Bärenreiter Urtext (English version)

[Schneider]

So that everyone is reminded: https://musescore.org/en/node/249356

Baerenreiter has published work made in Musescore, FEI.

In my opinion it looks just OK, but nothing particularly beautiful. I would do it differently.

So would I.
E.g. articulation and dots placement, stem lengths (as John said)...

baeren-mes3-4.jpg (62.04 KiB) Viewed 12552 times

But these are the editor's/publisher's choices arn't they?
I'm more disturb by some horizontal spacings, such as:

baeren-mes2.jpg (44.72 KiB) Viewed 12552 times

Maybe a bug?

Last but not least, I find the double subdivided beams really unpleasant/harder to read (see also bar 3, 4, 6, 9 and 10):

baeren-mes10.jpg (47.94 KiB) Viewed 12552 times

Is it specific to the piano (I'm a very bad pianist and I barely engrave piano scores -- sorry in advance if this is a basic question)?

[Schonbergian]

To some degree it looks like it's necessitated by the flat, but I agree that it is exceptionally difficult to read at first glance. All of those notes should be more evenly spaced out.

[OCTO]

Schneider, well done, I didn't have time to look at it more closely. My first impression was on stems, beams and spacing, as pointed out by John.
You could write to Bärenreiter, and link this topic for them to see. You should get job there!

[John Ruggero]

Last but not least, I find the double subdivided beams really unpleasant/harder to read (see also bar 3, 4, 6, 9 and 10):Is it specific to the piano

Unfortunately the practice of subdividing the beats by beam breaking seems to be universal now, and not just in piano music. I even see it in the Schenker-Beethoven edition. I did it in all the orchestral parts I copied for A. Arnstein, because he required it, and I think that it is advisable for ensemble music that requires quick preparation.

Where I haven't seen it is in the MS of the 18th and 19th composers that I am editing, who seem to have had a high opinion of musicians. And, of course, I engrave their beaming, because every beam break creates a little barrier that impedes the overall visual flow of the music and can distort the meaning of the note groups, which does not always coincide with the even division of the beats.

For example, in your last example, the break comes right in the middle of a short trill that begins before the beat, and this might lead to an incorrect performance of the figure. Needless to say, Bach did not make such a break in the MS of the violin version.

[DatOrganistTho]

For snorts and giggles, I decided to try this out on Dorico. This image/pdf is without any manual tweaking yet, just copying notes, articulations, and matching spec (with exception to staff/stem/curve thickness/fonts etc). I'm going to do another pass for other mistakes. Here's the breakdown of timing:

Creating new file with spec up and rolling: 27 "

Note entry: 30 '

Measuring, tweaking, and finalizing initial layout: 15 '

Some observations:

The title font is very similar if not a different weight of Palatino. The variant I have is very bland, but there is likely a semi-bold or caption weight somewhere out there. The tempo font is likely a variant of times ('e's don't match up).

Dorico handled the spurious voices with great ease. Cleaning up the extra rests from left overs was the hardest part.

There is a puzzling rhythm in V2u of m. 2. I decided to go with a tuplet which I hid in the properties panel.

Dorico doesn't like slurring to the first of two tied notes by default, which will take some tweaking.

Dorico's handling of cautionary accidentals is pleasing from a reading perspective, but I will take them out on second pass.

The overall spacing in Dorico is more consistent comparing bar to bar than in the musescore example. e.g. m.3 in the original has lots of cramming, but in m.4 is spaces out a bit. Dorico is more consistent in this regard.

01 - Full score - Sonate d-Moll - 001.png (150.29 KiB) Viewed 12216 times

[DatOrganistTho]

For snorts and giggles, I decided to try this out on Dorico. This image/pdf is without any manual tweaking yet, just copying notes, articulations, and matching spec (with exception to staff/stem/curve thickness/fonts etc). I'm going to do another pass for other mistakes. Here's the breakdown of timing:

Creating new file with spec up and rolling: 27 "

Note entry: 30 '

Measuring, tweaking, and finalizing initial layout: 15 '

Some observations:

The title font is very similar if not a different weight of Palatino. The variant I have is very bland, but there is likely a semi-bold or caption weight somewhere out there. The tempo font is likely a variant of times ('e's don't match up).

Dorico handled the spurious voices with great ease. Cleaning up the extra rests from left overs was the hardest part.

There is a puzzling rhythm in V2u of m. 2. I decided to go with a tuplet which I hid in the properties panel.

Dorico doesn't like slurring to the first of two tied notes by default, which will take some tweaking.

Dorico's handling of cautionary accidentals is pleasing from a reading perspective, but I will take them out on second pass.

The overall spacing in Dorico is more consistent comparing bar to bar than in the musescore example. e.g. m.3 in the original has lots of cramming, but in m.4 is spaces out a bit. Dorico is more consistent in this regard.

Here's another pass. Did some minor note spacing edits, line weight edits, and removed rests along with courtesy accidentals.

01 - Full score - Sonate d-Moll - 001.png (147.5 KiB) Viewed 12213 times

[OCTO]

It looks beautiful. Just a comment, is it possible to have shorter stems in general (question not for Dorico but for engraving)?

[DatOrganistTho]

It looks beautiful. Just a comment, is it possible to have shorter stems in general (question not for Dorico but for engraving)?

Yes! I guess if it doesn't break any other rules. What do you have in mind?

[OCTO]

It looks beautiful. Just a comment, is it possible to have shorter stems in general (question not for Dorico but for engraving)?

Yes! I guess if it doesn't break any other rules. What do you have in mind?

I would shorten the stems for notes with beams (16/32/64...) - at least for one space.

[Schneider]

Here's a LP version:

Baerenreiter_BA11820_p1.png (119.52 KiB) Viewed 12160 times

Tweaks are:
--- titles font;
--- indent size;
--- G clef;
--- bar numbers font and placement;
--- grace notes slur thickness;
to stick as close as possible to the Bärenreiter edition.

Compare to Dorico's output, staff-staff spacing is much reduced (so system-system spacing is larger), stems are shorter, beams are more slopy (due to shorter stems?), ties are much shorter.
Bar lines placement are very -- very -- close, but notes spacings are quiet different (same font size).

[...] You could write to Bärenreiter, and link this topic for them to see. You should get job there!

Chick?

P.S. [OT] Should a grace note slur be thinner than other slurs? [/OT]