Re: [SPAM] Re: Non-standard notation challenges (no game this time...)

[Urs Liska]

Am 23.01.2014 10:39, schrieb Phil Holmes:
> > The problem I would have when presented with this music is that I would
> have no idea - not a clue - about what the writer of the music intended
> with this notation.  Is it explained anywhere?  Without that, it seems
> rather pointless to try to reproduce it.

The point in the edition of such snippets is to _document_ the actual 
state of a manuscript. This isn't _music_ but rather a remainder from 
the compositional process. Comparing this with later states allows an 
editor to draw conclusions on the genesis of the composition. And since 
it is very hard to describe something like this verbally it is typeset.

In the case of the current example it may be that Schoenberg initially 
drew the barline at a different place and then "simply" turned it into a 
cross-staff stem by cancelling it out. Depending on the context (that I 
don't know in this case, I just randomly scanned a few snippets) his may 
suggest ideas/questions/answers about a possible change of mind 
regarding the metrical structure during the compositional process.
Another aspect: I'm quite sure that the partial stem above the highest 
note doesn't mean _anything_ but simply hasn't been cancelled. But no 
editor can tell this definitely, and therefore it is important to 
document it as closely as possible to allow later editors to come to 
differing conclusions.

This isn't a hypothetical mind-play. There were numerous instances when 
I came to differing conclusions than editors of scholarly editions 
(which isn't any critique towards them but just the way it works). And 
there were occasions where I came to differing conclusions after 
inspecting the autograph sources themselves and thought that some 
aspects hadn't been documented thoroughly enough in the editions.

Urs