On 28 May 2003 at 16:00, Mark D. Lew wrote: > Michael Edwards wrote, in various posts: > > I guess the situation is a bit difficult for older music, where notation > >has changed sufficiently that older music might be difficult for modern people > >to read. I suppose we have to accept standardizing there. > > If one is making a new edition of older music, it is very likely because > the older version is hard to read. . . .
Well, not necessarily. One may be creating a score from perfectly legible and usable parts in the absence of any other existing score. Or one may be creating an edition in order to synthesize out a single version from multiple competing versions that exist in perfectly readable and usable sources already. Or you may be doing it to get a printed, reproducible version that is simply more durable (photocopies of original sources can be great, but may not work as well as a modern re-engraving of the original source). > . . . I think there is a gray area between > typographic and notational issues where the distinction cannot clearly be > made. For example, suppose a manuscript for an SATB chorale puts the tenor > and alto in C clefs. Is it an editorial decision to change the clefs? Of > course it is, but good luck finding a chorus to read it if you don't. > That's exactly why you're re-engraving the piece. If the original was fine > as it is, you could just photocopy it. Clefs have always been considered as having no musical meaning. And I think that's definitely the case after about 1700 or so. But before that time, they served lots of purposes besides being a mere marker of relative pitch. They indicated things about scoring and key signature, sometimes very crucial things that were not conveyed in any other way. So, one may very well be transcribing out important information. In that case, one needs to find some alternate method of conveying the same information. Some music into the late 17th century had different key signatures for different parts of the same piece. Many modern editions use the same key signature for all the parts, and I think that's a mistake, as the different key signatures indicate things about the different base hexachords and modes of the individual parts. No performer reading a single part is going to be confused by a part with one flat when everyone else has two flats, as long as the performer knows this during rehearsal. > > But surely such editions should labelled "edited by <so-and-so>", with > >annotations about the changes that have been made. And, especially for > >scholarly or purist use, you could have another edition that reproduces Bach's > >notation exactly. And editions should be clearly marked as "updated according > >to modern notational conventions" (or according to the editor's opinion about > >what modern conventions are), or as giving the composer's version. > > I think you are underestimating the skill of a scholar. If you're > producing a scholarly edition, yes, of course you want thorough editorial > notes and markings so that the original information is preserved. If you're > doing an ordinary reprint of to make a piece more readily available to the > general public, they don't care about such things. A serious scholar isn't > going to be using your reprint as a source anyway; he's going to be looking > at the same original that you are. If he does happen to look at your > edition, he doesn't need an editorial note to tell him that it has been > "updated according to modern notational conventions". I think that ignores a very important consideration. Most old music that is getting a modern edition made is never going to have another edition. It's not like Bach, where there are dozens of editions of almost any piece (more for some genres than others, obviously). In the case of a piece of old music being edited into a modern edition for the first time, I think it's crucial that performers and scholars be accomodated in the one edition, as there really isn't going to be another chance. But I do believe the bias should be toward the scholarly. The musician who wants to learn rare repertory is likely to do the work to figure out any idiosyncracies of notation that result from the editor's efforts to convey a full idea of the possibilities inherent in the source material. And in most cases, editing is a matter of allowing the performer to learn what the range of possibilities of appropriate performance will be, not limiting the performer to one way of performing. For instance, with accidentals that don't occur in a source: in some repertories, non-notated "music ficta" (not the right term for all repertories, but a useful general term for this problem) were expected to be provided by the performer. The original sources didn't need the accidentals because the performers had the style down and would have provided them automatically (this goes back to the points about key signatures above). But modern performers lack that awareness, so the editor needs to indicate it. But it's also important to make clear that it's an editorial decision about what is correct in terms of required non-notated accidentals. The usual methods of notating this are to put the accidental above the note. The problem there is that there are two types of "ficta:" the ones that would be mandatory and the ones that would be more optional. Just putting the accidental above the note doesn't indicate whether the editor thinks the accidental is obligatory or merely a suggestion. I always use parens when it's really just a suggestion and no parens when it's basically obligatory. The point of being so picky about it is to make clear these things: 1. what's editorial and what's not. 2. what's speculative and what's pretty much required I see absolutely no reason why the same principles could not be applied to new music as well, if editors cared to take the time. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
