Klarinet Archive - Posting 000215.txt from 2009/10

From: "Heinemann, Stephen" <sjh@-----.edu>
Subj: [kl] Bernstein renotated (longish)
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:26:18 -0400

A while back there was an interesting discussion dealing with a new edition
of Stravinsky's Three Pieces and the problems of reading or relearning a new
version of a piece and coping with differences of typography and page
layout.

My question deals with a similar but, I think, more sinister situation. One
of my students has started learning the Bernstein Sonata, and she began with
our library's 1943 Warner Bros. edition, the same one that I own. She
ordered her own copy and received a 2001 edition from a division of Hal
Leonard. The piano part appears to be the same as the 1943, but the
clarinet part has been completely redone. It looks as though the clarinet
part from the C score (the piano part) has been input into Finale or
Sibelius, and the output is a result of hitting the "transposed score"
button: the clarinet part now has a key signature of two sharps. Many
notes have been renotated to their enharmonic equivalents. F's and C's now
have natural signs to accommodate the new key signature. The part looks
very, very different from the 1943 version in ways that go well beyond page
layout or font selection.

I think this is unacceptable. Composers put a lot of care into their
selection of notational conventions, and to change what's on the page --
whether because (a) the software requires it and/or (b) an editor has
"corrected" a composer's enharmonics -- violates the composer's intentions
and considered thought.

Do any of you know the history behind this new edition?

The Sibelius program now deals with the key signature problem elegantly: in
setting up a score, you make a distinction between C major/A minor (no
sharps or flats) versus open/atonal (no key signature); if you choose the
latter, the transposed score simply transposes the notes without imposing a
key signature. This may not have been the case in 2001. Back when I was in
grad school and Finale was new, it wasn't set up for that. (A current
student tells me that it still isn't, but I'm not sure that's accurate.)
Most of us elected not to use the program because its designers seemed not
to have sufficient music-theoretical knowledge to conceive that a piece
might not be notated as being in a particular key. (Not to mention that it
goes against training and experience for a clarinetist to play an atonal
piece with a "key signature" of two sharps.)

A quick search of the klarinet archives didn't turn up anything helpful;
apologies if I missed something there.

All best,

Steve Heinemannn
Bradley University

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