Re: Faking a time signature

[N. Andrew Walsh]

Hi Jacques,

my first instinct (given my very limited experience with mensural notation or as a music historian) is that this is a transcription error. The historical time signatures of mensural music did not include a symbol for 4/2: there were either three or two semibreves to a bar, and these were subdivided into either three or two minims. The C and slashed-C signatures we have today both derive from the sign that indicated two semibreves divided into two minims each. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensural_notation#Mensurations.

But on the other hand, mensural notation sometimes got really avant-garde: the Squarcialupi Codex is full of pieces with notation that appears in no other sources, and which is often explained on the verso of the page. My advice would be to find an edition that gives a sample of the original notation, and adjust your modern notation accordingly. In this case, I'd probably reduce all note-values by half and keep the slashed-c in the time signature.

But like I said: my own expertise in this area is rather limited.

Cheers,

A

On Fri, Jan 13, 2017 at 2:29 PM, Menu Jacques <address@hidden> wrote:

Hello folks,

In a Canzon by Gabrieli, we have 4/2 time written as slashed C:

I tried:

  \once \override Score.TimeSignature.stencil = ##f
  \numericTimeSignature\time 2/2 | % 1
  \numericTimeSignature\time 4/2 | % 1

but this displays no time signature at all since both \time’s occur at the same point in time.

Thanks for your help!

JM

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