At 8:59 PM 05/30/03, David W. Fenton wrote: >If you're interpreting anyone's contributions to the thread as >suggesting that point of view, then I *do* think you're being >oversensitive.
Yes, I suppose so. In retrospect, I think I overreacted. >But don't underrate the important things to be learned from bad >editions. > [enumeration of same snipped] Yes, I agree, and they inform my editorial decisions. But my goal is to provide usable music to a certain audience, not to discuss musicology with them. >I'd just note somewhere in your notes on the edition that you'd >change the beaming of the voice line to match modern standards >because there was nothing in the original beaming that did not >conform to the syllable breaks, which are obvious from the text. But in this context, that goes entirely without saying. Somewhere I have a general note about my editorial practices and it's mentioned there, but it doesn't get attached to every file. For comparison, I took a look at two books on my shelf - a Rutter edition of opera choruses, and one of the new Schirmer aria anthologies edited by Larsen - both of which modernize vocal beaming. Rutter has a lengthy preface about editorial policy which includes a mention of vocal beaming. Larsen has only a simple paragraph stating essentially that he has studied everything carefully and believes the result to be a good one, without any sort of details. I have no problem with that. Larsen does an excellent job. Many of his choices I don't agree with, but no one would dispute that his editions are well-thought-out and very useful to the singers who are his audience. I can easily see at a glance what his general editorial practice has been, and if I'm curious about any details I can compare him to various other editions. (For what it's worth, I do know several artists -- singers and pianists both -- who prefer the old Adler editions for standard arias. I think for most of them it's a matter of habit, and one veteran accompanist has acknowledged exactly that to me. He says he's been playing from the Adler copies for so many decades that he's more comfortable with the familiar look. Does that mean it's more readable than Larsen? For him, I suppose it does.) >I'm arguing for the point of view as you're considering what to do >with any particular instance of non-standard notation: > >1. does the particular notational "modernization" of the original >sacrifice any musically significant information? > >2. if so, is there some modern notational convention that will convey >the same information? > >3. is that same information available in some other form, so that >losing that information is just losing a redundancy? I'm not sure exactly what I would ever encounter that constitutes "non-standard notation". Ultimately my goal is to write out what I expect the performer is going to want to perform, regardless of what the composer wrote. In one case, for example, I transcribed a cadenza which is has become standard but is not written anywhere in the original. I do mention the fact in a note, but I don't describe to anyone what was originally written. In that case the cadenza is overwhelmingly standard today, but I wouldn't hesitate to do the same if I were writing one on my own judgment alone. Singers who know the business will make their own choice (or their coach's) anyway, and those who don't would appreciate having something written out for them. >Well, just in case the thing should ever be published, at least >maintain notes for yourself. At first I did that, but I soon concluded it was a waste of effort. In the unlikely event I ever need to reconstruct, all I have to do is get out the original copy and compare. >If your score has an odd number of pages and a blank page at the >back, why not print the notes there? I don't "publish" in any traditional sense. Any file I produce is passed on as a PDF. Some are uploaded on the Web; others just get sent around by personal email. There is a short text of editorial notes associated with any file, but it doesn't print out on the PDF, and it doesn't always get passed along. I guess I tend to think of the editorial notes as something to write when I really am making an adaptation (eg, rewriting an excerpt for different voice parts, trimming down a lengthier scene to make a nicely formed solo recital piece, etc). For cases when I'm only seeking a better written representation of the piece without real change to the music, there isn't much to say. >Well, every piece of musically *significant* information should be >preserved. [...] Here again is the essence of our disagreement, but it's not a philosophical issue, just a practical one. My goal is not to preserve musical information. I make an edition because there's some piece of music that I think someone might want to perform for which there is no easily usable copy. I make an easily usable copy. If I have to choose between representing what the composer wrote and what I believe a well-informed musician would choose to perform, I will choose the latter. You may argue that I am making decisions for the performer. Well, yes, I suppose I am, but that's my job. I do it as a coach all the time. Singers want that from me, or at least some of them do. If a hundred years from now, by some unfathomably improbable set of circumstances, my editions become widely distributed standard copies (like the Parisotti editions of those old Italian songs published by Schirmer) and some 22nd century musicologist (like Paton) has to come along and tell everyone how I have subtly altered the works to reflect conventions of the late 20th century, then so be it. I'm not working for posterity; I'm working for singers here and now. It's all about who your audience is. I think that's the recurring theme here. >But for myself, I'd still make a note of *every* notational change >I'd made, just in case I later came to feel it was musically >significant. I wouldn't necessarily provide that with the score, but >I'd definitely file it away with my materials for that piece (surely >you keep the photocopies you transcribe from in a file somewhere?). I do keep photocopies of the originals, yes, and for me that's sufficient. I don't file away lists of every notational change. I'm a verbose and detail-oriented person, but not quite that much. In many cases, I'm consulting two or more different editions for the source material. What would you have me do then? Catalog the differences between all of them? -- By the way, thanks to David and Michael and others for this discussion. It has led me to examine and quantify to myself some things I've been doing instinctively for years, and the resulting focus on my true goals and methods might help me to do a better job. mdl _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
