Hi friends, been a long time. I would like to ask for some advice on how to tackle (at least at this juncture) getting initial layout for transcribing an orchestral score. I found a manuscript for a lengthy orchestral work (~40 mins.) composed in the 1930s (instrumentation 3(III=picc.).2.2.2 - 4.3.3.1 - timp.perc(2) - strings) that I am considering typesetting. I have never attempted an orchestral piece this substantial before. Although I've got many years with Finale and dozens of successful projects completed, I've never done an orchestral score this large. I expect this to be a many month project and want to make sure I set myself up for success rather than spending days worth of time inputting music in an "incorrect" or "sub-optimal" manner, realizing it at the very end when I go to edit parts or try and get to an optimized full score, and having to spend days worth of time fixing things. I have done numerous web searches to try and see how others have gone about it, but I figured I'd ask here to solicit input as well.

My main concern is how to go about setting up the initial instrumentation to take this manuscript, which is written in "optimized" form (and transposed, not in C), and input music which covers the various layouts and how they transition during the piece.

For example. You've got pairs of woodwinds. Sometimes they're broken out into separate staves and sometimes they're converged. Should I just use layers and a single staff then annotate when it's solo or soli, then extract layers to separate parts?

Second example, violins 1 and 2. You've got violin 2 sometimes on a single staff and sometimes broken out into two staves in a given system, then it converges back to a single staff. Would I just go with a single violin 1 and a single violin 2 staff then use layers in these cases?

That's most of my concern. Please help steer me in the right direction should I choose to take this on so I don't have to backtrack and waste tons of time fixing it later!