In my training, I learned that two measures shown here should be performed the same. I understand that putting the staccato dot under the second note in each group in the first measure seems illogical since it is the first note that the composer wants shortened, but I believe it is standard notation–slurred staccato. Dorico plays the second measure correctly, but not the first. That is OK with me as I think the second example is more clear. I would like to know the opinion of any string players here, though.
I would also advise against using that first (“standard”) notation since it will not play back correctly–at least not with VSL, BBCSO, or NotePerformer.
The first measure in your example will play back the same as the second measure using NotePerformer or BBCSO Core with the latest playback template from John Barron by setting the Playback end offset of the dotted eighth notes to -108 and the sixteenth notes to -18.
I don’t know. My education regarding hooked bowing notation is that both notes get dots. I would not perform the 1st measure so that it sounded like the 2nd.
If you look at the etymology, staccato does not mean short, but detached or perhaps separated. In that context option A makes perfect sense: the way to make the sixteenths separate IS to shorten the preceding notes. That’s also why you sometimes see staccato’d half and whole notes in older scores, it’s not a contradiction at all. But after generation upon generation of overworked music teachers taking the shortcut (hm) that the dot just means short — because that’s in many cases also true, of course — its meaning has shifted somewhat. Apparently some people even learn that the dot always means to play exactly half the written duration, which to me is a bafflingly misguided idea.
Regarding real-life performance: perhaps in slower tempos option A will make the first note slightly longer but in Allegro or above they’ll be practically indistinguishable. Also, when writing for human performers, why avoid a certain notation just because the playback engine doesn’t deal with it correctly?
I agree with @Michel_Edward. Both would either get dots (or tenuto) to indicate ‘broken slurs’, but it would depend on context. You could even just show bowings (+ sim.) though that would be a little unusual.
When the two notes are different pitches A doesn’t always mean hooked; it can also mean that the second note is slurred into as normal and that the second note is released using some combination of a decrescendo and cutting that note short. My preferred notation for hooked bowings is two dots, as depending on the context I might actually play B something in between hooked and portato.
