Wow. There are so many different reasons to object to what is basically a reading aid little different from cleaning up the scribble and shortening the notes for modern tastes, the thing that's already happening in a new edition!
Were there no editorial decisions beyond that? If there were editorial decisions, does the editor not stand by them? What is the point of the exercise, then? To make money for the publisher? To encourage performance of the music? To encourage performance of the music as the editor sees it? To sell the least offensive document, non-specialists and future history be damned? It's going to be criticized no matter what decision is made, if I follow David Bailey. (And stop being so reasonable, David! How can we fight?) So what does the editor believe in? How much tampering is being done in the first place? What's shown and what's hidden? Shall we get started on intonation and singing the ficta business, or is that more editorial hands off? Just for sophisticates? The whole issue of the printed page is bizarre. Yesterday I had the unique, um, pleasure of recording a concert of eleven professional string players who played Vivaldi (among other unmemorables, including the "Diamond Symphony" -- yeah, that one). They played the Vivaldi from the score they had. Exactly. Not a single ornament. It was so dull my teeth hurt (mostly because my teeth were hurting anyway, but there was nothing on stage to distract me from noticing). I remember singing the alto solo in Messiah with ornamentation here in Vermont in 1978 or so (back in the days when I could still sing that part). It was a scandal that I had tampered with the notes. What I'd done wasn't on the page! So what is expected? That the sophisticates want a skeletal version onto which they can hang their ornamentational or chromatic laundry? And that the non-sophisticates are given no guidance or suggestion? And performers complain that we composers can be so insistent on so many details in our scores! Any wonder? Dennis _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
