By A-R's house editors
Composers and notators throughout history have employed a variety of notations to indicate repetitions of musical passages, from repeat barlines to first and second endings to more complicated verbal instructions like da capo al fine or dal segno al fine. In notating repeats in a critical music edition, follow the lead of the source, modernizing or standardizing the notation as helpful to the modern performer—and, most of all, always double check that your repeats lead the performer to the right place! Here are some tips.
Repeat signs. A literal repeat of a passage is typically enclosed in open and close repeat barlines. A repeated passage need only begin with an open repeat barline if it starts anywhere other than the beginning of the piece. Please note that measure 1 does not count as the beginning when there is an anacrusis (pickup):
Example 1. John Eccles, incidental music to Charles Boyle, As You Find It, movement V (opening), from Incidental Music, Part 1: Plays A–F, ed. Amanda Eubanks Winkler (B190), 42.
Either type of repeat barline may occur in the middle of a measure if necessary. If a repeat barline (open or closed) is improperly placed in the source, or if a repeat barline is needed but missing, it may be moved or added with a critical note, as there is no easy way to use brackets or other editorial markings on barlines. If an open repeat barline in your manuscript appears at the beginning of a system in the final layout, please note that the preceding system will end with a double barline as a visual courtesy:
Example 2. John Eccles, “Haste, give me wings” (excerpt), from Incidental Music, Part 1: Plays A–F, ed. Amanda Eubanks Winkler (B190), 308.
First and second endings. Be sure that first and second ending brackets are placed above all bracketed score groupings, including above unbracketed groups of vocal soloists. Also, double-check your measure numbering carefully—in A-R house style, the first- and second-ending measures should be numbered consecutively as if they are regular, separate measures. Thus, in the example given below, the first ending is in measure 14, and the second-ending measure is numbered 15—not “14a” or “14b” or similar (as used by some music publishers). This means that the performers, on their second time through, skip measure 14 and proceed directly from measure 13 to measure 15.
Example 3. John Eccles, “Many I’ve liked and some enjoyed” (excerpt), from Incidental Music, Part 1: Plays A–F, ed. Amanda Eubanks Winkler (B190), 96.
Da capo and dal segno. Verbal repeat instructions such as “Da capo,” “D.C. al Fine” and “D.S. al Fine” (as they are formatted in A-R house style, for your reference) are placed only below the bottommost staff of the system and aligned flush right with the concluding barline of the measure to which they apply. That concluding barline can either be a close repeat barline or a double barline (thin-thin), but not a normal final barline (thin-thick), and, if, necessary it can be placed in the middle of a measure:
Example 4. Niccolò Piccinni, aria “No, non è per noi sì poco” (end of B section), from Il regno della Luna, ed. Lawrence Mays (C112), 149.
The same applies to the corresponding “Fine”:
Example 5. Niccolò Piccinni, aria “No, non è per noi sì poco” (end of A section), from Il regno della Luna, ed. Lawrence Mays (C112), 147.
Repeat-measure signs. Repeat-measure signs and repeat-figure signs are often used in manuscript scores as shorthands for repeated figures or measures. (These signs resemble the modern percent sign, only with dots instead of open circles on either side of the slash; nowadays they are often used in guitar tablature and in chord charts.) The repetitions they represent should be written out in full in your transcription, with a statement to that effect in the editorial methods.
Complex cases. When a musical source features complex or unconventional instructions concerning repeated passages or sections, the best option (and often the most user-friendly) is to write out the repeated music in your transcription, and report the original instruction in the critical notes. Similarly, in cases where repeats of passages or sections are not explicitly (or are imperfectly) indicated in the source but are known to be necessary based on a piece’s form, genre, or structure, they may be added or supplemented editorially, with an appropriate explanation in the editorial methods.[1] Consult your house editor or another member of the A-R editorial staff for advice on specific cases.
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[1] This is notoriously true in the early sixteenth-century Italian frottola repertory, as well as many manuscript-preserved Spanish and New World villancicos from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. For examples of these forms and the editorial approaches taken in realizing their repeat structures, see, respectively, Michele Pesenti, Complete Works, ed. Anthony M. Cummings, Linda L. Carroll, and Alexander Dean (R171); and Manuel de Sumaya, Villancicos from Mexico City, ed. Drew Edward Davies (B206).
