Different notations - Bach - Cello

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John Ruggero
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Re: Different notations - Bach - Cello

Post by John Ruggero »

Den, I know you were just experimenting with the curved beams for fun, but actually, I don't think that the curved Bach beams are necessary in an authentic edition. If you look at the pieces that Bach published himself, like the Art of Fugue and the 6 keyboard Partitas you will see straight beams. The purpose of the curved beams seems to have been space-saving in some cases and to avoid very long stems, which were considered less desirable at the time than today.

I do preserve the centered beaming whenever it seems to show phrasing. In the case of your example, I wouldn't preserve the centered beaming because it was just a convenience. Of course, in converting centered beams, one has the problem of deciding which way the stems should go. In your example, I think down might be best for the second measure.

Wess's example is, of course, a duplication of a late 19th century or 20 century highly-edited edition to show how computer engraving can replicate the best features of plate engraving at its height; that is, when done by the hands of a master like Wess.

To see this work closer to its original form, see the Wiener Urtext edition of the Haydn Piano Sonatas (ed. by the Landons). Online the Paesler edition at IMSLP is also quite good:
https://ks.imslp.net/files/imglnks/usim ... onatas.pdf
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Den
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Re: Different notations - Bach - Cello

Post by Den »

John Ruggero wrote: 25 Aug 2020, 17:58 ...
To see this work closer to its original form, see the Wiener Urtext edition of the Haydn Piano Sonatas (ed. by the Landons). Online the Paesler edition at IMSLP is also quite good:
https://ks.imslp.net/files/imglnks/usim ... onatas.pdf
John is it now like your suggestion on IMSLP Paesler?

image:
HaydnExample.png
or PDF:
Joseph Haydn.pdf
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Last edited by Den on 28 Aug 2020, 19:00, edited 2 times in total.
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John Ruggero
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Re: Different notations - Bach - Cello

Post by John Ruggero »

That looks very good, Den. Here is the Wiener Urtext which is even more authentic.
Haydn Sonata Wiener Urtext.jpeg
I was very suspicious of the double slur in m. 3 in the Paesler and that indeed is not authentic.

I am just as suspicious of the slurs covering the small notes in the Wiener Urtext. These composers usually didn't go in for fussy clutter like that. And I commented on the wedges used for the staccatos in a previous thread. I prefer the standard dots because modern performers misunderstand the wedges, and the wedges themselves appear lihe that because the composers sometimes made their dots "longer" so they would be more visible to the engravers, or because dots are not so easy to make with a quill pen without moving a little and making a line inadvertently. In Beethoven's Piano Sonatas the dots and wedges are used indisciminantely. There are a few cases where Beethoven actually does mean wedges, as accents, but these he made very clear. The publishers of the time used either dots or wedges as a house style, so that is really not relevant.
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Den
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Re: Different notations - Bach - Cello

Post by Den »

John, this slurs?
Haydn Sonata Wiener Urtext2.jpeg
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John Ruggero
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Re: Different notations - Bach - Cello

Post by John Ruggero »

That's right. As are as I can tell, such slurs only became standard in the later 19th century. They are scarce* in earlier music. The earlier composers avoided extraneous markings. The attitude seems to have been that since all such ornaments were played legato, there was no need to put in slurs.

I just checked Chopin's Piano Sonata no. 3, written in 1844. No slurs for the grace notes in the first movement in the manuscript, in the first French edition or in the first German edition.

Someone once said that the late 19th editors seem to have been paid by how many additional markings they added to a score. So if they didn't clutter up the score, they were out of work.

* They do exist. There are a handful in Beethoven's Piano Sonatas.
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odod
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Re: Different notations - Bach - Cello

Post by odod »

Sonate.png
this is what i did
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