Thanks Konrad! A very welcome update. I've no doubt it will, for one thing, make the chores of obtaining and maintaining desired voice-balances much quicker and easier.
As for creative use of modulating note-by-note volume by means of velocity, I'd offer a word of caution.
During my early experiments with orchestral intonation I found out the hard way that the pianoforte is certainly not a suitable instrument for intoning in any way other than traditionally. Why? I'm convinced it's because we are all so deeply accustomed to the sound and tuning of the piano that even small departures from that tuning can be instantly noticeable - tending to stick out like sore thumbs and so causing unwelcome disruptions in the listening experience. Somewhat similarly, though for fewer people, we are not accustomed to hearing substantial note-by-note modulation of volume in pipe organ performances.
It's the old case of being mindful that the human organism is enormously adaptable - including our hearing - and that anyone can, in isolation as an individual, all too quickly become accustomed to almost anything within the vast scope of our adaptabilities. And yet in very large populations (which include our listeners), deeply embedded "normalities" tend to change only very slowly - except in the case of a dramatically successful innovation. Call it culture, call it what you will but it's something very real and worth treating with cautious respect.
That said, I'll certainly not stand in the way of attempted innovations in music. "Naturalisation" means the innovation is successfully internalised by many people, all the cultural gatekeeping has been satisfied and the world has duly changed for those people; it is inherently a democratic, distributed, cultural process, hence it is also - most especially in the case of music - beyond any individual's power to impose or prevent. Moreover, it's not without its own sanctions, positive and negative; so one might add, "careful with that axe, Eugene".
