The parts are marked carefully although Dittersdorf is not over-detailed in his instructions to the performers. One major lacuna exists in the score: the primo part is missing from bar 42 to 129 in the Finale, in narrative terms, from the rage which culminates in Ajax stabbing himself with Achilles' sword to the miraculous appearance of the purple flowers. The editor has completed this section, basing it in part on earlier material and also on the clues provided in the secondo part. Otherwise, the edition presents few problems: the style and notation of articulation and dynamic markings have been standardised throughout and, where missing from the source, markings have been reconstructed from parallel passages. These are indicated by the use of dotted slurs or brackets where appropriate. Like most eighteenth-century sources, the manuscript is at times inconsistent in its notation of appoggiature; these too have been standardised to minimise confusion. Obvious wrong notes have been corrected without comment; editorial emendations with no authority from the source are placed within brackets. Allan Badley
