On 27.10.2008, at 21:01, David W. Fenton wrote:
On 27 Oct 2008 at 20:43, Eric Fiedler wrote:
On 27.10.2008, at 17:58, David W. Fenton wrote:
On 27 Oct 2008 at 15:55, Eric Fiedler wrote:
Bar lines are only tyrants if you let them be tyrants ;-)
I disagree. No matter how experienced you are in the musical style,
it still makes a difference in the sound of what comes out.
Not when I play it doesn't, and I bet you could do it too with your
experience ;-)
Yes, it's devilishly difficult to perform from parts with minimal
(or
no) barlines, but I think the musical result is quite great.
Of course it is! But once you have learned to do this, you can take
what you have learned with you back to the score and/or parts.
Well, sure, but the results (in my experience) are never as free as
you get from notation unpolluted by superfluous barlines.
And of
course musicians should always play/sing from parts - even singers,
who aren't as used to this as instrumentalists.
Then why bother with barlines? The barlines are there *only* because
you've scored up parts, so what is gained by then transferring those
barlines back into parts?
I think we've gotten ourselves into the old argument of "players vs.
musicologists" :-(
Musicologists need scores (just as those who bought scores of
Gesualdo's madrigals did) because they're interested in the musical
structure of the pieces. _Players_, on the other hand, need parts,
with or without bar lines — although the technique of making music
from parts without bar lines must be learned and practiced. Both
needs are real, the problem is to make an appropriate edition for
both parties. Which often involves compromise. That's probably why
this client of mine wants special bar lines instead of the usual. The
NJE, after _very_ much discussion, went this way too.
I also
think that performing from parts (instead of score) is a great
way to
improve the listening skills of the performers, since you don't have
the crutch of seeing what is being (you have to *listen* for it).
Of course.
So, to me, the problem here is that we insist on performing from
scores, and that creates the artificial problem of barlines that
interrupt the flow of the individual lines.
Nobody here is insisting on _performing_ from scores. But -
unfortunately - there doesn't seem to be much of a market for
Collected Works of a Renaissance composer in parts!
I'm not arguing with the present reality. I'm only saying that the
compromises you make when you notate in score (which forces the
barlines) are musically detrimental in many cases (in the musical
style we're discussing here). I don't know what the solution is going
forward, but I do know merely acquiescing to 19th-century notational
conventions is not going to make things better.
Part books survived well past the "invention" of the score for a
good
reason -- it conveyed the musical content much more efficiently than
scores that imposed barlines that contradicted the inner meter of
individual, independent parts.
They don't contradict the inner meter if you don't "play the bar
lines" but simply regard them,
I find that this is something that none of the musicians I work with
are able to do 100%.
Work with them some more.
as did the musicians of the
Renaissance, as an optical orientation. Of course, the ideal edition
would be a score (for study) and parts (in the original notation for
playing).
Yes.
Richard Taruskin tried this with his "Omni Sorte" Editions
a while back, which were very nice. But, again, they didn't catch
on ... and libraries avoid such editions like the plague.
I'm not sure what your point is here. You seem to agree with me on
the best solution, yet you don't seem interested in doing anything to
make sure that the best solution is what performers have available.
My point here is that as a professional publisher you sometimes have
to compromise, something an academic or private party doesn't have to
do. Fortunately I also have a place on your side of the tracks ...
Eric
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Habsburger Verlag Frankfurt (Dr. Fiedler)
www.habsburgerverlag.de
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