NOTATIO

This follows on from my reading the current thread about a Swedish song viewtopic.php?f=3&p=8754#p8754.

At 80 I sometimes find the lyric font in a score a little too small for my comfort while still being able to read the music with easy fluency. I've just compared the size of the lyrics font in the new Bärenreiter edition of Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte with the font in a recent (last year) set of songs with piano of my own which can be seen here https://composers-uk.com/davidward/wp-c ... ch-WMa.pdf I use a slightly larger font than that which is used by Bärenreiter. My size suits my eyes a little better than the size in the Beethoven, although I can read that one as well.

Does anybody here have an opinion of the size of the lyrics font in my piece? And are there any general thoughts about the size of lyrics fonts in all types of score?

I recently bought an A4 study score from composer Stuart MacRae of his absolutely superb opera Anthropocene which was performed by Scottish Opera in 2018 (or 2019?) and was due to go to Salzburg last year; but then there was Covid… This score is a direct reduction of the A3 conductor's score, with the result that I can't read the libretto at all, although I have absolutely no difficulty reading all the music. I had to download a PDF as well in order to read the words!

These are things which need to be considered.

Gould suggests as a guide (no more) that in the lyrics the letter ‘m’ (eg) should be the same height as the space between two stave lines. I would suggest that it might benefit by being just slightly bigger.

David, yours looks just fine to me. As long as the x-height (as font designers call it) is close to 1 staff space, it should look normal to the eye. Slightly larger or smaller no problem, as long as it’s within +/- 5%.

I'd say that your size matches well to my collection of songs, mostly 1950s and earlier. It could be smaller, with little loss of clarity, but it's not too big.

Songs tend to have lyrics larger than choral scores, or concert works or operas.

Of course, the typeface itself is crucial, as some typefaces can be more legible at smaller sizes than others. I'm guessing that's the Finale Lyric font, which is essentially a compressed Times.

In case anyone's interested, I've attempted some calculations via Finale's arcane arithmetical processes.

The songs linked above use Finale Lyrics font which shows as 15 point in the Lyrics Window, but when adjusted for scaling is 11.4 point in the A4 printed music.

The vocal score I'm currently struggling with off & on (see viewtopic.php?f=2&t=758) has *Times 14 point in the Lyrics Window which with scaling becomes 9.66 point printed to A4. This looks easily legible.

Now I'm checking the full score of the same piece, printed variously to A4 (study score), B4 (general purpose score) or A3 (optional large score for conductor). All three start with 18 point in the Lyrics Window. This prints as 7.38 point to A4, 8.78 for B4 and 10.44 in A3. The music is easy to read and to mark up in all three, but whereas I can read the words in the A4 study score, I'm definitely more comfortable reading (but less comfortable carrying!) the B4.

Just now I'm checking my score of Die Frau ohne Schatten, which is printed to a size in height between A4 and B4, but proportionally wider. In this score, on some pages so much is going on that of necessity they use rather small staves. However the visible point size for the libretto seems to stay the same absolute size as on pages in which the staves are noticeably larger. I find this a helpful practice in a large full score, even if it means that when the staves are forced to become small the lyrics font is visibly larger in relation to the spaces in the staves than would be normal by convention.

*I tried to convert the original font for lyrics from Times to Finale Lyrics, but there were several missing characters in crucial places, so I left it as it was.

If you haven't already, you may want to download the Finale 27 demo. Finale Lyrics has been updated (now v2.3), and may contain more glyphs (275) than previously.

Your choice of font size is excellent, David, and makes the music instantly readable from a decent distance. I like it much more than the smaller "style" in vogue today. Evidently many of these engravers have never collaborated with "working" singers who need to read plenty of repertoire.