NOTATIO

This is from Schumann's Dichterliebe. I'm interested in the crotchets (quarters) in the right hand. It's clear what is meant, but would it be acceptable to notate it thus nowadays, or would one be advised to do it differently?

I'd do it like that in a heartbeat. Now if only I could have come up with the rest of it...

Do we think the crotchet is missing in bar 4? It looks like something's been masked off a bit.

The missing stem is present in the first edition..

Here's my quick attempt in Dorico. I've beamed the vocal line, but apart from that, kept everything the same.

Dorico's placed the slurs as if the upsteam crotchet wasn't there, so bisecting its stem. I solved this by selecting all the slurs and setting their start position 1 space in.

I do like the larger lyric size of the Breitkopf edition. Small text is much harder to read at a glance for me than small music.

Yes, you're right: it can take another 1pt. I'm always a bit scared of lyrics distorting the note spacing if they get too big. Regular readers will know I've spent some time picking a typeface that's actually very legible on a printed page at smallish sizes.

Here's the complete song (2 pages). It goes quite mad at the end.

Interestingly, Dorico has matched the system breaks by itself, except for the last two lines, which I think are actually more balanced.

I had to adjust the ties at 17 and 28, which didn't cross the stem, and the slur 'end' at 23, which was a bit ungainly. I dare say it could be better.

But on the whole, I think it's a passable match, for very little effort.

When one looks closely at slurs in the old Breitkopf and Haertel edition, it is clear that the tips point directly at a note head or the end of a stem. Here is another view of the first line: The Dorico slurs do not do always do that and often seem to be pointing to the side of a stem. For that reason, I would hand shape many of these slurs.

Yes, I concur. Applying a 'shift' to the start position was a quick and easy approximation.