If anyone has opinions on the matter, or can point me to a good discussion of it on the Web, I'd love to hear it. (I would welcome opinions on the question of sz ligature in old texts generally or with regard to Wagner specifically.)
My German study was limited to the infamous two semesters of "German for Graduate Students," but I must say that I would never have known that that B thingy was a double-s (or "s-set"; I've never come across a reference to it as a "sz ligature" or read that the second consonant is a "z") unless I had taken those classes. Therefore, if your target audience is English speakers who don't know much German, I'd suggest using the modern convention. Unless, of course, your intention is to duplicate the original exactly, in which case you would have to use the almost unreadable Fractur fonts as well! And another decision you have to make is whether to capitalize all the nouns, which many 18th-century English speakers were still doing in their own language. But that's admittedly the reaction of a native English speaker in the 21st century.
John
-- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
