From: Andrew Stiller
In my experience, the vast majority of copyists regard it as their duty to literally copy exactly what they find in the score when extracting parts. There are many places where a composer changes clefs merely to save vertical space in the score, and you will never see those changes overridden by the copyist.
nope not here, and in fact, my clients repeatedly commend me on the more efficient solutions i have to notation issues, and i have previous clients who return to me despite having had offers lower than what i am able to offer and insist that i am the person they need for the job, precisely because of my attention to detail and my expertise in notation. in fact, they get an editing job from me which removes any potential notational ambiguity and ultimately saves time in rehearsals, thereby ameliorating all encounters in the chain of (re-order as you see fit) music--composer--musician--public.
sometimes they'll insist on something i _know_ (and try to diplomatically explain to them) should be written otherwise (for whatever reason - not intending to bring up a who-really-knows-best argument), and sometimes they actually have good reasons for it, in which cases i respect their desires.
once i know the client, i know the kind of liberties i can take freely in preparing the score, and what liberties i should probably avoid taking (because i'll just have to change it back afterwards). there is no clear-cut rule as it depends on the music, the composer, the notation specific to the piece, the timeframe available to prepare the score, but i consider it my job to make a more elegant, more efficient, clearer, sexier score than the composer ever could. when upon seeing the score, the client bursts into laughter, screams YES!, and claps their hands together as a child might do, i know i've done my job properly.
composers make notational mistakes that they don't catch in a proofreading, they use notational symbols which allow for a certain ambiguity, they know the piece too well and take some details for granted, etc. etc. etc. the copyist should correct these. and this has nothing to do with the composer being able to read alto clef or not, there are simply a plethora of things that can slip by the composer's eyes for various reasons. no article published in any journal that has any respect for its readership (or its authors) goes to press without a proofread, and similarly, no piece should be performed without someone other than the composer reading through it and commenting on / correcting the score.
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