Another Beethoven centered beam

[Wescott]

John,

The slant in bar 72 of your version is the least objectionable imv. My main issue, however, is the lack of stems on some of those 16th notes. In fact, although I don't like the more drastic slants of the original, I still prefer it overall since there is a least a little bit of a stem on the bass notes.

But I understand the musical reason for you wanting to use the centered beam, and this is obviously one of those situations where you have to choose between notating the musical intent or making it pretty and easy to read.

Just for my own curiosity, if I myself were doing this and had to use a centered beam for this excerpt, for bar 67 I might do something like the first bar in the example below. There is at least the small sense of a stem there where the notehead doesn't sidle up to the beam.

Just spitballing here, but I wonder if something like the second example might have potential for these types of situations. Maybe, maybe not. Just thinking out loud.

Beethoven.jpg (222.21 KiB) Viewed 221 times

[John Ruggero]

I actually thought about doing this:

op 31 no 2.3C.png (322.92 KiB) Viewed 215 times

but Im afraid that this one and your second example would be anachronistic.

Concerning your first example, I was trying to keep the beams clear of the staff lines as much as possible for fear of making it hard to read. The stems on the bass notes can be longer when its a fifth lower later in the piece.

In any case, after again trying it completely modernized and still feeling that something was missing, I've decided to go with this:

op 31 no 2.3D.png (297.15 KiB) Viewed 215 times

The stems are a little longer but I think that it's still readable. As you see, I got rid of the centered beams in m.79, which weren't in the first edition and only a conjecture about what might have been in the original manuscript, which is now lost.

Thanks again for your observations, which I think have helped improve it a little at least. You are right on the money about situations where musical intent has to take precedence over everything else. But fortunately one can have that and beautiful engraving most of the time.

[Wescott]

Looking good!