On 9 May 2010 at 21:57, Kim Patrick Clow wrote: > I have a question about a manuscript source: > > http://i39.tinypic.com/2rcn2ip.jpg > > This is from a sinfonia by Christoph Graupner and you see > > staves are Trumpet 1, 2, Timpani, Violin 1, Violin 2, Viola, Continuo > > I'm not exactly sure what the expression under the first violin means > "ottava bassa" or ottava basso." Or how this would impact performance. > > This is the first time I've encountered this phrase in Graupner's > music.
Perhaps it's an indication of divisi in the first violins, doubling at the lower octave. As John Howell said, a copyist would realize the instruction appropriately in the parts, rather than reproducing it as it is in the score. It's quite common for scores to include shorthand like this. Look at any Mozart autograph, and the 2nd violin part is not written out at all -- it just says "col primo" -- and the viola part is often not written out -- it says "col basso". On the other hand, looking at it again, everything else goes down an octave, so it may simply be a correction to a passage written in the wrong octave on the first go. Now that I've written the above, I've changed my mind! It really does look like it might be a composing score, and the first violin was the first thing written out, and when Graupner went back to orchestrate the lower parts, saw the opportunity for an octave shift to go with the modal shift, and changed the octave of the violin part with the rubric, instead of making the score messy with a cross-out and new notes written in. -- 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
