Create slurs with parentheses around

Is it possible to add parentheses around slurs?
Looking at an old edition of Liszt Consolations where this appears.
Screenshot 2024-09-17 at 13.09.48
Or is a Text object the only way?

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I normally use dashed slurs, Michele…

Me too, but what if one has to exactly replicate the look of an edition?
It is not that uncommon to have parentheses around slurs.

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Just use text.

I fear the only option is a text…
Exact appearance is a hard adventure in Dorico anyway.

Personally I try avoiding parentheses because they add symbols and confusion in the score. Normally I use cue size, even when parentheses are allowed. This is not always possible, obviously.

But it’s a personal view…

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A dedicated solution would be better, since several notations already support a parenthesised state.

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Yes, of course, and IIRC it’s been discussed in the past (alongside discussions of editorial marks generally). If it’s on the list it will happen sometime.

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Speaking as someone who regularly copies the layout of old editions – do you have to replicate it “warts and all”…? There are several published editions of the same piece, and none of them are necessarily sacrosanct.

Presumably, the point of making a new version is, at the very least, improved legibility – crisper, cleaner details – otherwise you might as well just serve up a scan of the original. :laughing: Surely some kind of improvement is desirable.

I’m guessing that the slur is “just” an editorial slur, in which case any standard editorial marking would serve – and arguably other markings might be just as well, or more easily understood.

I’d agree that we need the option of parentheses on a bunch of stuff, of course.

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Not 100% sure, which means I will ask :slight_smile:

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And my point of view is, as usual, pragmatic: What actual difference can this slur make in the execution? How could one play it differently?

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A variety of styles can be required in a single edition (indicating different sources for example).

For the musician, the difference is that he now knows that the slurs is dubious: now it’s up to him to decide how to play…

If I were the pianist playing that piece, I’d ignore the slur.

Probably it depends on the context and on the taste…
Liszt… probably I would play the slur…

But how do you play it, versus no slur? That’s what I’m asking.
And can anyone but the pianist hear the difference? Or is just a feeling?

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With no slur, a small silence would be “heard” before the resolve ideally.

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The slur means that the two notes should be connected together, that is, legato. On the piano notes are connected by overlapping them slightly with finger pressure so there is a short moment when they are both heard at the same time. It would be a different and quite audible effect if the two notes were not overlapped.

Not connecting these two notes would be unusual in common practice style, since the F sharp is a suspension (or appoggiatura) that is resolving to the E. Composers of that time often left out such slurs as understood. Later editions sometimes add them without comment, or in this case in parenthesis. I also prefer dashed slurs for editorial slurs. Cleaner.

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Yes, I also play the piano, so I know how to play legato … But in this case I doubt that a (strange) little space between those notes could even be heard over the sustained chord. This slur seems to just (academically) indicate the movement of the melody. Surely the composer didn’t think it necessary, as it would not noticeably affect the execution.
(That’s all I’ve got to say.)

Sorry @Mark_Johnson I guess I didn’t understand your question so I thought you weren’t a pianist.

Perhaps you are assuming that the pedal is used and the legato is faked with the pedal? Or in a very reverberant hall? Otherwise, I think that the difference between a legato and non-legato performance of that example is pretty audible.

Btw Mark, the feeling is everything, especially in Liszt!
You probably know that Liszt can write a two hands chord one bar long with a crescendo hairpin in that bar! :wink: (You can just look at the expression of the pianist, for sure you won’t hear a crescendo!).

Anyway two notes at the end of a phrase, slurred or not, are quite different (especially with no other note in between).