Is there a way of actually opening hairpins in LilyPond?

Question

I need this for an Ossia staff that only appears for a single bar, like this:

The real hairpin starts before that bar (like the 2nd one), but spanning the hairpin where the lower one starts doesn't look accurate, and there's the barline midways.

I know that it can be done with a white box in a markup, but I want to see first if anything like moving the starting points of the hairpin lines can be done, before I try rewriting some things for the Ossia staff.

Also, is there a way to put a text to the side of the Ossia staff that says "Ossia" just like an instrumentName but not where the instrumentName appears?

Answer 1

Hairpin

I recommend starting the ossia one measure earlier.

As an example, here is an ossia from Liszt, Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 (S.244/2), mm. 378-379 (Peter Raabe Musikalische Werke edition). Note that the first ossia measure is identical to the "primary" notation.

(IMAGE SOURCE: IMSLP)

Alternatively, use "cresc." and a dotted line, if feasible. You can place the ossia "cresc." in parentheses to make clear it's not a new instruction.

Ossia text

You can use this code to place the text, adjusting the offsets as needed.

    \override InstrumentName.extra-offset = #'(MY-X-OFFSET . MY-Y-OFFSET)
    instrumentName = "Ossia"

_{Code courtesy of the accepted answer to Lilypond: How to create an ossia Staff above a PianoStaff?}