About this extraordinary and very beautiful little phrase, that in my DORICO score corresponds to bar 393 in the first movement of Beethoven’s 5th, played by the Oboe, the one with the “Adagio” marking. To my limited knowledge, doesn’t make any cense as regards to written note duration. I understand it must have to do with the Fermata, which has arbitrary duration.
Someone please explain to me.
Why Beethoven wrote it like this?
And most importantly,
How can one write it in DORICO, so that it looks and sounds correctly?
Perhaps writing a 9/4-time signature exclusively for that bar, and speeding the tempo marking at will, also just for that bar?
Is there a way of writing a four-note grace note, in DORICO?
This is called a cadenza – though a very short and unexpected one. The note values are completely separate from the 2/4 meter. The oboist plays freely (and slowly!) while the conductor indicates only the fermata on the rest, and then cues the new entrance.
Dorico can do independent meters, but they don’t function the way you’re picturing. The way to cram more notes in a bar like this is with a hidden tuplet, in this case 9:2q. The fermata on the first oboe note will have to be faked, since it doesn’t appear in any other parts. The grace notes can be entered all in a row and will beam together automatically.
Great explanation MJ, thank you. I need, if you please, a little clarification of the above. How to do this? and, what is 9:2q ? Correction, just found out 9:2 is the tuplet ratio. I’m working on it.
Of less importance, just out of curiosity. (I won’t find much use for it)
Is it possible in DORICO to write an upside down Femata and a Fermata on just one instrument?
Only if you create it as a Playing technique first. The fermata on the D would be a real fermata, but the one on the G would be he fake one. For a fermata that is upside down on a single instrument, you would have to do the same thing but add a real fermata on the note as well. If you only want the upside down one, then drag the single instrument’s “real” fermata outside of the page. It’s fiddly!
But if you’re copying this score, beware that there are two oboe parts on that staff! They should not be copied together like that, because then you won’t be able to generate separate oboe parts. In Dorico this is done via condensing.
OK I’ve managed MJ’s advice. But to slow it down I did set the Metronome mark to --quarter note =15-- for just that bar and returned to 180 the next bar.
I hid the triplet marking by going to engrave mode, selecting it and changing the colour to white.
Another way to hide is to go to Lower Zone (cmd-8) and click “bracket” and “number” to hide.
By the way, looking at the picture it’s not really intuitive as it looks like you are enabling these items visually! But I believe they are in actuality cancelling each other out! (Kind of deep here…)
Thank you so much everyone. The most exciting thing about all this for me, was the music itself. How for almost 400 bars everything is perfectly balanced in even tiny frases, with almost infinite, almost imperceptible variations, that weave an enormous yet emotional powerful even web. Then suddenly, out of the blue, this little one bar melody, in an unrelated tempo and style, very gentle and aloof, that seems to say, “I’m in another world relaxing”. Then, just as suddenly, the web resumes its relentless powerful pase. And yet the whole thing is almost unnoticeable.
P.S. From Dorico * Fermatas do not currently affect playback.* Is there a workaround this? So that we may elongate the note on the Fermata? Which is after all, the purpose of writing the fermata?
I’m reading that page. Thank you. Great help.
Great I’ve just made the first fermata of the piece on bar 1 long and the second fermata, bar 5, very long. Amazing DORICO.
I’ve noticed that on most performances of the symphony, the grace notes on the bar this post is about, are played much slower than written. Does DORICO have the answer?
I should have explained myself more clearly, what I wrote is confusing, what I meant is; Is there a way using DORICO to make grace notes play slower than they are written? Like there is with Fermatas.
Honestly, I would not use grace notes to write that cadenza. I mean the tool that produces grace notes. Use a tuplet (10:2q) and some hidden tempo markings (like shift-T, e=30, untick Show metronome mark in the properties) and you can perfectly control the playback. Then change the size of those 16th notes in the properties panel to Grace note size.
