The blink of an eye is all it takes for first impressions to form. During a 1998 demonstration of the newly introduced Windows-compatible version of Sibelius music writing software, a page of the full score of Rite of Spring was displayed on screen. In a fraction of a second - that blink of an eye - a click on the mouse raised the Rite by a semitone.

I laughed out loud, as one does when witnessing magic. My own hand-copied scores, modest efforts which filled a large wardrobe, instantly represented an obsolescent medium. TS Eliot's J. Alfred Prufrock measured out his life with coffee spoons; until that day I had measured out my life with score paper. From that moment on I ceased to write music by hand. Of course, by then the music world was dimly aware of emerging music-writing programmes: besides the British Sibelius, the Americans Finale and Encore were already emerging. But after seeing Sibelius demonstrated there was no doubt that a new era had arrived.

In subsequent years a Sibelius-versus-Finale tussle ensued. By the time Sibelius reached version 4 the British product seemed to be in the lead. However, the 2006 version of Finale, with a Garritan Personal Orchestra (GPO) sound set, at a much lower price than Sibelius, remained competitive. Now, with the release of Sibelius 5, which offers a collection of sounds comprising virtual instruments created by Garritan, Native Instruments, Northstar, Peter Siedlaczek, Sonivox and Tapspace, Sibelius is winning the race. With a rumoured 180,000 users worldwide, Sibelius claims to be taking around half of the American market share and to be the world's best-selling music notation software. For composers wishing to demonstrate their work to a potential client, this is a valuable tool.

Getting to grips with Sibelius is not difficult, but an appreciation of all that the program offers takes infinitely longer than several blinks of an eye. Huge in scope, the magnitude is signalled by the size of the documentation. This includes an exceptionally well-written 632-page reference book (the Sibelius 3 book contained 589 pages, so clearly there's more here) and a 154-page handbook. The latter assumes that you have a fundamental understanding of mouse, keyboard, menus and files, and takes the user through basic terminology, how to install, register and run for the first time. Onscreen access to the reference book (the screen pagination exactly matches the paper version) is by clicking on the question mark on the toolbar. Incidentally, the use of Sibelius 5 is also demonstrated in an online video, available to all. Clearly, there are so many features that most users will never require, or even discover, all of them. Equally clearly, what can be written here represents an outline description rather than an exhaustive critical review.

Sibelius software now supports full Virtual Studio Technology (VST) plug-in support on Windows and Mac, as well as support for Audio Units on Mac. Playback is managed using any Kontakt Player 2. The computer requirements for Windows are XP or Vista; for Mac, OS X 10.4 or later. Scorch, the web browser plug-in that lets you play, transpose, change instruments, and save and print your Sibelius scores, is now fully Firefox-compatible on Windows and Mac.

New to Sibelius 5 is Ideas Hub, a unique feature for capturing, using and re-using snippets of music; SoundWorld, a way of categorizing sounds; Panorama, an optional scrolling horizontally display (which has already convinced some enthusiasts to upgrade to a wide screen monitor), and Reprise, a new music font that simulates hand-copying, down to a charming rubber stamp font for titles - just like the Broadway copyists used to use. Easier cues and instrument changes, along with suggestions for cue locations, and the facility to allow teachers to write the names of notes within note heads, are also new.

Extra symbols are provided for early music and new music (avant garde) compositions. These include prolations (symbols for tempus perfectus, tempus imperfectus, etc., in medieval music), Bach ornaments, and clusters. Removal of bars from a score, which was somewhat clumsy and repetitive in Sibelius 4, is now made easier: select the bars to be deleted, select 'edit' from the drop-down menu and go to 'delete bars'. New plug-ins include tools for splitting, joining and modifying tuplets, and the facility to insert blank pages, which can be done in the score, the parts, or both. One can now set different margins on different pages. Hairpins (dynamics marks) now automatically calculate how loud or soft they should end up. Sustained notes become continuously louder or softer along the hairpin.

Compared with Sibelius 4, the new version takes a few seconds longer to load when first opened - but then, there's more to open. In the first weeks after release there were problems with Scorch. All credit to the company for sharing this glitch publicly, for listening to users, and resolving the issues so rapidly. These are now resolved; refer to the Sibelius Software chat pages to read all about it.

Several of the new items enhance realism, particularly the range of sound sets, which sceptics should hear before doubting how convincing a contemporary virtual orchestra can sound. Garritan, one of several companies contributing sounds bundled with this upgrade, presents a collection of more than 1,000 orchestral scores, all re-constructed by amateurs, on their website. Yes, there's even a version of Rite of Spring!

www.sibelius.com/5

www.garritan.com