On 19 Jul 2007 at 6:32, dhbailey wrote: > There is a lot of hand-engraved music which is ugly as sin, with poor > spacing and lousy sizes for the different elements and bad page turns > and all the other things that computer notation programs are accused > of producing.
I think the pinnacle of engraving standards was reached by Breitkopf & Härtel in the 20 years before 1860, and I do believe that their house style from that time is the basis for much of our modern engraving practices (though there was some variation in their editions, as well). Before that time, engraving was much closer to hand copying in its variability and pre-planning. Almost none of the editions I work with from c. 1780-1820 would be considered satisfactory in any way by modern engravers, but that's mostly because of their efforts to save paper and printing expense. After cheaper papers came into use and lithography became more common, it was easier to use more generous layouts that used up more pages. I've just studied a batch of Gottschalk first editions from c. 1850- 75, and they are, for the most part, extremely generously laid out, and some of them are quite beautifully engraved. -- 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
