Klarinet Archive - Posting 000154.txt from 2005/02

From: orm1ondtoby@-----.net (Ormondtoby Montoya)
Subj: [kl] Overdotting re Winterthur fragment
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 23:05:23 -0500

Just for the record:

I downloaded the pg. 6 facsimile and used a photo editor to 'zoom in' on
each measure. It is clear that the double dots are not umlauts. The
double dots are reasonably well aligned above each notehead. There are
no obvious smudges.

Various music dictionaries and web pages say that the meaning of a dot
to the right of a notehead was not well-defined in Baroque days. A
university course outline states that a double-dotted note sometimes (in
Baroque days) was equivalent to shortening the note and filling the
note's unplayed portion with *rests*--- thereby more akin to a staccato
than to an extension of duration. Dictionaries and web pages say that
Mozart was one of the earlier composers to champion double-dotted notes,
which were rare before his time.

All of the above prompted me to consider the possibility that, through a
combination of sloppy definitions and/or comparative novelty of double
dots and/or Mozart's messy handwriting and/or cramped measures, perhaps
Winterthur's double dots are a form of staccato or duration extension
(duration robbed from the following note) rather than a
subdivision-and-repetition as is listed in Groves. But when you
examine the facsimile with help from a photo editor, there is plenty of
room to the right of each notehead for dots. Mozart didn't need to put
them above the notehead (eg: if he had decided to add them to a cramped
measure as an afterthought). Also, there are single-dotted notes in
the Winterthur fragment, and the dots are immediately to the right of
the noteheads, where you would expect them, not above noteheads.

In summation (and definitely FWIW), I accept Dan's statement that the
only debate is what above-the-notehead notation meant in those days, and
whether the Winterthur fragment should be taken as proof of what was in
the lost K.622 holograph. I can't see how the double dots can be a
'corruption' of some other notation.

.... still, it was fun to play around with this. Certainly I couldn't
have done so 25 years ago!

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