Yesterday I found tiny crosses in the fingering of a waltz by Strauss. There were normal numbers AND crosses.
What do the crosses mean in such a context (in the fingering)?

Thanks,
CA

Crosses as fingering marks, which I've only seen in old English-produced editions, mean that instead of

1 2 3 4 5

the fingers are instead

+ 1 2 3 4

with the cross representing the thumb.

Thanks, David!

CA

It was called English fingering, and the system we use now was called Continental fingering. I think English fingering was obsolete by the 1920s.

I teach several people who are also guitar players, and guitar fingering on the fretboard is 1 for the index finger, up to 4 for the pinky. The thumb has no number, since it typically does not fret.

Nothing but trouble when they try to read piano fingering. I wonder how people who lived back in the time of English fingering coped with the change to Continental.

Since it appears that the fingering plan that one learns first always seems to rule, or at least affect, I am going to suggest the English method to the guitar folks when they play the piano, since it really is a stumbling block for those folks.

So thanks for the info, everyone!

English fingering is logical if you're a bowed string player as well. Fingers are 1-4, with no number for thumb. I'm a little surprised in retrospect that it wasn't the survivor of the two systems. Many people then as now learn both piano and violin, for example.
The trouble with this is that music hasn't been printed this way for at least 70 years, as far as I'm aware.

although I've noticed some mistakes when someone first tries to cross from violin to piano or vice versa, from my own experience and what I've heard from others, once you get going on the different instruments they become separate fingering languages and you never mix them up, or even think about it. A bit like the way you just can't mix up bass and treble clef, you see/hear different sounds

On cello the thumb is shown by a tiny lollipop

That's been my experience too (I play violin/viola). What number I give to a finger depends on whether I'm holding my hand violin-fashion or piano-fashion.

I just encountered 'crosses' on organ music.. old English.

how very helpful.

it just means the thumb?

The + meaning thumb is the easy bit. What's harder is that index finger is 1, middle finger is 2, ring is 3 and pinky is 4.

well... once the thumb is placed all is well.

It is . I just meant that the potential for finger number confusion comes with the other fingers. You might be happily (or not so happily) trying to use the written fingering before you had worked out that 3 is actually finger 4. And you might wonder why they apparently never used the pinky...