NOTATIO

I have been asked to Engrave (Finale) a new edition of the 4 Piano pieces of Xenakis: Evryali, Mist, Homage å Ravel, Six Chansons de 1951. Quite a challenge. I'll keep you guys posted about how it goes.

Peter West wrote:I have been asked to Engrave (Finale) a new edition of the 4 Piano pieces of Xenakis: Evryali, Mist, Homage å Ravel, Six Chansons de 1951. Quite a challenge. I'll keep you guys posted about how it goes.

Sounds fun! Please do.
Is Durand the publisher?

Yes, indeed (Well, Salabert actually, but it's all Universal Music, Paris)

What a challenge!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3qYqmOD-qU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH4j70KU-RQ

I would be happy to follow your work, thoughts, doubts and success!

Doubts?

I've started with the easier ones first. Six Chansons pour Piano didn't present many problems. This early piece (1951) is rhythmically similar to Bartok in many ways and so there were no challenges from a setting point of view. As all 4 pieces are to be presented as a single volume, the page size has had to be enlarged from the original plan 24 x 32 cm to B4 in order to fit some of aR and Mists onto the page. This allowed one of the 2 page movements to compress onto a single page and keep the last song on a single recto/verso spread.

Today I have set àR (Homage à Ravel). This has no rhythmic difficulties like Evryali and Mists, but there are a many 1/64th notes in 4/4 time. Also the original edition was on a 3 page spread which I have tried to reduce to 2 pages. I used a couple of tricks to enable this: first I reduced the staff size from 6mm to 5.7mm. This solved most problems, but in places I needed to get 2 bars on a system when the original had 1. It still wouldn't fit. Using Durand's accidental rule meant I could remove a load of naturals. Closer, but still not there. I then reduced the notehead font from 24pt to 23 pt, and the accidental font (DSE01 which is quite bold) from 24 pt to 22 pt. That did it. The vertical spacing has needs to be quite tight, but I now have it on 2 pages. Result!!!

I shall start on Evryali tomorrow...

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Peter West wrote:End of page 2...

Nicely done!

Just a few observations and questions:

The broken primary beams in LH, 2nd system is quite clever, but it looks like you've missed the extension from the first grouping.

Shouldn't the splayed stems in the last measure be attached to the right side of the offset noteheads to avoid collisions on the left side?

It seems to me that the sharp is quite a bit wider than the natural, which affects the spacing to some degree, especially in the tightest situations. (I realize that you're probably stuck with this font, but I just wanted to point it out.)

Nice done, Peter!
A question: do you make a verbatim copy of the current editions or you can make some changes?

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