Richard Smith wrote:
Current practice is often stuck in the habits of previous centuries and does not reflect the
capabilities of our software. Finale or Sibelius (even most of the "toy"
notation programs) eliminate the need for repeats to save the engraver's
time. Just copy and paste (and edit as needed).
It's ashame whatever you do as an engraver, we still have conductors who pick and chose which repeats they will honor.
I think Christopher Hogwood was one of the first conductors I heard that would never ignore any repeat.
Even in the minuet movements of Mozart symphonies, the minuet repeats are observed on the recapitulation.
Which I found interesting because if you look at the timings of movments where conductors don't do this--
the Minuet always looked so small compared to the other movements.
Christopher Hogwood has mentioned many times there is no evidence ever to suggest that on the recapitulation of a dance movement
the repeat signs were ignored.
I'm not sure what the convention was for Mozart dances, but I've read there were multiple repeats with alternation
from a previous minuet, which makes quite a bit of sense, since the balls he wrote for lasted many many hours.
As played, his minuet sets last maybe 20 minuets? But I don't know if the autographs of the dances are marked
in any manner to indicate how this was done. I'm not sure if the performance materials for the dances survive either.
Some of the replies to what you proposed suggested the repeat marks make the structure of the movement more obvious to the performer. I'd suggest honoring the composer's intent makes it very obvious to the listener as well.
Kim Patrick Clow
_______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
