NOTATIO

Thanks for letting me know, and for directing me to the manuscript. The examples given above with different-sized notes all seem to be more or less about saving space. Do you know of any intentional, expressive/structural use of sizes between the two traditional ones (regular and grace-note/cadenza ...

At a first glance it looks like the slur is meant mainly for the sixteenth sixtuplets (and triplet), but then it isn't quite consistent. During the first two quarters it wouldn't have had to be placed above the notes at all, and just at the end it should have gone below the notes if following the pa...

I had a look at Beethoven, Op. 110, the first edition according to IMSLP. There was no difference in size between the 'main notes' and the perhaps rather ornamental 32nds at the beginning of the first movement. How does it look in the manuscript, if there is one?

Interesting. I haven't been aware of this pragmatic engraving before. It seems that in L'heure espagnole the flutes have smaller notes and accidentals because of more accidentals. In the clarinets there aren't that many accidentals, so the notes are a bit bigger. Or am I mistaken?

She also says that the hairpin should end on the right side of the ending note. Strangely enough, her examples show something else: most end on the left side of the noteheads! I think that the ending position of a hairpin can depend on context Gould says (p. 104): "Good practice is to start the hai...

All from the version (2014?) where you could open newer files in older Finales there were no big problems with that, until now, I'm told. If you open a v26 file in an older version you seem to risk your articulations being seriously messed up. I don't put any blame on MM for this, it's just that it ...

Tremolo should be fixed 10 years ago. I don't think it is a feature. Feature – or one of the long expected bug fixes. I am a bit ambivalent about this version. Me too. What holds me back is the articulation issue when exporting a file from v26 to v25 (if I got it right). It would be easier to decid...

I think that your reply would be more useful as a general advice, John. I seem to have developed some habits of my own, depending on how I want the music performed. My idiosyncrasies are something like this: About the start of a decrescendo hairpin, I think the 'normal' execution is to let the note ...

If the three notes stand alone (as a motive), the hairpin could start even a little later, after the first notehead. Possibly it could also end a little earlier, at the beginning of the last notehead.

Isn't it wonderful that musical notation is a living thing and open to interpretation?! A further complication is that one must take context into account to interpret all musical symbols... If musical notation were as unambiguous as a fool-proof manual, some of us, at least, would be out of work. O...