NOTATIO

when giving two options for a passage, one more difficult, one easier, which version should go in the ossia measures?

let us take for granted that both version are "desirable" from a compositional point of view. in other words, there is no musical obligation for one or the other. the only consideration is difficulty: one is playable, the other is "virtuoso" level.

If all other considerations are equal, then I don't suppose it really matters either way.

I've seen both. If one version is extremely difficult beyond what might be considered normal for the performers most likely to play the piece, then that should probably be the ossia. On the other hand…

I only make ossia passages that are simpler than the written passages. Consider which version you really want to hear performed.

Berg's Violin Concerto has the easier put in the ossia.

ok, thanks all.
I was just curious if there was some sort of industry more-or-less standard regarding this.
I figured that the performer could choose the version that suits them best - easier or harder, from the main staff or from the ossia staff.

As far as I remember, in the violin (solo) literature I played, it is always an easier option that was put in the ossia.

On the other hand, the ossia in the first movement of Rachmaninoff's piano concerto no. 3 contains the more difficult and elaborate version of the cadenza.

Recently I did an arrangement in which some of the ossias are facilitations and others are freer versions of the original. In another case the ossia is a alternate that could be used on a repeat.

So I guess I think that an ossia can be anything you want it to be.

I just did a chart for a composer who used the ossia for an alternate, but slightly more difficult, section of the melody. I think anything goes.

I like to put the one I'd prefer as regular notation and the modified version as the ossia. But if it's something exceptional that I know that most players would not be able to pull off, I put that in the ossia instead.

I've seen a coloratura soprano part in Tales of Hoffman where the aria had an ossia that went up to a G6 during a florid cadenza, and I've only ever heard the ossia version performed one singer, Natalie Dessay.