Finale Forum

Apropos of nothing, I note that someone has just produced an edition for Baeren of music by Bach, arranged for harpsichord, using MuseScore.

https://musescore.org/en/node/249356

There is now more choice than ever before: MuseScore, Lilypond, Dorico, Sibelius and Finale. And I think Finale is flourishing because of, not despite, the competition.
What it really shows is that engravers who know what they're doing can produce professional results in any software.

No argument there.

MuseScore is free — and worth every penny.

BuonTempi wrote:What it really shows is that engravers who know what they're doing can produce professional results in any software.

"And I certainly can make a list of things I had to change manually:-)". Significant addition.

Even though the MuseScore example looks okay (there are some aspects that bother my eyes), there are inconsistencies (which probably would have been fixed had the edition been edited more carefully). All I'm trying to say is that, as others have said, one can get decent results in practically any program. Maybe they will finish editing this edition before the 2nd edition.

Zuill

P.S.: I suppose specifying at least one of the inconsistencies would be fair: augmentation dot placement. Now, if the placement of the dots was based on an earlier edition, and were not to be changed, then I guess this would be an edition I would avoid, as there is visual confusion. This is only one page. I can imagine there would be many more in ensuing pages.

BuonTempi wrote:What it really shows is that engravers who know what they're doing can produce professional results in any software.

Some more easily than others!

Question: Is Finale only for those " engravers who know what they're doing" ?

I would think, not. Out of the box, Finale's default settings are pretty good. I would guess that only really high-end copyists (and those who think they are) or people composing extremely graphic contemporary scores, find the quibbles. For most of us, a touch here and a touch there, and we're good.

I don't think any program is going to all things to all people. So the questions becomes, "if I see something I don't like, how easily can I change it?"

A most reasonable answer. I was beginning to wonder from some of the response I have seen here. Thanx.

The more I look at that one page sample, the less I'm liking it. Let me say right off that my own area of experience does not extend to solo piano or keyboard music such as this, so consider the source of my comments.

The font is not the greatest. I'm assuming it is the MuseScore default font. The accidentals do not match - the natural is fine, but the sharp is really undernourished and the flat could use a bit of beefing up. The bass clef is ridiculous and the treble clef looks small and like it's ready to morph itself into that butt-ugly Petrucci clef. The half notehead looks wierd.

Zuill already pointed out the augmentation dot problems. In the last system, first measure beat 3 and second measure beat 4, the dots should be one step lower.

Some of the slurs that appear on the beam side are too far away from the beam - see m5. The tie in m1 should be placed in the E space. There seems to be some inconsistency with regard to the placement of ties, but that subject might be a bit beyond me, for keyboard music.

Music like this is a challenge for the engraver, that's for sure. I really hope they take a look at some things before this goes to press.

N.

From the other pictures on that page, looks like it's already gone to press (or would they put a nice cover on a proof?).

N Grossingink wrote:The font is not the greatest. I'm assuming it is the MuseScore default font.

It's not the default. It's a font called Gonville, originally created a while back for LilyPond, but a SMuFL derivative was created so it could be included/used in MuseScore. The default music font in MuseScore is the same as LilyPond, called Emmentaler, albeit an older version if my eyes don't deceive me.

I hope that it is a rough draft, because aside from the unfortunate spacing throughout, there appears to be an major error in the last eighth beat of measure 3. Here is Bach's violin original transposed to the key of the arrangement. It is very clear in the original manuscript:
If the Leonhardt is based on a variant source, it is a rhythm that I have never seen in Bach:

And to make things even worse here is the bar before John's example. First in the Baerenreiter/Leonhardt (?) arrangement:
Then the Violin Sonata in G minor, transposed to D minor:
It seems they have lost something in Baerenreiter. Lost count for example.

I'm also a little puzzled by how it is possible to make rhythmical errors like the ones John and I pointed out in a notational program like MuseScore, and get away with it. Finale always reacts, whether you like it or not. The alternative is that it's really meant to be like that in the arrangement. The reason eludes me though.

It hardly matters that a program can make the errors, as even Finale makes errors (or at least allows the user to get away with errors). One should not rely on a program to fix the errors. That is the engraver's, and then the editor's job to catch and correct the errors.

Zuill

I simply meant that digital notation programs can do one thing infallibly: they can count. So, in the Baerenreiter case, the program's counting must have been overruled, or MuseScore is a very different program.

Point taken. I've dabbled with MuseScore, but have not tried it for anything as industrious. Maybe I should, considering all the news coming out of MakeMusic lately. Seems like they are in some sort of transition period.

Zuill

Have I missed these news from MM? What are they?

They're dropping PrintMusic and Notepad for Mac. Big news, in a way.

Zuill

Nothing that would impact you directly, since you use the full Finale on Windows.

https://www.finalemusic.com/blog/finale ... gh-sierra/


But worrisome, just the same.

The Finale Mac news is because of Apple's scandalous lack of upward compatibility rather than MakeMusic woes, I think.

Anders Hedelin wrote:I'm also a little puzzled by how it is possible to make rhythmical errors like the ones John and I pointed out in a notational program like MuseScore, and get away with it. Finale always reacts, whether you like it or not. The alternative is that it's really meant to be like that in the arrangement. The reason eludes me though.

Maybe this is explained in the critical commentary. I do not have the edition so I cannot check. I could imagine that the reason to the rhythmical errors and the melodic deviations pointed out in another post is that the source used, I.E. Leonhardt's own manuscript, is written like that. It is not common to see rhythms that don't add upp in Bach's music, but in much other music from that time it happens quite often. I have many times had to use work-arounds in Finale to replicate 17th and 18th century rhythmic notation.

If my guess is correct, the editor has chosen to be true to Leonhardt's version (and notation!) without going back to the sources for the arrangements.

And let's not be too quick to blame the engraver or notation program for what we see as errors or shortcomings.

I often have clients who want things done a certain way which I might not entirely agree with. But since they are signing the checks, I am beholden to carry out their wishes.

Judging from the sample pages on their website, other recent scores by Baerenreiter, like their new edition of the Beethoven piano sonatas, are also not at the high level that one is accustomed to from this publisher. https://www.baerenreiter.com/en/shop/pr ... s/BA11805/

Aside from the unattractive font, many of the slurs and ties are too curved or are otherwise badly shaped, some stems are too long and "unbeautified", the piano braces in their new op. 31 sonatas have a different shape from the piano braces in other items in the same series, and all of the braces are ugly, dynamics are not always centered between the systems, spacing is strange at times. (Why, for example, are the first two measures of op 31 no 2 so widely spaced and the final measure on that line so crowded?) The more one looks at this engraving, the more one fears for the future of music engraving.

At the rhythms not adding up in the arrangement I would have expected at least an asterisc with a simple footnote like "See Critical Commentary". That is if the score is meant to play from and not just intended as an academic study. It strikes me as a bit odd though, to regard an arrangement as an academic study. I, for my part, wouldn't have much of a clue to how to perform these rhythms, lacking both the necessary relaxed approach to notated rhythms, and Harpsi's experience of 17th-18th century notation.

And to RMK: I too have clients signing the checks, but when I find something questionable in the source, I always ask about it. More than once a composer/arranger/publisher has been grateful for that.

Anders Hedelin wrote:
And to RMK: I too have clients signing the checks, but when I find something questionable in the source, I always ask about it. More than once a composer/arranger/publisher has been grateful for that.

Of course I point out inconsistencies and unclear notation as well, but I do not insist. When I was younger I did try to convince composers I was correct and found rather than agreeing with me they just found another copyist who would follow their wishes.