John Ruggero wrote:gary-duane wrote: Off the top of my head, if I were notating the Op 25 No. 2, F minor, I would most likely put a slash through the first small note but not on the second
I think that is a fine way to notate it.
gary-duane wrote:There are about 10 different subjects on my mind that I would like to discuss, all related, but my answer would wander too much.
I've enjoyed it, gary-duane. And don't forget about Notat.io. That is another good place to post about notational matters.
I agreed with you about the Em Prelude!
John, what I'm thinking about goes WAY beyond this thread.
Over the last couple years I got extremely interested in some of the music of Grusin, and I wanted Death of Love and Trust for my students. But I did not think any written version of it existed, so I simply wrote it out.
Later I found out that he did publish it, but his written version is cut and obviously is not fully accurate.
The interesting thing for me: I heard it as being in 6/4, in groups of two. One two Three four Five Six, but without obvious accents, so often somewhat ambiguous.
He write it in 3/4, apparently with a kind easy jazz waltz in mind. But my original idea (which I then changed) worked equally well and at times was more logical.
Anywhere in which the music was more or less metronomic my transcribing was otherwise right on the money, but in the intro, where it was free, mine was completely different. I think that PERHAPS someone would play a bit closer to what he played by using mine, but of course I can't be sure.
The important part to me is that at all times we assume that we get more information from the written page than we actually do. In particular piano music is terribly imprecise. The sustain pedal alone makes a mockery out of written note values.
My student yesterday asked me about pedaling in the middle section of the Op. 25, No. 10, and I was stumped for about 10 minutes. The problem: My LH stretches to an 11th, and I can play most of the large chords written by Chopin, Liszt and Rachmaninov solid. Even if I roll them slightly, I can always hold the lower notes, especially the bass, and that changes for me the timing of the pedal. I don't think about it.
My student, Jay, who is actually taller than I am, has a minor 10th but can't play things like E-G#, and in one place no matter how I tried to work it out, I got a burp when I rolled a chord he could not hit solid. I had to play one measure without a pedal change, something I would never do myself, because the timing of a roll cut a RH octave, and I could find no other solution.
Now, compare that with the almost total lack of pedal marks in older piano music OR the overly specific, dumbed down markings we see everywhere to day..
That's just one of about a hundred problems that young students have to solve, with our help, for which the music is absolutely useless.
Then there is interpretation: what do we do when performance tradition absolutely contradicts the music?
In the case of the Op. 25, No. 2, for me a huge problem is not rit. at the end, which I see nowhere - not in any edition. But no one would think of gunning right through to the end without slowing down, usually a lot.
In the even more famous and obviously more often played C Minor Prelude I have never seen any indication of a dim. at the end. From the music I would assume that Chopin had in mind a rather angry crescendo right to the end. To preserve that idea I show that to my young students, play it that way, then play it as it is usually played, building up to around the Ab chord then bringing it down.
Where did that performance tradition come from?
That is always my question.
There is a place (at least one) in Debussy's Sunken Cathedral where Debussy very obviously double-times his own composition. But most people do not follow the piano roll, which I think is very convincing. They assume the score must determine the final decision.
Finally, Rachmaninov did all sorts of things in his own recordings of his own music that are nothing like the scores. One that I find particularly convincing is a kind of lilt in his playing in big melodies that are in 4/4 where those pairs are almost swung a tiny bit, not truly 6/4 but something sort of in between. It is a peculiar characteristic of his playing sound, as I remember it particularly obvious in his 4th Concerto, last movement.
But no one plays the music that way.
To me this is very strange.
We have a unique chance to HEAR what these greats actually did, and most people will ignore the "sound-evidence" in favor of their scores.
Not my favorite editor either (to put it mildly). 
