Maybe I’m missing an existing feature but the placement of lyric syllables shouldn’t be affected by punctuation. There are a lot of spots with an ellipsis (…) in the lyrics and because Dorico centers these syllables, I need to move them manually. It’s be great if we had a list of characters Dorico would ignore when placing lyrics (although not for the spacing!).
Yes, we know that support for hanging punctuation in lyrics would be useful, and it is on our backlog for future versions.
[…] forse la fiamma istessa incommincia a sentir… Certo, la sento, me l’annunzia la gioia, e l’appetito che in me si risveglio tutto in un tratto! La la ra la la la la la la[…]
Great memories of this role. This kind of engraving must be enjoyable (well, at least, I did enjoy engraving some operas I sung).
I’m glad for every little piece of improvement that is made on lyrics so thanks for this thread and kudos to the team for keeping up with our needs!
Now you’re teasing my musicologist brain, Marc. (Just as you meant to do…) I have done a search with those words, and looked up the lyrics of some famous tenor arias, with no result. What is the work in question, please?
Elixir of Love!
Too many typos for google to find the whole thing, maybe. But you can find it from a few words instead of the whole quote.
Oh! qual di vena in vena
dolce calor mi scorre!.. Ah! fosse anch’essa…
forse la fiamma istessa
incomincia a sentir… Certo la sente…
me l’annunzia la gioia e l’appetito
che in me si risvegliò tutto in un tratto.
Aha! I chose the wrong few words I guess – and when I started guessing sources, I actually did think of L’elisir d’amore (knowing Marc’s Fach), but I confined myself to the famous aria.
I’m glad to have that solved. Thanks, all.
It’s great to be doing this arrangement of L’elisir in Dorico, although I will admit to having imported it into Dorico via XML (which I’ve resolved to avoid doing as much as possible in the future). It does feel a bit like a baptism of fire, though!
I’d be glad to see some of this work someday… Really a refreshing opera, I find 
Indeed refreshing. As always with arranging, I really enjoy peeking into the composer’s ‘kitchen’. This performance will be for chamber orchestra. Fortunately I can leave the string parts intact but the winds have to be severely reduced: one flute, oboe, two clarinets, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, cimbasso, percussion and piano (an original 19th century square grand to accompany the few recits and also to replace the harp in Una furtiva lagrima).
Ah, a reduction! I love that sort of challenge. Yours sounds like an excellent instrumental combination for this.
L’elisir has, I believe, a historical position as the chronologically latest opera to survive in the repertoire that contains secco recit. (Leaving aside neoclassical stylistic imitations like The Rake’s Progress.)
Yes, interesting, isn’t it? I considered leaving out the piano and putting the chords in the strings but there were two other considerations. One was the use of a historic piano for the staging and the other was the absence of a harp for this particular production and what would one then do with the accompaniment to Una furtiva lagrima? I suppose that one could switch off clarinets for the 16ths but it’s really low, it’d be very tiring and not really the right sound.
Yes, the period piano seems much the best solution here. Its use, indeed the whole operation, reminds me of some of the projects in Gordon Jacob’s second orchestration book. (He devotes part of a chapter to the challenge of reducing some movements of the Nutcracker Suite for an imaginary school orchestra. The score authorizes the use of a piano for the “Sugar Plum” solo, and then having it on hand he uses it also to substitute for the harp in “Waltz of the Flowers.”)
Yes, the piano can work well as a harp substitute and it certainly stays in tune a lot longer! I’m not sure if that goes for the period piano, though. It’s a late-evening performance outdoors in April, and it can get pretty cold in Amsterdam…
Love you guys…
The passion for music is what sets this forum apart from many others!
Cheers,
Benji
Since funding for the arts has dried up quite a bit compared to the 1980’s here in Holland (and pretty much everywhere else), our passion for music is often all we have! 
Glad to hear this is in the backlog. Ignoring punctuation when calculating the center point of a syllable is especially important when engraving a song with multiple verses of lyrics on one staff, which I do often in hymns.
For example, consider Dorico’s default alignment in this case (excerpt from “Awake, and Sing the Song”):
In order to get the correct result, I have to manually tweak the x-offset on many syllables, and each one is different:
Having Dorico handle this automatically would be wonderful.
Project file for reference:
Awake and Sing the Song - Print.dorico.zip (492 KB)
His SECOND orchestration book? I have had this one Human Verification since college but wasn’t aware of another. What’s the title?
Sorry for the late response! I somehow never noticed the alert that I had been quoted.
The Elements of Orchestration appeared in 1962, 31 years after Orchestral Technique that you cite.
It’s a more informal book, the last chapters of which are devoted to hypothetical situations for which you must reduce an orchestral score. “Let us suppose our school orchestra contains a flute, a beginning oboist who cannot yet control the lower notes well, 5 clarinets of whom 2 are rather inexperienced, 2 trumpets, 1 trombone, and no violas. How might we manage this Haydn symphony?” That’s a paraphrase from memory, but that sort of thing. And then he talks about how it might be cued down. There’s also an attempt at movements of the Nutcracker Suite with no more than one of each wind instrument. And more such situations.
I’m glad Adam’s example also brings up quotation marks. I just had to deal with this yesterday.