Schonbergian wrote: ↑20 Dec 2017, 22:19
With other composers than Chopin, how are we to know when an example falls into 1 or 2 rather than 3?
This is an excellent question, and I plan to give examples by other composers. Chopin is actually an exceptionally difficult case, because of the number of conflicting original sources, his constant after-the-fact tinkering, and his impatience with the mundane matters of proofreading. Other composers are generally much easier to deal with and much less error-prone. Some, like Mozart and Haydn, are dazzling in this regard; but they too were human.
In any case, it works the same with all composers, but first one has to accept as a basic premise my motto:
"The better, the composer, the better, the notation."
The best composers were and are as good at notating their music as they are composing it. That doesn't mean that they don't make mistakes; just that their
intention is always superior to any other, because they carefully (consciously or intuitively) consider all the options and make the best notational choices, just as they make the best compositional choices. One has to give up the notion that such composers are naive savants who sleepwalk while composing. All evidence suggests that the best composers "know" (again either consciously or intuitively) exactly what they are doing and "know" it better than anyone else.
So faced with a non-traditional choice in any composer's work, one must first evaluate the composer. If we are dealing with a master like Bach, Mozart or one those guys, we can be assured that the notation will be of a very high order and that we should take it very seriously.
1. So in music written by a master composer, the first question is why did the composer write it like that, given more traditional possibilities that the composer knew as well or better than anyone. This is generally not difficult to answer, because the composer is alerting us to something special by using a special notation. In the case of stem direction, he might be telling us that a passage must not be broken up in any way; that no note should stand out except the structurally significant ones etc. Every usage will have a different meaning and the player will have to think deeply about each spot to see that reason. But this is nothing more than musical interpretation, where we desire to understand everything about the music we are playing, whether traditionally notated or not.
If we cannot find any rational reason for a choice, and an obvious explanation such as crowding—which can play havoc with the notation— carelessness, or actual error seems highly likely, we can engrave the passage as it stands, or correct it, in each case adding an explanation. In my case, since I am preparing a performance edition, not a facsimile exhibiting all the warts of the MS, I will correct the notation by trying to put myself in the composer's place: what would I do if faced with a crowded situation like that in the first example in this thread. I would be forced to use up stems, but hope that the engravers would understand from all the other instances throughout the piece what I really want. Chopin, for example, had the unfortunate habit of improving the notation of a passage (slurs and other articulations) in successive repeats, but not changing the earlier ones and then assuming that the engraver would "get it" and use the final form for all the previous repetitions. That often did not happen. It is then the editor's job to understand this situation and correct it.
2. If one is dealing with a composer of lesser rank, all bets are off.