Notation Programs' Output Comparison

[Knut]

I The beaming in the Godowsky is to show a "hint" of 3/4 hemiola fighting the groups of 6 within each 6/8 half measure. If he had written it as twelve beamed notes with 3 normal four-note secondary beamed groups, the groups of 6 would have been lost. A simpler notation would have been to omit the unusual connecting beams and broken the 16th beams 4 + 2, 2 + 4 for each half measure. Everyone would have known what was meant.

Thank you for this explanation. I can see the intention, but the effect of such a complicated notation is not easy on my eyes, I must say. Your suggested solution is what I (and, I imagine, most others would have done).

I am glad you like the suggestion, Knut, and I like yours as well. I tried to search for a list of all composer's autographs at IMSLP without success. There is no such animal under genre. If anyone could give me a URL I would be very grateful.

Here's a list of all manuscripts available on IMSLP:
http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Manuscripts

[John Ruggero]

Thanks, so much, Knut. Once I learn how to use the "Category Walker", no easy task, I should be able to find some stuff.

It appears that the IMSLP Main Page is useless for anything except basic searches, and one must Google search to find anything else. I still can't find how to get to the Category Walker, which seems so be the main search tool, without going through Manuscripts. Maybe there is something to select that I am missing?

Another suggestion:

Brahms Piano Piece op. 119 no. 1 It's in PD, both the autograph and the copy made from the autograph for the 1st edition and the first edition are available at IMSLP, plenty of complexity, it is well-known. Only negative: it is two pages.

http://imslp.org/wiki/4_Klavierstücke,_ ... Johannes)

[Knut]

Another suggestion:

Brahms Piano Piece op. 119 no. 1 It's in PD, both the autograph and the copy made from the autograph for the 1st edition and the first edition are available at IMSLP, plenty of complexity, it is well-known. Only negative: it is two pages.

Wow, that is a beautiful score! The engraving of the 1st edition seems almost perfect too me, though, so there's little potential here except for pure copying.

Regardless, there's a lot to learn from this score, so thank you for directing me to it, John!

[John Ruggero]

You are very welcome, Knut.

If we are looking for something that hasn't been well-engraved previously, I think that it needs to be something that is undeservedly neglected and a real "find".

I have been looking at the IMSLP manuscripts, but so far no luck.

[Knut]

If we are looking for something that hasn't been well-engraved previously, I think that it needs to be something that is undeservedly neglected and a real "find".

That's not what I meant. This score isn't just well-engraved, but (almost) perfect, in my opinion. Surely there must be some well-engraved scores which still leave some room for improvement.

I realize that others might have issues with the engraving of this score as well, but I don't. That is not to say that I wouldn't change certain cosmetic aspects if I were to re-engrave it, but I am hoping for a score with the potential for something more than that.

[John Ruggero]

Knut, I certainly share your enthusiasm with what we see in the first edition of op 119 and agree that it represents a high water mark in engraving. But given that everything in the standard repertoire has been engraved by Simrock, Breitkopf, Durand, Henle and company, including the complete works of some of the greatest composers, one may need to look elsewhere if it is required to find something that has potential for great improvement. Unfortunately, I really couldn't find anything like that at IMSLP that satisfies the other requirements. There was always an issue with length, complexity, quality or something.

Other ideas:

The autographs of the Webern Pieces for string quartet op. 5 and the Pieces for violin and piano op. 7 exist online at:

http://www.themorgan.org/music/manuscript/115911
http://www.themorgan.org/music/manuscript/115915

They contain several pieces of one page in length, they are in the PD, they are complex. What they are not is well-known. And the first editions at IMSLP by Universal are of very fine quality.

I have to admit that the improvement aspect never occurred to me. I thought of this as simply a computer engraving display.

[Knut]

Notice I haven't used the word perfection to describe any of your other suggestions, even if they have been engraved by any of the publishers you mention.

The aspect of improvement has been suggested by OCTO as well, but if the purpose of this exercise simply is to see how a score would look when engraved in a certain application, then a perfect score will do better as a source than a fair or bad one.

Anyway, regardless of which piece is chosen for this venture, I will probably copy the Brahms score when I have the time, just for my own learning experience. When it's done I'll post it here for comments if anyone is interested.

I like the Webern pieces as well, particularly No. 5, and might do the same with some of them.

[John Ruggero]

Knut, do you feel that the engraving of op. 119 no. 1 is better than the other pieces in op. 119 and also better than the pieces in op. 76, op. 116, op. 117, op. 118, all published by Simrock, or the same works published by Breitkopf in the Complete Works edition?

Here is another archive of MS, but there may be legal issues with these:
http://www.themorgan.org/music/manuscript-list

I have added some piano pieces by Bartok below. There are no MS available for any of these. The Improvisations are the most complex.

Summary of suggestions so far. Please alert me if I left out anything.

Bartok Hungarian Peasant Songs, 1-2 pages, 1st edition online
Bartok 14 Bagatelles, 1st edition online, 1-2 pages, 1st edition online
Bartok 10 Easy Pieces, 1st edition online, 1-2 pages, 1st edition online
Bartok 3 Hungarian Folksongs, from Csik, 1-2 pages, 1st edition online
Barok 8 Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs, 1-2 pages, 1st edition online
Beethoven Bagatelle op. 119 no. 11, 1 page, 1st edition online
Beethoven Piano Sonata op. 101 3rd mov., 1 page MS online, 1st edition online
Beethoven Piano Sonata op. 13 introduction, 1 page, 1st edition online
Berg? copyright issues. There are early songs at the Morgan Library online, but I don't know about copyright issues.
Brahms Waltz op. 39 no. 15 solo piano version, 1 page MS online, 1st edition online
Brahms Piano Piece op. 119 no. 1, 2 pages MS online, 1st edition online
Chopin Prelude op 28 no. 18, 1 page, MS available at music libraries, 1st edition online
Grieg Lyric Piece op. 12 no. 1, 1 page, 1st edition online
Debussy "The Little Shepherd" from Children's Corner, 2 pages, MS online, 1st edition online
Debussy “Girl with the Flaxen Hair” from Preludes Book 1 no. 8, 2 pages, Dover facsimile of the MS, 1st edition online
Janaček one mvt from the quartets, 1- pages, 1st edition online
Massenet Le fleur et la papillon, 2-3 pages, MS online, no edition existing?
Ravel Mov 2 from "Sonatine", 2 pages, 1st edition online
Ravel Prelude (A minor), 2 pages, 1st edition online
Schumann Kinderscenen op. 15 no. 7 or 13, 1 page, 1st edition online
Scriabin Poeme op. 59 no. 1 1 page, MS online, 1st edition online
Scriabin Masque op. 63 no. 1 2 pages, MS online, 1st edition online
Scriabin Piano Sonata 7, first page only, 1 page, MS online, 1st edition online
Scriabin Piano Sonata no 10, 1- pages, 1st edition online
Webern 5 Moviments for string quartet op. 5, 1-4 pages, MS online, 1st edition online
Webern 4 Pieces for violin and piano op. 7, 1-2 pages, MS online, 1st edition online
A choral piece

[Knut]

Knut, do you feel that the engraving of op. 119 no. 1 is better than the other pieces in op. 119 and also better than the pieces in op. 76, op. 116, op. 117, op. 118, all published by Simrock, or the same works published by Breitkopf in the Complete Works edition?

I've looked through the Simrock and Breitkopf editions of the pieces you've listed (not in detail, mind you) and my impression is that, yes, the Simrock engraving of Op. 119 no. 1 does indeed stand out. This entire edition is at a very high level, but I have some minor issues with placement in the other pieces.

Simrock's engraving of Op. 118 is definitely on par with Op. 119, while the engraving of the other pieces, although very good, are not quite at the same level, in my opinion.

In Breitkopf's case, I'd say that the engraving of Op. 19 no. 1 is almost as good as Simrock. Their quality seems to be more even overall, but in the case of both Op. 118 and 119, I think they fall short of the Simrock engravings.

Thanks for putting together the summary, btw!

[John Ruggero]

Knut wrote:

the Simrock engraving of Op. 119 no. 1 does indeed stand out

In that case, this particular engraving certainly deserves special study and commentary and would get my vote as our example piece, especially given the wealth of readily available primary materials.