In the evaluations I’ve been writing during the spring auditions, there are notations like this:
B: 31-2 (I, II)
Br: 5 (I)
C: 10-8
I take down which pieces are performed by prospective students, referring, with this shorthand, to the classified canon of piano music, so compact and so sorted that in some cases, even more cryptic scribbling suffices:
111 (1)
959 (I, II)
L’i j
Maybe I’ve grown to enjoy this abbreviating too much? 111 would be Beethoven’s Sonata in C Minor, Opus 111. (Robert Schumann’s Fantasy Pieces, Opus 111 would have to be: S: 111.) 959 must be Schubert’s Sonata in A Major, D. 959. There’s no other “canonic” 959. Whereas B: 914 would surely be J. S. Bach’s Toccata in E Minor, BWV 914. Some more recent music can be easily signified as well. Ravel’s Jeux d’eau is simply J d’. And Aaron Copland’s Piano Variations is C: V.
A few overlaps might require clarification. S: 11-1 is going to be Schoenberg’s Klavierstück, Opus 11, No. 1. While S: 11 (I) is the first movement of Robert Schumann’s F-sharp-Minor Sonata, Opus 11.
Some other note taker who dropped a page on Broadway this morning seems to have written:
Dt 30:15-20
Lk 9:22-25