: Entrance of the Queen of Sheba- in need of clarication on sheet music In measure 55 where the solo starts for violin 2, there is this note on top of this series of other notes. There isn't any indication of division or anything,

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Well, if the solo for violin 2 starts there, there is some other solo or a tutti before it, and the D is obviously the last note of that other solo or tutti. If it is a tutti that the solo violin is supposed to share, then the solo violin will fade out of the preceding phrase decently so that the D does not sound out of character or sequence.

While it is theoretically possible to continue playing that D as a double stop, it would take a rather brillant player to manage that without messing the voice leading up. And it does not help that the solo is non-legato: a double-stopped long note against two non-legato short notes requires some rather tricky bowing technique (basically touching the D string twice in succession while maintaining constant contact with the A string).

So the feasible solution is to fade out of the previous phrase (again presuming that it is a tutti the solo violin is supposed to share) and then start fully on the solo.

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I'll add a bit more explanation to the notation. Usually, in each bar of a sheet, you have a fixed number of voices, which makes it easy to follow the music. In bar 54, there is 1 voice, in bar 55, there are two: One contains f8 g8 a8 b8 a4 b4 (the start of the solo), the other one contains d'2 r4 r2 (the end of the previous motif and just rests afterwards, to keep the voice fill in the whole bar). The fact that the d'2 and the rests belong into the same voice is indicated by the stem down of the note (which means it's the 2nd voice) and the placement of the rests below the 1st voice (which again means it's the 2nd voice).

I would have written the sheet in a bit different way, to make it more clear, and exchange the voices:

This way the notes more clearly follow each other. However, as I said, these two notations are equivalent.