NOTATIO

… … … For example, much of the music of Mozart is flawless from every point of view… … … This statement makes me uncomfortable, although I can't disprove it. I don't think it's perfection that makes great art, but rather the inclusion and effective dealing with inherent flaws (since we are being ph...

I agree with you both, but then most of my composing career has been with manuscript fair copies (my drafts are still MS). I too often commit annoying computer engraving solecisms that embarrass me when I discover them after distribution of the printed copies. Dorico style automation might save me f...

I would do it as in the first example.

Thanks, John, this is useful information. I think I'm usually correct in my interpretation of figured bass (purely for study, I have no need to perform from it), but felt I'd like to be better informed. As for the modern more-or-less equivalent of figured bass, chord symbols, these sometimes flummox...

This is a bit OT, but follows on logically enough from Florian's post above. Can anyone recommend a very good book explaining in detail the conventions of figured bass notation?

Yes, I think it probable that Sandy's explanation was just as yours. It makes sense.

I think it does make it difficult for the singer, though, and perhaps it could have been notated differently.

Can anyone comment on why the singer has a B :f rather than an A :s in the second bar of the first of Berg's 7 Early Songs ? In 1959 I vaguely recall asking my composition teacher Sandy Goehr why it was written this way, but I don't remember his response (if any). In a different context, and freed f...

Are you on Mac or Windows?

There are definite speed improvements for Mac, so I aim to upgrade, although I always wait for at least several weeks after the release in case disasters are reported by others.

#1 as Florian says.

I think a potential problem with that might be the way ‘ten’ over a note is often interpreted in Italian opera to mean hold it well beyond the written value. I wonder whether or not we know definitively just what Verdi and maybe even more Puccini did mean by ‘ten.’ The held-for-ever high B at the en...