Talk:Études transcendantales

Why no acute on E?

He is clearly using a French title, so I wonder why the first word always seems to appear as the diacritic-free Etudes (which is a valid word in neither French nor English), rather than the way the French would write it: Études. Any ideas? -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 21:16, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

I am having a strong feeling of déjà vu here. In fact, you asked virtually this same question three years ago, with respect to the title of Cage's Études australes. Of course, Cage and Ferneyhough are not the same person, and their attitude toward French titles may well be different, but the orthographical principle concerning accented capitals is still the same. Unless there is a good typographical reason to omit it, the initial E should in fact carry an acute accent. In addition, the second word should not be capitalized.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:29, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

I tried to track down a cite showing the title as he specified it, but couldn't. Who knows, he could have deliberately mispelled it. Or maybe he thinks that "etude" is an acceptable spelling - God knows hundreds of Wiki editors seem to be of this opinion.

The other thing that caught my eye is the word "Transcendantales". The core word "transcendantal" has the English counterpart "transcendental". Is the French correctly spelt? -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 22:41, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

First of all, the correct French spelling of the second word of the title is indeed "transcendantales". Short of finding a photocopy of Ferneyhough's manuscript (or, to be absolutely certain, photocopies of all extant autograph manuscripts), or possible a certificate declaring his specified title, signed by the composer and witnessed by three notaries' signatures in red ink and the seals of their offices, we cannot be certain of course. The published score prints the title in full caps (standard C. F. Peters page design), as can be seen here, which is no help at all. However, Richard Toop's article in New Grove spells it Etudes transcendantales (no accent on the capital E, and the second word lowercase), Roger Redgate's analytical article in Contemporary Music Review (2001) similarly has no accent but capitalises both words—misspelling the second one at least three times (and two different ways), though what do you expect when he also refers to the way Piranesi's etchings make one aware of the "egde" of the picture, and tells us that La terre est un homme was begin in 1976 and finished in 1970? And he is inconsistent with the capitalisation of other titles (sometimes giving Carceri d'invenione and other times Carceri d'Invenzione.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:12, 25 March 2012 (UTC)