation (the most obvious clue being > that I like to use modern beaming for the vocal line). > > But in fact, I'll even go a little further than that. The reason this > particular example comes to mind is because it includes an interesting > issue of key signature. The aria on the whole is in Db major, but in the > middle of the main section (which later repeats) there is an interesting > little harmonic journey when the Ab becomes a common tone for a move into > Fb, then Cb dom, then Db minor, then Bbb, and finally back to Db major. > Gounod has chosen to write this according to the harmony, and I understand > why he made the choice. Imagining, for the sake of example, that the whole > aria were transposed up a half-step into D major, this harmonic pattern > would go D-A-F-C7-Dm-Bb-D, and it would look entirely logical. In Db > major, it's just as logical, except that it results in an obscene number of > flats and double flats. I'm not saying that I think the composer is wrong. How do you know the original was not in D and that you're not looking at a transposition for this particular edition? > In fact, I completely agree with his reasoning. Nevertheless, I'm aware of > my audience, and I know full well that if some poor tenor brings this in to > an audition where the accompanist is sight-reading the piano part, the > pianist is going to fumble all over that section with all the flats. And > so I make an editorial decision and write those four bars with sharps > instead. > > Do I thereby do a disservice to the composer, or to the performers? Some > here seem to be suggesting that I do, but that's my call nonetheless. No, probably not. But it would be nice if you have a footnote indicating that you re-notated it in "friendlier" key signatures. Personally, I think key signatures and clefs are the things that you can change with the least chance of losing any useful interpretive information. > I don't include editorial notes on the music itself, though I do generally > offer a few lines of notes separately for those who care to look. In this > case, I expect I would mention the key change. (My beaming practice is > mentioned elsewhere as a general note for all my editions.) I certainly > would not, however, list every instance where I switched a stem direction, > changed the rhythmic spelling of a rest, cross-staffed a note, or fixed a > typographical error. Anyone who cares about details like that is welcome > to compare my page with the original for himself. I would say that is fine. Even critical editions don't do that. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
