At 1:17 PM -0400 8/9/05, Andrew Stiller wrote:
A couple of questions for the list, both about the same 19th-c.
orchl. work that I'm editing.
2) This composer habitually puts his first violins onto two staves,
labeled Vn.Ia and Vn. Ib. How should the string parts for such a
piece be distributed:
6.6.12.10.8.6?
8.8.8.10.8.6?
Something else?
This is exactly the same quandry facing choral conductors when there
are Soprano 1 and 2 and a single alto part. I know conductors who
audition for S1, S2, and A, and set them up with equal numbers, but
then combine all the S1s and S2s into an overwhelming soprano section
in SATB music. My usual practice has been to use both S1s and A1s to
create an S2 section, with equally balanced parts, equivalent to your
8.8.8 solution. Part of the problem is simply the mechanics of
printing SATB music on 4 staves, so that the composer has to decide
whether going from 2-part to 3-part women the added part should be
notated on the S line or the A line.
It really comes down to what you can discern of the composer's
intentions. I can envision 6.6.12 working; in fact Rameau did
exactly this in some dance movements from his operas that I edited,
and it worked fine with a community orchestra or a small college
chamber orchestra because the first violins were stronger than the
second violins. If the three parts seem to be of equal weight,
perhaps 8.8.8 makes better sense, but then the problem becomes how to
lay that out in the parts.
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
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