J. Boismortier, Suite I from Pieces de Viole (1730) for VERSION 2.0

• Aug 11, 2013 - 17:09

Hi,

This is a rather complex score (at least for Baroque standards!) with the First Suite from the Pieces de viole, op. 31 by J. Bodin de Boismortier, according to Boivin print of 1730. It is made with the forthcoming MuseScore version 2.0. (Does not wortk with version 1.x!)

To note:

1) Figured bass (with some peculiarity, like the continuation line across several figures)
2) Custom ornaments

I made no attempt to have a decent playback (I didn't even bother to have correct D.C.!), as the meaning of this kind of music is all in phrasing and nuances, so it is way off anyway; having the notes is enough.

Just for the curious, some notation details specific to French viol music:

*) The weavy lines are two different indications of vibrato.
*) The cross above a note is a trill.
*) The comma after a note is a mordente above (with or without apoggiatura according to the previous note and the player mood).
*) The pedal lines are of course not pedal lines at all; they mean a tenuta ('holding'), i.e. keep the finger on the string leaving it resonating even after the note is 'officially' over (I have re-used pedal lines for that, as they look identical, but this results in funny playback!).
*) "p." and "t." are bowing indications: poussez and tirez ('pushing', 'pulling' resp.; i.e. up bow stroke and down bow stroke, but keep in mind that bowing on the viol is 'reversed' with respect to the violin, so 'up' is 'good' and 'down' is 'bad').

I have also attached a PDF for those without a working version 2.0.

Enjoy (if you like the kind...)!

M.

Attachment Size
Boismortier_Op31_1.mscz 41.41 KB
Boismortier_Op31_1.pdf 249.32 KB

Comments

• Aug 13, 2013 - 09:08

Forgot to tell:

The score makes extensive use of an additional font, Linux Libertine, which is freely available here (specifically the .TTF variant) and to my eye qualifies as a more-interesting-but-not-too-fancy replacement for not-so-inspiring-and-too-commonly-seen serif fonts (look at the score PDF to get an idea of the font itself).

Of course, the work is in progress and eventually all the five suites will be available.

Two more works of the same author, Op. 10 for two viols and Op. 14 for two generic bass instruments are available at my score site, VistaMare Musica , together with other, even more Jurassic, pieces of music... all typeset with MuseScore (mostly ver. 2.0).

Cheers,

M.

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• Aug 13, 2013 - 14:10

Beautiful work! I do a lot of Baroque music in 2.0 and really like its flexibility. I agree that Linux Libertine is a more elegant font. It works well for lyrics as it is fairly compact. How did you generate the custom ornaments? Are they svg files put into a customized palatte?

The figured bass system is really great in 2.0 - very easy to use. The font, however, looks very late-19th century to my eyes (reminds me of the Bach Gesellschaft edition). It would be nice to have other options, (or to import your own) down the road..

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• Aug 14, 2013 - 00:38

Ornaments are SVG drawn by hand (they are rather simple). And yes, I added them (by drag and drop) to the regular "Ornaments and Articulation" palette for easy access. You need to create a custom workspace (Edit | Workspaces | New), as in the default workspace palettes are not editable.

The annoying part is that added palette items do not carry position information: they are just dropped (or double-clicked) on the note head and need to be moved in the proper position manually (this is true also of some existing ornaments with a different meaning: the position of the cross used for a trill is not the same as the position of the '+' articulation, so I had to reposition each of them manually...)

I'm also rather proud of my typographic ornaments, which I use to fill empty space, emulating -- at a sedated pace -- the horror vacui of old editions. Some are drawn by hand, some come from scans of 16th to 18th c. prints.

Figured bass digits: reminds me of the Bach Gesellschaft edition: This is a great compliment! In fact, for consistency, they come from the digits used by MuseScore for time signatures. They are not specifically 19th c.: it was customary for most editions to have more or less this kind of continuo digits up to the early 80', when the score started to be engraved via software and many details got lost... I though of adding a 17/18th c. specific font for continuo digits, but never managed to, actually (and it probably would not look 'right' in an otherwise modern engraving).

The Figured Bass mechanism is already 95% ready to accept additional, user-supplied, fonts, so it may be possible in the release version.

Thanks,

M.

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