Klarinet Archive - Posting 000408.txt from 2005/02

From: ormo2ndtoby@-----.net (Ormondtoby Montoya)
Subj: [kl] to Dan Leeson - diminutions
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 13:06:36 -0500

Dan, while I was searching for something else, I chanced upon an article
in Harvard Music Dictionary about diminutions.

What caught my eye was the combination of:

(a) "diminution" has the same effect as the double dots that you noticed
in the Winterthur fragment, and

(b) diminution was occasionally considered to be an allowed form of
ornamental improvisation. The dictionary article is more than a page
long and discusses aspects of this in detail.

My thought is: Could Mozart have used the double dots (instead of
writing out separate notes) in order to indicate that a small amount of
improvisation was invited?

The dictionary's article does not mention a double or quadruple dot
notation, but the article made me think about the possibility?

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Wed Feb 25 - only 15 donations short of the goal. Nothing |
| in life is free - including 5 servers and bandwidth. A reed |
| costs a couple of bucks - what is the list worth? |
| https://secure.donax-us.com/donation/ |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org