Readying for the Press

The work this morning was (most appropriately) the Mass, Op.106. The need to get the Lux Nova Press edition of the Gloria ready for purchase and use by Triad is the driver. My default format choice is apt to be Letter, because that is what I print on. But we need it to fit on octavo size, and the staff size should be 6mm . . . and to fit some of the systems with brief passages for solo voice, I had reduced the staff size of the Gloria to 5.5mm. The final guiding factor is, the fewer the sheets we can fit onto, the better (keeping cost of production, and cost to the customer, down). My initial go at bringing both page and staff size into compliance succeeded only in fitting the Gloria onto six sheets (23pp. of score).

The especially good news, though, is that given these guidelines, I have this morning puttered with the layout of all the numbers of the Mass. Not surprisingly, the Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus Dei all fit handsomely onto two sheets each. The conversion of the Credo required quite a bit of management, mostly because of the variety of textures . . . like the Gloria (and I do not much see how this can be helped) it fits onto six sheets.