On Mar 1, 2006, at 6:15 PM, Lee Actor wrote:
Solo/soli/tutti is standard. Actually, I can't recall ever seeing
"sola" or
"tutte" on a viola part. But then, my memory ain't what it used to be.
Stravinsky, e.g., uses the feminine forms all the time.
Basically, it's a question of what you mean by "standard." the use of
the masculine forms for all instruments is indeed the more common, and
used by some top composers--but the use of the feminine inflections is
simply more knowledgeable. Nobody, to cite a parallel example, would
recommend copying Tchaikovsky's garbled Italian no matter how great a
composer he was.
Anyway, if you want to go with sola and tutte, you'll also want to
use le altre instead of gli altri. The instruments affected by all
this are viola, trumpet, tuba, and guitar--all the others are
masculine. With the trumpet and guitar there is, for English speakers,
the additional issue that the name of the instrument is not Italian, so
why apply an Italian inflection to its solos?
Myself, I'd say tromba sola but trumpet solo. And if you're going to
write "violas," they are tutti--but if tutte, then they are "viole."
Same for tubas vs. tube, I suppose--though in an orchestra that's
pretty hypothetical. In a band, of course, no Anglophone in their right
mind would write sola in a trumpet or tuba part!
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
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