Klarinet Archive - Posting 000416.txt from 2003/07

From: CBA <clarinet10001@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Accidentals in the same octave only
Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 04:08:35 -0400

As someone who transcribes things often for Woodwind Quintet and
Octet, I think I might could explain this one.

If you look in the parts of Pomp and Circumstance, the different
parts would, of course, NOT have the accidental necessary, as an
accidental could apply to other voices in a reduced score, but
not necessarily in a full parts score, where the parts are all
individually on separate lines.

I had a monstrous time transcribing Bach Cantata 51 for a
Woodwind Quintet and Vocalist, because of the opposite
problem... I would forget accidentals in other parts that HAD
transcended octaves in the accompaniment part without additional
accidentals shown...and the individual parts resulting were
missing a LOT of accidentals. I learned my lesson on that one. I
now go back and put the other accidentals for other octaves that
are implied when the accidental is only marked on one octave,
but meant to go throughout the whole measure (in the score.) I
do that FIRST. Then I go back and pull parts out, without having
to worry about lost accidentals that were not marked, because
they weren't needed in the paino part.

My point is actually reverse psychology here. If the individual
instrument parts weren't together in a piano reduction, when you
go to MAKE a piano reduction, you might not necessarily see the
natural sign needed to cancel an accidental that wasn't even in
the same part in the full score before it was reduced to a piano
part. A publisher also probably wouldn't change this, as a
copyist might miss it. They would be checking the notes, note by
note, to the original, multi-part score, and since the
accidentals were not in the original part, they wouldn't look
for them to be there in the reduction. This would be similar to
a spellcheck program not catching a misuse of "there" when it
should have been "their."

Elgar's dates are slightly before Richard Strauss and slightly
after Brahms. I believe all three of these composers would
precede the 1944 Harvard Dictionary entry for this rule of
accidentals being for the octave written only, so they were
probably using rules from Bach through Beethoven, which DID have
the accidentals carrying from octave to octave in a measure,
most assuredly.

I think, even though this is Carl Fisher, which is usually head
and shoulders above publishers like Lucks and Kalmus, that this
is an oversight in the transcription process.

Kelly Abraham
Woodwinds - New York City
--- Tim Roberts <timr@-----.com> wrote:
> When someone last year first stated the rule that accidentals
> apply only to
> the note in the octave in which they appear, I was stunned;
> I've played the
> piano for 35 years, and I'd never heard that.
>
> Since then, I have been looking for music that either
> demonstrates or
> contradicts that rule. This weekend, I happened across a
> piece that DOES
> demonstrate the rule. It is a piano transcription of Elgar's
> "Pomp and
> Circumstance", published in 1958 by Carl Fischer Music. It
> contains at
> least seven measures in which an accidental is obviously not
> intended to
> apply in other octaves.
>
> I scanned a 5-measure stretch of the music that includes 3
> examples of
> this. If you're curious, poke here:
>
> http://www.probo.com/timr/signature.html
>
> I know this is not definitive, and I suspect nothing ever will
> be, but this
> is an example of professional engraving by a well-respected
> publisher.
> --
> - Tim Roberts, timr@-----.com
> Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.

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