John Howell wrote:
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.
I am sure others on the list may have a strong opinion about the main
point of this statement. I do not (at least, not yet). But the problem
is, in this case, what is "modern convention".
> 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."
That makes the score 2-to-2. (Read and Roehmer say it's obsolete. Ross
and Stone say it is not.) However, I personally lend more weight to
Stone's recommendation than any of the others, since he was *expressly*
describing notation in the 20th century, including exhaustive extended
techniques. Furthermore, his book is not just his opinion but rather the
result of an international conference (Ghent, 1974) to agree on notation
standards for contemporary music. (We probably need another such
conference by now. Ghent is a nice city.)
Furthermore, if you use a whole rest in 4/2 to mean a whole bar, what
rest value do you use for a half bar? (Read, at least, addresses the
question. I don't care for his answer.)
Same thing with multimeasure rests instead of
incomprehensible stacks of old-time rest values.
Incomprehensible? Those "incomprehensible stacks" have saved my bacon a
numerous times when the number was illegible. (In some editions it is
quite difficult to distinguish between "3", "5", and "8".) But in the
end I don't have a strong feeling about them for rests of 8-bars or
fewer. For more than 8 bars the stacks do indeed become fairly
incomprehensible.
but as a modern player I don't want to have to stop
and decode them!
What's to decode? I would not count the Brahms Requiem as "early music"
(although doubtless some would), and it uses the double-wholes. However,
interestingly, it uses the double-wholes in the score only. The parts
have whole rests instead. However, absent a cue there is always a figure
"1" above the measure. (1 measure rest.) This may be the best of both
worlds, as it allows you to use whole rests for both whole bars and half
bars. (As do the parts in the Brahms Requiem.)
I would accomplish this as follows:
1. If the whole piece is 4/2, change the default whole rest character.
Otherwise turn off the automatic display and insert score-only
expressions as needed.
2. Create cues using whole rests as you would in smaller time sigs.
3. In multimeasure rests, set Start Number At to 1 and set Use Symbols
for Rests Less Than to 2 or greater.
Obviously, you have the same problem here as with music spacing. You
have to remember different values for different sections.
FWIW: My Settings Scrapbook plugin can help you store those different
settings for so you can apply them at will without having to remember
them all. You can name the different settings anything you want.
--
Robert Patterson
http://RobertGPatterson.com
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