Re: Chord \crossStaff question

[Simon Albrecht]

On 11.07.2018 10:05, Menu Jacques wrote:
> Is one among the three scores above clearly preferable for a keyboard 
> player?
> And what if moving notes to the first staff conflicts with other music 
> already present there?

Cross-staff chords are very rarely used in keyboard music and are 
definitely more difficult to read. If anything, it’s an outdated idea. 
(Rossini’s P.te Messe solennelle uses them extensively, for example, at 
least in the Urtext edition I have, which is probably modelled after the 
sources in that respect.)
However, IIUC this is about conversion of MusicXML, so I think it’s 
completely irrelevant what is preferable: if the cross-staff chords are 
explicitly coded as such in the MusicXML, then the task of the 
conversion tool is reproducing that faithfully regardless of typographic 
desirability. For example, there may be situations where it’s relevant 
semantically, e.g. to signify hand distribution. (Rossini is not like 
that, there they merely avoid ledger lines.)

Best, Simon