On 29 Jun 2006 at 6:41, Noel Stoutenburg wrote: > David W. Fenton wrote: > > I don't dispute your examples of typeset music, but they are > > *outliers* in terms of normal practice after the period John > > mentions. > > > The hymnal and choral octavo _are_ outliers, and I intended them as > such. However, I have found that handset type was common until about > 1950, and was normative for certain types of music publications, > particularly high-volume items (like hymnals and songbooks) with a > significant alphabetic content.
None of that has much bearing at all on what might have caused the omission (not *emission*!) of the tuplets in a contemporary Paganini publication. > David stated further, > > Thus, your hypothesis that norms of typeset music may have caused > > the engraver of the Paganini to emit duplet indicators is simply > > completely implausible. By the time any Paganini work was published, > > engraving or lithography would have been the norm. > > While I'm prepared to accept that the Paganini might have been > engraved or lithographed, . . . I'd bet you $100 that it was. > . . . my personal experience is that there is > enough possibility that it was typeset that it is risky to venture an > opinion whether a specific score was typeset or engraved (or prepared > by some other method) unless one direct examines the score in > question. . . . I disagree. There was no large-scale typesetting of instrumental music during Paganini's active publication lifespan (c. 1800-40). While there might have been *some* typesetting, it was so uncommon that I've never seen any of it at all. You might wonder what authority I have to state that, but I have been working for an antiquarian music dealer cataloging music of just this period, and there simply isn't any typeset music. I came across *ONE* example of typeset music from 1778 (a Breitkopf edition) while working on Tuesday, but this is so rare as to be worth remarking upon. > . . . I have personally examined instrumental music from the > late 19th century . . . That's not the relevant period for a Paganini edition. > . . . and determined it to have been typeset, and I have > examined a printer's manual from about 1875 which includes the layout > for a fount of music types, spread across three cases, and including > signs used to designate up and down bow indications. All very interesting, but not really of any relevance to a contemporary Paganini edition (I'm assuming it's contemporary, or there'd be no reason to take its notational irregularities seriously as period or authentic practice). > Further, even if your position that the music of Paganini was > engraved, the fact that music was produced with handset type prior to > the custom of engraving it still admits the possibility that the > engravers were themselves following a custom established in a prior > time, . . . No, I don't think that follows at all. Engraving as a process (and lithography as well) is far more like MS copying than it would be like typesetting. Perhaps during the transition to copper plate engraving there would have typesetters who would transfer the look to the engraved page, but 1800-40 is hundreds of years after that would have been the case. > . . . and dictated by the limitations of a former technology, so > that while the engraver may have not realized that omission of tuplet > indicators was a result of a norm of typesetting, that these norms > were in fact the origin of the convention. This would make some sense if it were not for the case that the same omissions are found in MANUSCRIPT music. > And again, to restate the major point: whether they were made by a > editor, or a production person, such as a lithographer, a typesetter, > or an engraver, the fact remains that printed editions may well be the > product of choices of other persons than the composer. That I have never disputed. But I think your hypothesis about tuplets being omitted because of some holdover from typesetting practices of 100s of years before is completely without any merit. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
