Re: 19th-cent. accidental notation

[Joseph Rushton Wakeling]

On 02/17/2013 01:10 PM, Javier Ruiz-Alma wrote:
> I found an accidental notation rule in 1803 music introductory textbook by M.
> Clementi, says accidental was also omitted on the following bar it when happened
> to be first note played of same pitch as prior bar accidental (explicit example
> shown involves non-tied notes).
>
> Seemed intuitive in the context of several of the pieces (see attached sample),
> so I've been applying [\once \override Voice.Accidental #'stencil = ##f] as
> needed in the typeset.
> Just wondered if there were some classical notation gurus that could educate me
> on how common this practice was (i.e. non-tied accidentals carrying over to
> first note of following bar).

I think this is a case in a modern edition where an editor would see no problem 
in inserting the accidental.  A good player of music of the period would surely 
identify the correct note to play no matter what, but there's no reason to be 
ambiguous.  You're not altering the musical text by doing so.

Following modern practice in this context is akin to notating tuplets with the 
"square" bracket rather than the earlier slur-like one -- the historical 
notation is unacceptably ambiguous and you're not actually interfering with the 
musical text by removing the ambiguity.