Interpreting notation in an old score

andgle: your workaround does not produce a beam across the barline - otherwise it would be a possibility to get around the limitation. If we only could get stems invisible, I would know another workaround :wink:

oh, and my guess is: the example shows a string quartet. We see the cello and viola staves. The key might be a Minor key. Probably Beethoven period or earlier.

Just select the notes, Edit > Beaming > Beam together :smiley:
Skjermbilde 2017-08-03 kl. 23.21.34.png
Still a workaround though, but not too cumbersome


Edit: possible in one action using a macro:

That is an elegant and beautiful solution, andgle!

Great!

andgle, fantastic workaround!

andgle, thanks for your excellent solution to my original post.

My example was from an Orlando Gibbons Fantazia.

For fun, here’s an autograph example from a famous piece by a composer who was admired by all his contemporaries and has never gone out of vogue since the day he died: Chopin Etude op 10 no 3 (1833). How nice and neat it is without all those ties in the left hand!

goldberg, if I may ask, from which Gibbons Fantazia?

I know about 9 Fantazias in three parts and some in six parts (your score example seems to have more than three parts, judging by the bar lines).
If one has a look at an early edition of the three part Fantazias (from around 1620): no barlines at all - and so no tied-over notes…


Fantazia 2.png

I felt challenged and put 3-part Fantazia 2 into Dorico - no barlines, as in the first print (and obviously also the ms.). It was really easy, this is from the score:


Poor Tchaikovsky didn’t like Bach’s music either, so clearly he wouldn’t like the noble music of Johannes Brahms.

A musicologist claimed, that Brahms’s music incorporates a feeling of constant fatigue.
Oh dear…
ps: I do like Brahms :wink:

I enjoy playing Brahms. There are composers whose music I don’t much care for but I don’t really understand not even being able to look at music you don’t like. Actually I don’t understand detesting certain music. But I suppose someone who does would simply say I’m not passionate enough about music. And perhaps that is a reasonable criticism. But I think of Lang Lang and his gestures to the sky or touching his heart while playing and think…do you really have to overtly make sure everyone knows how moved you are by the music.

I find that I like all music that has something positive and interesting to say and does it sincerely and successfully, which includes most of the music of both Brahms and Tchaikovsky. But I am afraid that I too stay away from music that I feel is lacking in one or more of those areas, life being short and art long. Just substitute “Bruckner” for “Brahms” in the original detestation statement above, and you’ll have my feeling about his music.

Robert, I too find the exaggerated emoting of some current performers off-putting and distracting. And it seems to be getting worse… IMO if it looks over-done and phony, it’s either an “act”, a compensation for a technical or musical failure of some kind, or just a bad habit. True mastery is characterized by economy of all kinds including demeanor. However, there are performers whose flamboyance is totally sincere and positive, like Friedrich Gulda; one feels this immediately and it enhances rather than detracting from the performance. Friedrich Gulda: Beethoven - Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major Op. 73 - YouTube

with goldbergs help we have now tracked down the original piece by Gibbons, it is a Pavane à 6 [viols] in the original:


I completely agree about Gulda.

Of course this doesn’t just apply to music-making. I know people who drive cars never violating any laws, but I don’t feel at all safe travelling as a passenger with them. There are others who, objectively, “drive like maniacs”, but I feel perfectly safe in a car with them because their “technique” soon convinces the passengers that their thinking is a few steps ahead of most other people on the road, and not a reaction to what has already happened!

Of course with music, there are also those who (it seems) couldn’t count a steady beat even to save their own lives :wink: I once remember trying to accompany a violinist who played the Gounod-Bach “Ave Maria” as an encore (which we hadn’t rehearsed!) and seemed to be convinced there were only 7 16th-notes in a half-note, for the entire piece. After a few bars I just gave up and only played 7 out of every 8 notes - and the violinist’s only comment was “that went well, apart from the beginning” :angry:

And then there are the singers who can’t count. And the accompaniment has notes which the singer would like to ignore and let’s just get on with it. With difficult music it can be a challenge just keeping up. Such fun.

But not so much fun as the singers who decide 10 seconds before they start singing that they can’t handle the top notes, and want you to transpose the accompaniment at sight from G# minor to F minor…

Gerald Moore used to tell a nice story of the time when he messed up doing that, and finished a section of horrendously difficult music full of modulations a third higher than the original key, not a third lower … :blush:

Interesting, I had a similar experience with exactly the same piece. A lady amateur singer wanted to sing the “Ave Maria” at a church event, so we rehearsed at her place. I had problems to keep up with her rhythm. Later she played me her favourite recording of this piece on her grammophone. It was a very old recording of a famous singer with orchestral accompaniment. At that point I noticed, that she had learnt the music from that recording exactly 1:1 …

I love the Gerald Moore story. Singers are the worst. But we love them don’t we? Don’t we?

I’m supposed to accompany a singer later this month but bless her, I’m not likely to get the music much before and there won’t be much rehearsal time judging from previous occasions. But we cope.

I guess there is some subconscious jealousy involved. As an instrumentalist one might think, music can be done by producing the right notes, tempo, pitch, rhythm, expression etc. - the “technical” aspect of it.
So why is a singer more successful, if some of these aspects seem to be lacking??
They might have the ability to reach the audience in another way, make them cry - for whatever reason :wink:

Talking about opera: very simply said, drama and theatre started with just spoken words. Later music was added, as it seemed to work well. In the mean time, music has sometimes taken over the drama and got “too” important… [end off topic]