End the piece on an arbitrary note?

• Feb 9, 2020 - 04:00

I am trying to engrave Bach's second Duetto in F Major from the Clavierübung Part III. The trouble is, the way that the Bach Gesellschaft engraved it (which I am trying to transcribe precisely) uses Segni in an unusual way that is easily understood by performers, but is strangely difficult to implement correctly in the score. Let me show you what I mean.

Line1BGA.png

Notice the Segni on the top and bottom of the barline to measure five. Next, let's view the end of the piece:

LastLineBGA.png

Immediately It can be understood that the music is to jump back to the previous Segno, and Musescore plays this perfectly. The problem lies with the actual intented ending of the piece here:

IntendedEndBGA.png

The intended ending is at the fermata marks. (I personally play it until the ending bass F as it adds a bit of punctuality.) Herein lies my problem. There seems to be no possible way to stop playing right at one of those notes. My first thought is to put an end marker, but that just makes it sit there for 3 seconds and then continue onto the next page. Is there any tool I could use to implement this, or is it simply impossible? I know that it is possible by using a coda, however, I am trying to stick with how the Bach Gesellschaft originally engraved it.


Comments

You wrote:
The intended ending is at the fermata marks.

My question: How is the performer notified of such intention... or was that some kind of standard performance procedure at that time?

You wrote:
...the way that the Bach Gesellschaft engraved it (which I am trying to transcribe precisely) uses Segni in an unusual way that is easily understood by performers...

Indeed, the Segni are unusual, so I'm guessing that the 'Da Capo' should be a 'D.S.' today.
Have a look (and a listen):
Duetto.mscz
I used a D.S. al Fine along with some 'fake' Segnos from the symbols (Z) palette. Once the D.S. al Fine was entered from the Repeats & Jumps palette, I edited the text to read 'Da Capo' - as in your original. This way, the playback will go to measure 5, and not to the very beginning (as would D.C.).

At the fermata, the measure was split and the 'Fine' was placed (to end the playback at that point). The barline of the split measure was made invisible.
I left the 'Fine' visible, but you can click on it and press V and it will be hidden - to look like your original.

To see invisible elements use menu item: View -> and then check 'Show Invisible'.

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