Don Simons wrote: [snip]
> There's no question about what that note should be, and it's notated > correctly according to the old convention. As to whether that was the right > choice, there is no "right" way, no absolute answer. But FWIW here's my > answer. I used to take Bernhard's position, out of respect for the > composer's intentions. Then at one point a very accomplished violinist was > reading one of my settings and complained that the juxtaposition of modern > typesetting with the old-style accidental convention was very confusing. > The more I thought about it the more I tended to agree. After all, by using > computer typesetting tools one has already changed one aspect of the > language from the original. But there is also a more practical, less > philosophical reason for modernizing the accidentals: Even though modern > accidentals are less logical than old-style, we've all been trained modern. > My main objective in all my typesetting is to make scores for performance by > modern humans, not scholarship. So now I'm pretty "hard over" on this: I > always modernize accidentals in scores I typeset. But clearly if someone's > typesetting objectives are different, he may choose a different path. And I > respect that, as long as he recognizes that he's not making a modern > player's life any easier. For an ongoing project on providing modern urtext editions of flute sonatas by an 18th century Danish composer, Morten R�hs (see http://icking-music-archive.sunsite.dk/ByComposer/Raehs.html) I've had to make up my mind whether to typeset the accidentals as found in the original manuscript or adhere to what may be roughly and ambigously called 'modern notational standard'. The problem is that in the manuscript accidentals for a given note is often but not consequently repeated within a measure and may contrarily be missing in case of a note repetition across a bar line. I ended up with the same editorial procedures as the above outlined meaning that the scope of an accidental is from where it is introduced to the and of the bar within the staff in question. However, it is not always straight forward what to do: there might a significant information with a *missing* accidental in a bar where other notes of same pitch *have* an accidental. A modern editor can't escape choices and the resulting musical interpretations. Bye -- Christian Mondrup, Computer Programmer Scandiatransplant, Skejby Hospital, University Hospital of Aarhus Brendstrupgaardsvej, DK 8200 Aarhus N, Denmark Phone: +45 89 49 53 01 - http://www.scandiatransplant.org _______________________________________________ TeX-music mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://sunsite.dk/mailman/listinfo/tex-music
