Re: 19th-cent. accidental notation

[Urs Liska]

Am 19.02.2013 18:58, schrieb Luca Rossetto Casel:
> Il 19/02/2013 15:13, Urs Liska ha scritto:
>
> > But OTOH it is impossible to make a perfect edition. [...]
>
> Again, in cases of similar complexity I find quite necessary to 
> acclude a critical report to the score.
Yes, but it really isn't possible to make it perfect in the sense that 
it suits every possible use case.
First: There are nearly always aspects in the material that are just one 
step more detailed than you would want to deal with. Just one example: 
It is often important to determine the order of writing in the 
manuscript, especially when it comes to corrections (e.g. to state that 
a changed pitch is just an immediately corrected typo and not a change 
applied later (which could indicate that it's a change rather than a 
fix)). You usually do this by noticing different used inks/pencils or 
sometimes thanks to different character of the handwriting (e.g. 
hasty/accurate).
You just _can't_ document everything that leads to your conclusion in 
each and every case.

Second: If you try very hard to document everything you will get an 
edition that is so complex that the information is actually buried 
within an intransparent bunch of comments. The Schoenberg Edtion for 
example tries to be as precise and exhaustive as possible in its 
critical reports, but it really isn't nice to work with them ...
I find the approach of the Schubert Edition quite useful (in general). 
They have a foreword in each volume. There you can find general 
information on the works and also comments on the situation of the 
sources, if they are of some general interest. At the end of each volume 
(or in a 'b' volume) there is a section 'sources and versions 
(Lesarten)' that states in detail which sources have been used and gives 
information on editorial decisions - but only those that the editors 
thought to be of interest for the average user. Finally there is the 
Critical Report which should document _everything_ short of found 
fingerprints on the manuscripts ;-). The Critical Report originally 
wasn't part of the regular edition that you can buy or subscribe to, but 
by now you can also buy them separately.
> > Now to the editorial problem (we are talking about): Of course the 
> > New Edition marks all editor's addition typographically. But a) 
> > printing staccato dots and accents smaller than normal is a quite 
> > unnoticeable style. And b) (much more important) the New Edition 
> > takes the manuscript and the original edition as its main sources. So 
> > additions by the original engraver are taken as _original material_ 
> > and thus not marked in the New Edition. While I realized (through the 
> > study of the manuscript) that the original edition presumably made a 
> > lot of problematic additions this isn't visible in the New Edition at 
> > all. I can only hope that this fact is described in the Critical 
> > Report (which I haven't inspected yet). But as the Critical Report 
> > isn't actually part of the books and only available in some 
> > libraries, the information in it is really buried quite far away.
>
> THe approach you describe here is the one I personally chose for my 
> edition. By the way, I also managed - I think - to print smaller, but 
> distinguable, scripts quite well! I slightly increased their distance 
> from the noteheads to give the scripts a clearly, more visible 
> appearence; I also adopted a quite large spacing to make all as clear 
> as possible, even with a quite small font.
Would you mind sending me a screenshot of an example?
> Regarding the problem of the Critica Report, I can see it's somehow 
> not immediately visible - or even note immediately reachable, as you 
> point out. But I think it's anyway the better compromise... in a 
> printed score. Providing the edition in a digital format, as an 
> interactive pdf (or other), it would be possible display the variants 
> of all the adopted sources on our score, making every change visible.
> It's becoming a common practice in literarature studies, why not apply 
> to music philology?
> As an example, see this project related to Metastasio's works:
> http://www.progettometastasio.it/pietrometastasio/
There actually _are_ such ideas and attempts.
At least the Reger Edition has already started publishing digital 
editions. And there is more research going on.
I also once read about a huge project (sponsored by HP I think) to make 
all works of Mozart digitally available for anybody (I think it is 
targeted at ca. 2020 ...), but I don't know if they are thinking in such 
categories or if they merely want to provide scans of existing editions).
> > [...] While I'm quite happy with the solutions and know that we don't 
> > change the musical text, I can't know if the (originally used) 
> > reminder accidentals might become meaningful to someone who later 
> > studies the edition. On the other hand we decided to mark the 
> > accidentals that we identified as musically wrong by parentheses. 
> > (BTW any idea how one could highlight the _emendation_ of an 
> > accidental (or any other grob) typographically???)
>
> What about inserting the emended grob in a smaller format put above 
> the relative note, enclosed in brackets or inserted in a box, or a 
> circle...? This inusual style should be described in the introduction 
> to the score, of course...
Hm, maybe I'll try that out someday.
My problem is that everything that is actually visible on the page just 
_is there_ (i.e. has an effect in the readers mind).
For example when I want to start practicing a Haydn sonata, the first 
thing I do is making a Xerox copy and white out all the dashed slurs and 
parenthesized articulations that the editor included by 'analogous 
complement'. I think that excessive variation is part of Haydn's music's 
characteristics, and I want to decide myself where I level this out by 
analogies. But if I _see_ the slurs (even if they're dashed) it is 
practically impossible to ignore them.
> I thank you for adding your point of view, I find it very interesting!
I find it interesting to have such topics also discussed here, as it's 
definitely suitable for a 'lilypond-user' :-)

Best
Urs