Hello, I try to replicate this interesting articulation ( it is from Bernstein, Divertimento for Orchestra 1980).
How would this be called, how to fake it?:
Dumb question: are you sure that’s not just a harmonic that’s faded?
LSalgueiro, yes, that is exactly what it is!
(I myself have not seen this symbol so far - which doesn’t mean anything…)
One might call it an articulation (soft fade), but how would one draw them into the score?
Good catch! +1
So it is just an harmonic? I’ve never looked over the piece in question, so it could’ve been something else I wasn’t aware of.
Well, how to fake it? In order to do it “natively” in Dorico — though not really — I’d probably draw that up as a glyph in a font and insert it as Text. At least until we are unable to add our custom articulations and techniques.
One thing I haven’t really tried was overlaying a graphics frame on a score. From my limited experience, I remember it as a bit clunky and hard to do, if not impossible.
I would be really interested, how this symbol is called.
Here is the bar - made up in Sib. - with a new symbol generated from that tiny graphic from the original example
LSalgueiro,
I just tried this now, it looks like this in Dorico. I must say, my graphics are of bad quality, I don’t know though, how to produce them in a better quality (some vector program, or I have to find a ordinary letter, which I can somehow cut to this shape…ok., here I cut and twisted an „8“ from the Academico font…):
I might be able to help you, perhaps tonight, but it would help if you could get a screenshot at a higher zoom level.
I interpret the crescents as poorly printed harmonics (circles).
Derrek, interesting theory, but it looks too consistent. It is like this in three instruments. I am afraid I don’t get a better resolution of the score, the scan was taken from a small score with a smartphone.
Assuming that the “comma” above the notehead is authentic, what does it mean? Clearly, the diamond represents an artificial harmonic and the g’‘’ is the sounding pitch. Usually, it is sufficient to notate this artificial harmonic with the note for the first finger and the diamond a fourth above. The sounding note is sometimes given in parentheses for clarification; but what we are asked to believe is that this notation means more than that. The question “how to fake it?” is probably what comes first into the player’s mind!
Folks, this is just a harmonic. Here’s the Boosey & Hawkes score (available to view online at Boosey & Hawkes Composers, Classical Music and Jazz Repertoire )
Presumably, the preceding music means there is a choice whether it is easier to play the first note as an artificial or natural harmonic, but the following notes should be natural harmonics.
Thank you very much Ian, and sorry for confusing everybody else… A look into the original score does help, as you pointed out - mystery solved 
Result in Dorico:
Look closely at the last bar of the movement. There are a lot of overlapping things that can only be achieved by hand tweaking in Dorico, and it does not look elegant. See the different positioning of pp > in the third stave down.
Now waiting for someone to ask how to get the beam to extend over two rests in the double bass, and to ask what that notation actually means – presumably “laissez vibrez”, sometimes signified by a hanging tie.
David
So, as I said… just an harmonic! 