Bull's Goodnight

Michael,‎

Thanks for taking the time to look at my work so carefully.‎

Re m. 63: reading B in the bass makes for a better bass line (IMO) on its own but c sounds better ‎against the e′′ in the treble, so performers can make up their own minds about this.‎

Looking again at MB, I now notice that the sharp in m. 66 is small (and therefore editorial). ‎Putting accidentals (or notes) in square brackets is kind of ugly but easier to spot as editorial ‎changes. I also now realize that MB prints g′ as the final note in the measure, not e′ as clearly ‎shown in the MS – don’t know how I overlooked this before. Using f#/g makes for more ‎conventional harmony, but f♮/e could be OK. I will upload a new PDF with a note about this.‎

I originally wrote ‘page’ and then changed it to ‘sheets’ because I thought that ‘pages’ sounded ‎more like a printed book than a MS.‎

There is room on the last page for all of variation 8, but that would require either leaving the last ‎measure of var. 7 on a line by itself (extremely bad) or making the last line of var. 7 very ‎cramped in order to get four measures on one system. If you print out the PDF double-sided, ‎there will be two spreads of music, with the page turn at the end of var. 5. So there’s no problem ‎with not seeing the whole variation 8 at once. As for those who play from a tablet and see only ‎one page at a time: I think they should also invest in a pedal to do page turns. (If I sound slightly ‎unsympathetic to these [younger?] folks, it’s because I spend so many hours in front screens that I ‎don’t want one on my harpsichord too.)‎

It’s Andrew who is the LilyPond expert; I gave up on TeX-style programs a while ago and use ‎MuseScore. I’d be happy to transcribe other pieces from this MS (or any other source that has ‎not yet been made available). I welcome suggestions from you or others of particularly ‎interesting or significant pieces to work on.‎

Best wishes,
David

Yes, it does sound so. The printed books never number the folio (sheet) but only the pages while manuscripts usually number the folios (but sometimes number the pages).
Folio (sheet) is composed by two faces (pages) named “recto” (r) and “verso” (v) so we have for example f. 24v and f. 24r. But sometimes the manuscript does number the single pages so we’ll have page 24 and page 25 instead of 24r and 24v.
This to say I agree one should refer to “pages” if the manuscript numbers each single face of the sheets, and folio or sheet if the manuscript numbers consecutively each sheet.
Dom

Thanks, Dom; I will change this to ‘pages’ in the next upload, since every face is individually numbered in this MS.

Hi David,
On Bull’s Goodnight again, I still don’t see how in m.63 the second crotchet/quarter-note is written halfway between B and c in the manuscript. It looks clearly like a B to me. Or does “halfway” here refer to the lateral spacing of the note on the line rather than to vertical (pitch) spacing? It is very hard to prevent such critical music notes from becoming ambiguous, a bit of a brain-teaser. (Your other notes are clear.)

Also, my copy of Thurston Dart’s edition (MBxix second, revised edition dated 1970) differs from the version you have. It does not have any sharp in m.66 on the quaver/eighth-note f ′ in the r. h, and gives the final note of the r.h. line as e.

There is however a confusing “sharp” in m.66 shining through from the verso side (p.104) of the manuscript, between the r.h. and l.h. staffs and roughly below the eighth-note f ′ in the r. h. This is a mirror-image (shine-through) of the sharp that correctly belongs to The King’s Hunt on p. 104. It may have been misread in the first MB edition and corrected later.

Perhaps the first edition already has a list of Addenda and Corrigenda that could be consulted. The second, revised edition of Bull vol.2 (MB xix) has a section at the very end of the book titled “Additions to the textual commentary”, but this is not a standard feature of MB publications.

I don’t have convenient access to a scanner but will send you a copy of the piece (1970 ed.) when I get around to it.

By the way, congratulations on spotting the r.h. fingering indication 1 2 in measure 65- the surprising “1” is missing in MBxix (1970) and we are just given the “2”.

Best wishes
Michael

I am working from a scan of MB that Andrew sent so I am not sure if it is the first or second ‎edition. I suspect from what you say that it is the first, since the editorial f# was removed and ‎the g corrected to e (very clear in the MS) in the second, which you are using. I will adjust the ‎textual note in my version, and also the note for m. 63 (I agree it’s confusing). I see the sharp ‎you are talking about; it is quite a bit to the left of the f ′. ‎

Thanks - David