Istampitte scores

Dorico
1

I have been working on Tre Fontane, one of the Istampitte in Codex Lo. I expected to find on the forum a number of references to such pieces and their scoring, but I have not found any yet, so I will add my two cents worth.

I was aware it would not be easy to combine the original scoring and actual playback, since I wanted to be as faithful as possible to the original manuscript. I made a lot of attempts trying to have a printed score I liked, and to keep some hope for the playback to be achieved latter.
The istampitta has 4 Partes, each with its specific section and continued by shared sections R1, R2, R3. The cadences are identical for all partes,

Here is my latest version :
TreFontaneG.dorico (1.0 MB)
my favorite to date. I will call it the G version. I am quite happy with the printed score, but I am presenting it here hoping for advice on the possibility of future playback enhancements, maybe also for detection of mistakes in my current version(s) that could get in the way.

Playback problems seem to be linked to the complex mix of Start/End Repeat Barlines and Repeat Endings structures. The current playback failures are:

  1. After the full Prima Pars is played and is followed by the Aperto cadence, the playhead does not back to Prima Pars for a 2nd execution, but backs to Secunda Pars which is of course followed by the Chiuso cadence.

  2. The Terza Pars starts much better than the Prima Pars, and the Aperto cadence does back to it for a 2nd execution. But at the end of the Terza Pars specific section, the al R2 jump is not re-executed, so the playhead falls to the Quarta Pars and a Chiuso cadence.

I think the 2nd failure is related to problems addressed in topics like “Repeats after DC”, though I am not totally sure whether it is the same problem.
The first failure is more obscure to me.

But the version I tried before that one
TreFontaneF.dorico (1.0 MB)
that I will call the F version also had 2 failures, but they were both of the Repeats after DC type.
The difference is that in the F version the Prima Pars section is not included int the Repeat Endings structure which starts with the Secunda Pars. As a result I needed an extra jump target for the Chiuso cadence, which made me lose the R3 target. This is one of the reasons I moved to the G version where the Prima Pars is included in the endings. I was a little worried about starting a flow with a Repeat Endings structure with nothing before to be ended by it! Might this be the reason for the G version 1 Failure?

A quite minor point: since this is medieval music, I decided to use a Custom Key Signature, very simple, no accidentals at all in concert pitch, and a choice of toor. I gave it a name: D Dorian (which might not be the right one, identifying medieval modes is not my strong point). This name appears nowhere except in the Key Signature Editor, In concert pitch, I see a signpost for the key signature, it only says Custom. In transposed pitch, if I select the flat accidental in the key signature, the status bar also shows only Custom. Is there a way to have the name appear somewhere?

2

No, at the moment there’s no way to make the name you gave your custom key signature appear in the signpost, but I agree it would be good if it could. I’ll make a note of this and we’ll think about it for future versions.

1 Like
3

Thanks Daniel :slight_smile: !

4

I am replying to myself! I understand the reason of the difference between G and F: looking at the score aas a computer program for the play back, there is a counter from 1 to 4, for the Partes, and every time the playthough gies through the end of Chiuso this counter is incremented. But in G, the first pass through the end repeat barline at he end re[eat barline at the end of Aperto goes to the same place and wrongly triggers this counter incrementation.
I do not see how this could be avoided. This means that, unfortunately, I must return to the F version. Unfortunately because the F version cannot fully work anyway as long as there are no more than 3 segnos available.
I understand that the limitation was made to avoid unmanageable cumbersome stuff like
DSSSSSS and %%%%%% (% standing for the segno)
But that could be changed to DS6 and %6? 3 is really a very low limitation.
Of course, apart from the number of the segnos, there remains the “Repeats after DC” problem to solve, which is probably the most dificult…

5

I went back to a earlier version:
Tre FontaneY.dorico (979.0 KB)
that had the merit to order the music exactly like the Codex Lo manuscript. And i even spaced it so ir was fun to present it with flipped pages:
TreFontane2.pdf (1.1 MB)
which made the skips between the sections very clear. But the playback never repeated even the Prima Pars, and I (mistakenly) thought that it was because the Prima Pars Repeat Start barline came after the Aperto Repeat End barline in the score, even if the playback would change that. But my analysys of the G version problem made be realize that it was the same problem, jumping to the root of the endings prematurely incremened the Pars counter. So I attempted to fix that by a “2 Times played for segment” for the Prima Pars. It worked, of course then the “Repeats after DC” problem occurred, and I am unsure of what would happen without it. But this (Y!) version might be the best candidate, faithfulness to the manuscript, easy to read, no loss of segno, only one manifest problem for playback. I would welcome opinions of anybody interested par such music.
I still would welcepm extending the segnos number. One of the other Istampitte, Cominciamento of Gioa has a Quinta Pars, and it would almost certainly reaquires a 4th segno.