> Stems being longer to accomodate correct beam placement is in fact
> the traditional engraving practice - explicitly mentioned by Gould
> and others.
No, it is not. This is a modern development that happened mostly
after 1945. In early typsetting done on pewter plates (i.e., the
early 19th century) you will find *much* steeper beams, and even the
'classical' engravings around 1900 use steeper beams.
I like to use the first version of Rachmaninoff's second piano sonata
(published in 1914) as a good example for fine typography; attached
are some examples of beams (published by Gutheil) that you consider as
'problematic', but which were standard then – see the attached images.
Obviously it was more important for the engraver to properly indicate
the direction of voices than to take care of crossing staff lines.
Actually, being a pianist, I agree with this assessment; it helps a
lot while reading such complicated music. Additionally, it allows for
more compact vertical typesetting.
Neither Ross nor Gould apparently take this classical time into
consideration for their recommendations.
Werner
