At 12:07 AM 1/9/04 -0500, Christopher BJ Smith wrote: >I have witnessed >crossed wires, wasted time, frustrated musicians, and fast phone >calls by orchestra administrators during rehearsals to composers, as >well as wasted studio time in recording sessions. But if those things >could be avoided, why not avoid them?
Can it really be that conductors are competent at *reading* the transpositions, but are so incompetent at *speaking* them out from a concert-pitch score that they are causing confusion and time-wasting? Is transposition such a trap-door algorithm for conductors? >Well now, if I could be so bold, the problem there was non-standard, >obscure transpositions that needed to be changed to standard ones. >How often does that come up in scores written these days? These days are the 'those days' of the future, and those days were the 'these days' of their time. Concert pitch is the least ambiguous presentation -- at least that's the lesson I took from those 19th century scores -- and one that will outlast the particular instrumental manufacturing techniques and instrumentalist methods. I suspect there is a quiet migration away from transposed scores. Conductors who mainly do older/niche repertoire may still prefer them, teachers will still teach the skills, older publishing houses will still prepare transposed editions for traditional genres, and composers will sometimes be conservative (especially amateur ones) notationally (and stylistically). I think the shift is underway from 'take no chances, make a tranposed score' to 'take no chances, make it concert pitch'. I am biased, of course. I interview composers on my radio show. By and large, their scores are at concert pitch -- and among all the issues that have come up in the past nine years, not one guest has mentioned their concert-pitch scores causing problems. On the other hand, I have been to hundreds of rehearsals -- especially of chamber works -- directed by a member of the ensemble untrained in reading transposed scores. There is pain there! Raymond's point about horns is good, because they are played often in what I think of as the viola range. I have to admit to using the tenor clef in the conductor's score for long horn passages in that range. But there's nothing I can do about his short-term memory... :) There are two interesting threads this week -- this one, and the one about notation of early music. In both cases, it seems to me, the performance opportunity is greater with modern editions, but the scholar or specialist will want the original presentation/manuscript in order to understand the composer's intent or artistic view or means of expression or musical world or limitations or imagination (etc.). Dennis _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
