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
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