NOTATIO

Welcome, cGilmore! How interesting. I immediately checked a couple of International piano scores on hand, Moszkowski Etudes op. 74 and the Chabrier Pieces Pittoresques and I see the opaque beaming. What is really puzzling is that I have always considered International to be a none-to-fussy reprint p...

Peter, I am so sorry. Does file corruption happen frequently with very complex music? I have never had a Finale file corrupt. Those octave signs look very architectural to me. The composer was also an architect. If I were the editor, I would have a terrible time trying to decide whether to standardi...

Knut, I don't think that the Peters editor was inconsistent. His reasoning is clear: to clarify the beats without breaking things up too much in areas where he discerned that Liszt didn't want any interior emphasis. He was trying to find a compromise between "normal" and Liszt's original. ...

I think that it is quite clear that Liszt didn't break the beams in the previous examples because he didn't want emphasis on any internal note(s) of the runs. His was so concerned that he didn't even break many beams at the end of measures! Apropos of the thread on stem direction, we see in the seco...

Knut, I agree totally with you that consistency is extremely important if the player is not to be confused, but only within parallel instances. Here are two complete pages from the first edition of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody no. 11. At times, both the beaming and stem direction are non-standard, eve...

Since we have revived this thread on beaming, maybe it is acceptable if I change the subject a little to secondary beam breaks? I was recently called to account for my failure to break through to the 1/8th note level in a group of eight 32nd notes (as advocated by E. Gould) in an example I posted at...

Thanks, Knut. There are things that I don't care for about the engraving, particularly the slurs. And the opaque beams are not always carried out well. But the idea itself is excellent and should be an option in Finale, Sibelius etc. just as French beams are an option.

I think that implementing this is something that a Finale plug-in developer might be interested in. It is probably rash to say this without seeing this "opaque" beaming in action, but I think that it could be a true engraving advance; and one that is so interesting because it is only possi...

How interesting! I see a lot in favor of it and nothing against it, at least from the performer's point of view. And one would think that the computer program should do the work rather than the engraver. It certainly could simplify some issues regarding beam angles. (The slur could use some work, ho...

Truthfully, I am completely out of my element in trying to advise you, DatOrganistTho, since I have no expertise in this area. I was hoping that someone more knowledgable would take up your question. Since that is not happening, please take this for what it is worth: Your last example appears best t...