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Support. Nine, eleven, or forty-two leading "dots" still just constitute an ellipsis. I do wish Wikipedia would recognize the difference between suspension points and ellipses, though. Everybody else seems to understand the distinction. Oh, and what spaces are we talking about? The ones between the eleventh and twelfth leading dots, or the ones between the seventh and eighth ones?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 07:29, 15 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Nono did not specify what he meant by using five leading dots. The inconsistencies in the sources used are probably due to the fact that some of them may have replaced the five dots with an ellipsis. If Nono wanted to use an ellipsis, why would he use five points followed by a space, knowing that that would cause trouble? Until an explanation for this is provided, I would keep the title as it is. In the case of using the title proposed by Michael Bednarek, I don't see why we should not delete the spaces as well. Ron Oliver (talk) 15:24, 15 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Question. OK, I have seen it. What is your point? That the composer's autograph manuscript should be the basis for the form of the title? If this is the case, then I observe that the title includes enclosing double quotation marks of the raised/lowered variety, that there is no space between the opening quotation mark and the first dot, but a (rather wide) space between the final dot and the closing quotation mark, that there is a space before "So FFERTE" but none after "SERENE", and that the opening row of dots appears to be on the baseline, but the closing one is centred vertically. Oh, yes, and the title is in full caps except for the second letter of "So FFERTE", which is lowercase and has a space after it, and that "O N D E" has extra spacing between the letters and appears to have an extra space before it. Perhaps the best way of dealing with this would be to use a photo-facsimile of the manuscript title page as the title of this article, perhaps with a parenthetical addition similar to "The composition formerly known as ... onde sofferte serene ..."? (Just in case anyone is mistaking this for a serious suggestion, my point is that titles are never treated this way, for obvious reasons.)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:37, 15 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I think I can answer that. I think we are both OK with the fact that house rules matter. I would not argue against that in the case of spacing, capitals or anything of that sort. Similar cases, like Drukqs, have been solved using general rules and conventions. However, and I am not expressing Cote d'Azur's opinion here, if I understood this correctly, you are saying that no matter how many leading dots would still constitute an ellipsis. In my opinion, that would be your take on it, but I am not sure if that is what the composer intended, and I could not find anything that would explain why he used that many dots, let alone the meaning of the title itself. I cannot see why we can change the title in that way but we cannot just get rid of the whole thing and just use Sofferte onde serene as the title. Ron Oliver (talk) 21:13, 15 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. One way or another the title is alphabetized beginning with S, not the dots. Perhaps Nono just liked the look of five dots but, since you raise the question of other explanations, in one other case I can see a reason for choosing that particular number. On the same page linked by Cote d'Azur you will find the manuscript title page of No hay caminos, hay que caminar ..... Andrej Tarkowskij. It seems clear that there is a design issue there. The two lines of the aphorism are displayed one above the other, aligned left indented. The name Andrej Tarkowskij is aligned to the right margin, and five dots happen to be the right number to fill the space between "caminar" and the beginning of the name (with generous space before and after the line of dots). As a literary example, a similar situation occurs hundreds of times in Michel Butor's five-part Matière de rêves, whenever one layer of text breaks off and the next layer begins, with a certain number of words required to appear before the right-hand margin of the page. The intervening space is filled with a series of dots, sometimes just three or four, sometimes dozens, depending on the space that needs to be filled. Butor was enormously influenced by composers of the Darmstadt School, including Nono, so this may not be entirely coincidental. I do not see the same sort of design logic at work on the manuscript title page of ... sofferte onde serene ... (please note that the leading and trailing suspension points are italicized, as are the spaces in the title ;-), but the manuscript title page of Alvise Vidolin's realization score for the electronic layer of the work has only three leading dots. The "standard" number is also used by the WorldCat of the Library of Congress and in all the published works I know of that include the title of this composition (see the "Further reading" list). The bottom line is that a distinction needs to be made between typographical design and title style.—Jerome Kohl (talk)
