Well, all of the above will fin into one staff space (the large ones will touch the staff line above and below, though) so I think they're fine in this respect. SMuFL already lists (relatively short) hairpins and corresponding Messa di voce as recommended characters. I may add some more of these to accommodate the need for different lengths, however, they will never be wider than a regular hairpin.John Ruggero wrote:Yes, please make a beautiful assortment of such accents. […] The longer ones should not be too wide.
Interesting, thanks for that! I only have the Henle edition, but I can tell you that their approach is decidedly different from the Wiener Urtext with regard to these markings. In the measures you point out, Henle substitutes the 'intensity mark' with a regular accent mark, placing it above the note. Two exceptions are m. 13, where the mark is left out entirely, and m. 30, were the mark seems to be substituted by a short, regular diminuendo leading into stretto.John Ruggero wrote:Here is a look inside the Wiener Urtext of the Chopin Nocturnes:
To my ears, the treatment of both 'intensity marks' and accents is somewhat ambiguous in most of the recordings I've heard. The bottom line for both seem to be to bring the note out somewhat, but neither the 'intensity marks' nor many of the regular accents seem to be treated very differently. To my ears, the only real determining factor of how these symbols are treated is the context in which they appear.