Brackets for individual staves

[benwiggy]

I have lots of works with one trumpet, one oboe, plus strings. How, if at all, would you bracket the top two instruments? Together? Individual brackets? Or as is?

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[Anders Hedelin]

The winds having no brackets looks fine to me. One of them is brass, the other woodwind, so they don't really belong together. Is there a reason for putting the brass instrument on top of the woodwind one? The other way round would seem more traditional.

[benwiggy]

That's how it always scored in the manuscripts.

[Anders Hedelin]

Recent manuscripts, or old, which may have a bearing on the score order being more or less standardised? (Difficult to tell from your excerpt,) Solo winds in a concerto? (Which may account for putting the more prominent one on top of the other.)

[John Ruggero]

It may be Baroque. Bach and Handel also placed the brass at the top in their MS. I just checked a few at IMSLP.

[benwiggy]

Yes, it's a fairly common baroque ordering. Perhaps because the oboes often doubled the strings.

You wouldn't give each staff an individual bracket? They just look a bit bare!

[John Ruggero]

Looks OK to me without the bracket, but I see that the New Bach Edition brackets the various solo instruments together in the Brandenburg Concerto no. 2 for example.

[OCTO]

It looks good without brackets to me as well. The grouping is today standardised by the instrumental groups, saying "in general".

[Anders Hedelin]

To sum this up: If you are working for a scholarly edition, take care that you come as close as possible or practicable to the practice of the time when the music was written. If not, use your own common sense.

[benwiggy]

use your own common sense.

That's like when your mum tells you to 'just be yourself'.