At 10:57 AM -0500 12/25/08, Martin Banner wrote:
I am working on an 18th Century edition from an autograph manuscript
(dated 1769). The final movement of this choral/orchestral work is a
fugue in cut time (4/2 time). Although the autograph manuscript
notates a full measure rest with a double whole rest, I was
wondering if I should use that in a modern edition or go with the
Finale default whole rest for a blank measure.
Also, if I use the double whole rest for a blank measure, the rest
is all the over to the left. How would I go about centering the
double whole rest?
By the way, I'm using Finale 2008 on an iMac.
Thanks.
Martin
There's no doubt in my mind that if it's a modern edition (and not an
attempt at an exact urtext reproduction) you should go with the
modern convention. Same thing with multimeasure rests instead of
incomprehensible stacks of old-time rest values. And I wouldn't say
it's a Finale default, but rather a modern notational default.
I just checked in Roemer (1973). He doesn't say anything about using
a whole rest in all time signatures, but he does show the
double-whole rest as "obsolete." From working in early music I
understand the older rest conventions perfectly well, and also
understand where they came from historically, but as a modern player
I don't want to have to stop and decode them!
John
--
John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music
Virginia Tech Department of Music
College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:john.how...@vt.edu)
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
"We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition
of jazz musicians.
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