Christopher Smith wrote:
Darcy had mentioned that the soloist was singing at the same time as the rest of the soprano section - that was what made it awkward to label. I suppose it might be even more awkward if the sopranos and the soloist might or might not sing at the same time. All the more reason to have a separate staff, in that case.
The OUP engraving of the Walton I referenced included all three circumstances--soloist alone / chorus alone; soloist overlapping chorus in part, and soloist and chorus overlapping for the entire duration of the solo bit--without taking recourse to a separate staff, though there was a separate lyric line laid out for the soloist and the chorus in a couple of instances. No recourse was taken to separate staves in any of them, and clarity was not compromised in any instance.
On first glance, it might appear that stem direction was also used as an indicator of which voices were soloist, and which were chorus, but this is not conclusive, because in each instance where this is true in the Walton, the stem direction also is consistent with the usual custom for stem direction. I have, however seen other instances where multiple parts (e.g. Tenor 1 and 2, or tenor and bass) were on the same line, and which part sang which note was dnoted by stem direction: notes for one part were always writted as up-stems, and those for the other always by down stems.
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