Following @John_at_Steinberg 's recent "Discover Dorico" session where he copies an actual metal plate from Henle into Dorico, I thought I would do the same.
Here’s the plate (mirror flipped):
… which is a page from a Liszt piano piece. Here’s a sample page of the Henle edition (from their website), which is clearly taken from the plate:
and here’s the result in Dorico:
I’d already adjusted my beams and slurs to be more like those of Henle (as close as consistent parameters will allow; but not quite as flat!)
I also had to adjust Engraving Options for
- arpeggio lines, (Dorico’s extend slightly too far by default);
- grace note slashes (Henle’s are a bit lower down and longer. Also a different angle, but that can’t be adjusted);
- octave line dash length (Henle’s are much smaller. Also no arguments about abbreviation letters!);
- pedal lines (no actual line);
- double/final bars (closer, thicker);
and the minimum gaps in Layout Options.
There was still a bit of manual adjustment: mostly moving the systems closer together. Fingering had to be selected and italicised; some needed moving. Whole note chords in 77 and 79 were centred in the bar.
Stems had to be manually shortened between the staves, to reduce the inter-staff gap; and also on some of the beams (68 onwards) in the left hand to reduce the gap between systems.
There remain a very few limitations:
- Dorico can’t move articulations like marcatos sideways, so that they can fit ‘inside’ a stem
- Dorico can’t put parentheses around an augmentation dot (b.66) – I dare say you could fake it somehow if you really wanted to;
- I can’t find an option for ‘split’ bar numbers to be in parentheses: only square brackets. (Henle has the wrong split bar number!)
- I’ve had to drag the lower fermata and the Pedal continuation symbol off the page in bar 75, as they can’t be hidden/removed.
Henle has used every trick in the book to squeeze things as close together as possible, while still allowing enough ‘breathing space’ on the page. All the numerals (tuplets, fingering, bar numbers) are smaller than Dorico typically uses.
Dorico’s factory defaults are much looser and more open, but a good starting point. You’re likely to need different options for orchestral scores, choral scores, and piano scores like this. One size will not fit all.
While the options can be configured to get 90% of the way there, there’s still some manual work required for this level of work. You could probably achieve “Henle-style” output with much less manual work using a slightly smaller staff size, or putting only 5 systems on the page.
Sharper eyes with a greater tolerance for tedium may be able to improve on it still.
The Dorico project file is here, for anyone that wants it.
Engraving sample.dorico (1.1 MB)
Music Zinkengraving! -JK
