Re: wind instrument transposition (was Good work, Keith!)

[Tim Roberts]

Tim Reeves wrote:
>
> Nothing odd about it at all.

I disagree, but we'll get to that in a moment.

> It would be odd if a horn part in C or E, etc. had any key signature at all.

Why?  Every other instrument has a key signature appropriate to the
transposition in use at the current time.  Why should horn and trumpet
be the sole exceptions here?  Certainly in 20th Century music, we expect
every part to have an appropriate key signature (even horn in F), unless
the music is not based on a key signature.  The Ninth Symphony does not
fall into that category.

The alternative is to fill the music with accidentals, which is what has
been done here.  That is odd.
 > Clarinet and trumpet are similar situations, but they didn't use
crooks, > they just had longer or shorter instruments for different keys.
> Often orchestral trumpet players will play a C trumpet, rather than the 
> standard B flat trumpet, and clarinet players sometimes play A clarinets 
> and E flat clarinets, rather than the standard B flat clarinet.

I've been a pianist for 45 years and a clarinetist for 40, so I am
comfortably aware of transposition issues, but what you're saying
doesn't explain the issues I pointed out.  If a piece is in concert D
and I am asked to play it on my Bb clarinet, my music should have a key
signature of E.  If I am asked to shift to an A clarinet, the key
signature of the music should shift to F.  That rule has not been
followed in the Dvorak.

-- 
Tim Roberts, address@hidden
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.