Vide
“See”, a reference marking a cut.
What it means
Vide means “see” and serves in the notated text as a reference sign. In its most common use it marks a cut: the word is split, the first half standing where the omitted passage begins, the second where playing resumes. Whoever executes the cut jumps from one marker to the other; whoever does not, plays straight through. The spelling and the binding force of such signs are not uniformly standardized and should be checked in the edition in a given case.
In the notation
Usual are the two syllables as letter pairs above the staff, supplemented by vertical strokes or square brackets that mark the beginning and end of the affected passage. Alongside this, the word is also found as a simple reference to another place — to a footnote, an appendix, an alternative version. In orchestral material such markers are often entered afterward and then stem not from the composer but from a particular performance.
Musical use
Cuts belong to the performance history of many works, especially in opera and ballet, where cuts were customary for reasons of duration, casting, or dramaturgy. Printed performance material therefore often carries several layers of such entries on top of one another. For working with a piece it is important to distinguish what belongs to the text and what is the trace of a performance practice; scholarly editions separate the two.
The cut marker is to be distinguished from the ossia version, which offers an alternative without leaving anything out.
Vide comes from Latin and means “see”; in the notated text, Vi- stands before and -de after the cut.
Performance practice
Clarify within the ensemble before the first rehearsal which cuts apply, and mark them identically in all parts — nothing throws a rehearsal into confusion faster than differently entered cuts. Practise the jump itself: the bars immediately before and after the marker form a new connection that does not occur this way in the text played straight through. And enter cuts in pencil, so that the material stays usable for other performances.