Rheinberger Sonatas

[Vox Humana]

Thank you very much for that review. A couple of questions about vol.40, if I may. Rheinberger's music is not likely to be the easiest to arrange on the page, but have you any views as to whether much consideration has been given to page turns? Also, I imagine this must be a fairly thick tome. How well do the pages lie open on the music desk?

[Fiffaro]

have you any views as to whether much consideration has been given to page turns? Also, I imagine this must be a fairly thick tome. How well do the pages lie open on the music desk?

 

All up, there are around 315 pages in volume 40, so it is indeed a substantial tome, and perhaps that is the reason for not using paper that is a little less opaque.

 

Most pieces are fairly short, two to five pages in length, so gently spreading the binding when opening to a particular piece allows the music to sit flat and to turn well enough - and I haven't as yet gone through the volume spreading the pages open as one librarian once told me to do before seriously using a volume.

 

As you note, the style of writing leaves little opportunity for page turns in many of the pieces. The approach taken to layout is in one sense inconsistent. The 12 Trios Op. 189, all two pages long, are set with the two pages for each trio facing each other. Hence no page turn needed. The same is true for the 12 Fughettas in a strict style Op. 123a. However, the first of the Op. 123b set is three pages long, and you guessed it, Fughettas 2 though 9 and 12, each two pages in length, require a page turn.

 

I am not particularly worried by this, as I am so tired of damaging my original music that almost all of the music that I don't just sight read tends to be scanned, printed into small collections on thickish, durable paper, and bound with a coil binding. That allows me to write in fingering and analysis and performance indications in pen (multicoloured - how nerdish) rather than pencil, something my 'maturing' eyesight appreciates.