Lon:
I recently played through a set of clarinet etudes with a student, and
ran across an oddity. In the key of Bb, a couple E#s and B#s
occurred. The manuscript had a natural sign and then a sharp next to
the note in each instance, which seemed redundant to me, and confusing
to my student. I guess I've seen this before, but is it really
necessary to first cancel out the flat before entering the sharp?
Though I agree that canceling an accidental in the key signature by use
of a flat is not common practice in modern editions, I would argue that
it is not really redundant. Suppose instead of a b-flat or e-flat, it
was a c or f being raised a full tone; in these cases the proper symbol
to use would be a double sharp. I would interpret the first natural as
a substitute for the first sharp of a double sharp, and argue that it is
inconsistent to use a double sharp to specify raising a scale degree by
a whole tone in some cases (c or f), but to imply one of the "sharps"
in others.
That said, I have run across certain older manuscripts, which predate
the invention of the natural sign, where one finds a flat in the key
signature canceled with a sharp, so that in the example you cite above,
in the key of b-flat, an e-flat # should be rendered e natural. And
yes, I have run across one instance in the volume where the key
signature contains an e-flat, and the double sharp sign is used to
indicate that the e-flat is to raised a whole step. The parallel
circumstances also occur; where the key signature is G (one sharp),
what we would notate as f-natural, is indicated by a flat on the f, and
there are a couple of instances where the f# in the key signature is
lowered a whole step by using a two flat signs.
ns
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