I’m writing a piece with a movement that has two different endings: one to use if continuing on to the next movement, and one to use if playing the movement as a standalone piece. The players take either one path or the other:
There isn’t just a difference of a single note or two; the two endings have a different number of measures. They need to be notated as separate passages of music, like a “Choose Your Own Adventure.”
I’ve come up with a few alternatives for notating this that seem reasonable. However, I'm wondering: is there a precedent for this? I feel like other pieces must do it, but can’t find any. I don't see anything about it in the notation references I have handy.
To be clear, I’m not looking for ad hoc opinions on what notation to use; I’m wondering whether there is a precedent I should be aware of — either specific pieces that do this or discussion of the problem in some notation reference work — or whether I’m free to just wing it.
Update: In case anyone’s curious, here’s what I ended up doing, based loosely on the Elgar example Rosie found: