Thank's for your comments, Don and Christian

> And BTW that should clearly be a g# in bar 114, by comparison with the
> other 2 times the same thing happens).

I checked the source: there is clearly no sharp at this point. But I agree
with your opinion that this does not mean there soudn't be played one.
I'll put an editorial accidental in the next revision.

> 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.

This is one point why I decided not to change anything with respect to the
source. There are some places where the interpret has to make a choice.
Therefore it should be visible without doubt what the source tells. And
then as typesetter you have to decide where's the borderline between a
"pure" transcription into another notation system and an interpretation.

Another point is the intonation. I made once as an ensemble singer the
experience with Heinrich Schuetz's Cantiones Sacrae where we have an
edition dating from the 60es and one from Fridrich Spitta (about 1880). It
turned out that the modern edition was completely unusable when playing
the continuo on an organ tuned in middletone tune due to transposed
notation (chiavetti, transposing key combination). In the sixties editors
were not aware of that tradition writing in transposed notation. When
turning back to the old Spitta edition I realised that even the problem of
intonation, which note has to be thought low or high, is immediately
solved. It is just visible where you have to do what when using the old
way of writing accidentals since it is consistent with respect to
intonation, the modern is not, since a natural means sometimes higher,
sometimes lower. Thus you have always to analyse its actual harmonical
context where you directly see it in the old system.

Thus, I don't see it as teaching when I "force" other people to read the
old system by publishing scores this way. It's a question of practical
use. When getting in contact the first time with early music on a somewhat
"higher level" by reading several of Harnoncourt's essays I couldn't
imagine that what he is telling about old tuning systems could become
true for me. But now I really hear wrong notes when someone is playing
Frescobaldi or singing Monteverdi without respecting the middletone tune.
Thus, we still may happen to escape our first training.

However, in the next revision I will add some sentences in the preface to
clarify this point.

Bernhard


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