NOTATIO

I never used Sonata for anything more than very simple copy work, because the character set is too limited. I bought it from Adobe when it was introduced in 1986, and used it in Finale. Within a few years a friend turned me on to Susato, which I found nearly as beautiful, and compatible with Finale’s character set. I copied some scores with a mix of fonts in the ’90s.

In 2003 when I’d gotten used to Sibelius I quit taking any more Finale work, so I made do with Opus for most of my work for over a decade. Now I’m very glad to be using Bravura (Norfolk) for new scores. I’m convinced it will be a standard for years to come. (But that won’t stop me from designing my own SMuFL compatible font!)

I completely agree with tisimst's assessment of Sonata. It has several erroneous vector paths, despite being a coherent font designed by a professional. In that sense, it actually seems a bit like a rush job to me.

Sonata has undoubtedly been very influential, especially with regard to it's razor thin line weights, which has been adopted by the standard fonts in most scoring applications. Daniel Spreadbury has interestingly pointed out that this aspect likely was due to the inferior printing technology at the time of conception. Luckily, though, with the introduction of Emmentaler (Lilypond's standard font) and Bravura, the trend seems to have shifted towards more substantial line withs.

To the extent Sonata has had any influence on the quality in the actual execution of music font designs, I think there still is a lot of room for improvement, and designers would be better off studying professionally designed typefaces rather than music fonts like Sonata.

John Ruggero wrote:John ad MJCube, I see Sonata various places for free, and I like what I see. Are these OK to download and what version would you recommend?

I don't know. I believe Adobe still sells it, for about $25 or $35. I wonder if the free "Sonata" is the same font.

A Google search for a given font will show multiple sites claiming free fonts, but they’re not free.

MJCube wrote:A Google search for a given font will show multiple sites claiming free fonts, but they’re not free.

More precisely, these sites make font files available, but do not supply legitimate licenses to use them. As such, any downloaded font is a pirated copy.

Knut wrote:Sonata has undoubtedly been very influential, especially with regard to it's razor thin line weights, which has been adopted by the standard fonts in most scoring applications. Daniel Spreadbury has interestingly pointed out that this aspect likely was due to the inferior printing technology at the time of conception.

Sonata was released in 1985 or 1986, about the same time IIRC as the Apple Laserwriter, with Postscript and 300 DPI resolution. IAC don't most scoring programs draw their own stem, staff and bar lines, so users can set any thickness they want?

jrethorst wrote: IIRC don't most scoring programs draw their own stem, staff and bar lines, so users can set any thickness they want?

Yes, they do, but these widths need to match the font weights.

Of course, Adobe is moving all its fonts to OpenType now, so it has released "Sonata Std" .otf. The problem is that they have re-mapped all the characters to the Unicode section for music symbols, and not the original ASCII characters. So it won't work as a replacement for "legacy" PostScript Sonata.

benwiggy wrote:Of course, Adobe is moving all its fonts to OpenType now, so it has released "Sonata Std" .otf. The problem is that they have re-mapped all the characters to the Unicode section for music symbols, and not the original ASCII characters. So it won't work as a replacement for "legacy" PostScript Sonata.

Interesting move. Makes you wonder how much Sonata is getting these days...