On Sep 1, 2009, at 5:12 AM, dhbailey wrote:
Those who have written in French and German terms were composers of international standing and the music was compelling enough that people figured out what the non-Italian terms meant and bought the music despite their nationalistic use of terms.
They *became* composers of international standing, but certainly none of them *started* that way, nor are they the only composers of their times and places who used the veranacular in their music. In short, "international prominence" has nothing to do with it. *Any* composer in the classical tradition writes with an international constituency in mind, whether they ever obtain one or not.
And since most of the world seems intent on learning English, perhaps more and more they'll understand your terms, should your music be compelling enough to attract their attention.
Again, this has nothing to do with the subject. English speaking composers have been quite regularly using English instructions in their scores for over a century now, and there's no longer any debate. The most common US practice, for almost all of that time, has been to use the standard Italian expressions most of the time (because they have very specific musical meanings that are not fully conveyed if the words are translated), but to use English for emotional or esthetic instructions (as: "with feeling") and for technical instructions (as: fluttertongue). In the first instance, English is preferred because of the same kind of detail of meaning that I mentioned above. "With feeling," for example, is *not* exactly synonymous with "con anima" or "ausdrucksvoll" or any other such term. For technical instructions, there is no reason to think that a musician would be more likely to understand them in Italian than in any other language (quick: what's the Italian for "fluttertongue"? What's the French? We probably all know the German "flatterzunge"--but that's not Italian either, is it?)
Andrew Stiller Kallisti Music Press http://www.kallistimusic.com/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
