To anyone used to reading pocket or study scores.

[Enrique]

Why are woodwinds and brasses written in a single block, that is, using a single bar line for both woodwinds and brasses, in some orchestral scores? In all of the orchestral score editions I have the woodwinds are separated from the brasses by using one bar line for each group which makes reading much more easy.

[Chris]

I think it's just to squeeze it into as small a space as possible for the pocket/study scores.

[Enrique]

OK. But it happens that in every score I download from IMSLP they are written that way, no matter what the edition date. Isn't that odd?

[Peter]

They're not all the same - for instance just glancing at my Beethoven symphonies, sometimes it is as you say, sometimes the bar line goes through the strings as well, but with my Schumann symphonies the orchestral blocks are separated and these are all Eulenberg miniature scores.

[Enrique]

Then you are speaking about your own printed scores and not about those of IMSLP, I guess. Anyways, I wonder what the use is of printing woodwinds and brasses together in a study score, a thing that makes reading rather difficult.

[Decrepit Poster]

I honestly hadn't given this any thought before. Pulled out my pocket score to Mozart's symphony no.36. It is divided thusly, top to bottom...

• Oboes, both parts on one stave, and bassoons, both parts on one stave, share a bar line.
• Horns, both parts on one stave, and trumpets, both parts on one stave, share a bar line.
• Timpani on its own bar line.
• Strings share a common bar line. (Celli and basses get separate staves on the first pages of movements one and four but are otherwise combined on one stave.)

Scores must be read both horizontally and vertically. I find shared bar lines assist in vertical reading.

[Enrique]

The division you describe for your pocket score is the logical way. When you pass from one page to the next in a pockect score, the oboe, for instance will in general not be in the same position on the page. So, grouping the sections is a great idea. Things are different in the conductor score, where each instrument or group of instruments is given a staff, be it playing or not and so the oboe will be at the same distance from the top of the page in every page.

But what I specifically wanted to know is what happens with IMSLP that seems to have all its printed music printed the wrong way (maybe old editions did not separate winds from brasses and even some modern ones perhaps do so too, but this is precisely the contents of my question in post #1).

[Quijote]

In my (meagre) experience, instrument families are (or should be) grouped together for facility of reading. I can't speak for IMSLP, but check out full conductor scores from Boosey, Schott, UP, Eulenburg ... for a definitive answer, Enrique.