Cross-staff Alignment with Seconds

[John Ruggero]

In Chopin's infamous (because of the difficulty) Etude op. 10 no. 2, there is a very interesting case of alignment involving seconds.

Here is the French 1st edition, which, along with the MS, is generally the most important primary source for Chopin's music:
Note that the LH on beats 3 and 4 of measure 1 and beat 2 of measure 2 is aligned with the lower notes in the RH.

Chopin etude 1st Fr edition.jpg (62.32 KiB) Viewed 7646 times

FInale aligns all LH notes under the upper voice as in the following Mikuli edition (Schirmer):

Chopin etude Mikuli.jpg (69.48 KiB) Viewed 7646 times

I prefer the French 1st edition, because the RH lower voices and the LH form a unit and best appear so. Here is a Peters edition that does just that:

Chopin etude Peters.jpg (64.52 KiB) Viewed 7646 times

However, there might be situations involving seconds where the LH notes would best be positioned under the top RH voice, for example, if the LH were moving in parallel with the top RH voice.

Is a computer program capable of making decisions of this type?

[Knut]

With regard to this particular situation I totally agree with you that lining up layer two in the upper staff and the notes in the left hand is much better.

In a scoring app you might be able to choose which layer to align with on a case by case basis (which would be a really nice feature btw), but I can't see this decision being done automatically. There are no definitive similarities to determine which layer to align to, and the decision is too dependent on context. Until an application is able to analyze entire segments of music and use that as a basis for spacing decisions, I think it will have to be determined by the engraver.

[John Ruggero]

With regard to this particular situation I totally agree with you that lining up layer two in the upper staff and the notes in the left hand is much better.

I am glad that we see eye to eye on this one! Yet most editions go the other way, including the German first edition, which is inconsistent.

In a scoring app you might be able to choose which layer to align with on a case by case basis (which would be a really nice feature btw),

Indeed it would be! Perhaps a Finale plugin? Because of the uniformity of this piece, one could instruct the program to make the LH and RH middle part align throughout. But this would be the exception.

but I can't see this decision being done automatically. There are no definitive similarities to determine which layer to align to, and the decision is too dependent on context.

That's the bad news. The good news is that music engravers have job security for at least another century and probably a lot more.

[Knut]

ndeed it would be! Perhaps a Finale plugin? Because of the uniformity of the this piece, one could instruct the program to make the LH and RH middle part align throughout. But this would be the exception.

A plug-in should be able to make these adjustments on any selected passage, but as you say, it won't (yet) be able to determine whenever to leave them alone. In any case, this is certainly something for Jari to look into.

[Knut]

BTW, in Dorico treats these situations by separating the up and down stem notes into two separate 'columns', to which you can decide to distribute the different layers. Unfortunately, though, this currently only applies to notes on the same staff, but I'm guessing it could consider voices in other staffs in the future. If so, this would represent a rather convenient way to adjust these kind of situations manually.

I'll take this to the Dorico forum to see what they have to say.