From: Gabriel Ellsworth <[email protected]>
The “shave off” colloquialism in my previous message may not be all that clear. “Shave off” means “subtract from the composer’s original, full note value” and release (breathe) early. Why are early releases such a frequent phenomenon in my choir’s performances of Renaissance polyphony? Because composers in the 16th century often wrote very long stretches of music, much longer than a human being can reasonably sing in one breath, without any rests. See, for example, the image in my May email. In our choir’s modern practice, standardized early releases enable us to have, for example, all altos breathe at the same time. This means that all consonants land at the same time! I would never consider an edition that codified that kind of performance issue by modifying the score! The conductor of the choir I sing in is very strict about early endings for breaths, but he expects us to note them in our copies in our own way as he specifies them - and he may well change his mind during rehearsals about how long the break for a breath may be in a particular place. He also expects us to decide for ourselves when he doesn't spell it out, following what we understand to be his typical choices. As for marking the rests as editorial, I would start with making them smaller - that's another fairly commonly used method (I'm surprised no one has mentioned it). But marking the rests alone is inconsistent, because you are not indicating that the preceding notes have also been changed! I see no reason, if you are going to modify the score like that, to make any indication on the page at all - maybe just a note of what has been done in general terms in a preface. Paul
