There is a new define-scheme-function command in analogy to define-music-function which can be used to define functions evaluating to Scheme expressions while accepting arguments in Lilypond syntax.

The construct #{ … #} can now be used not just for constructing sequential music lists, but also for single music events, void music expressions, post events, markups (mostly freeing users from having to use the markup macro), markup lists, number expressions, context definitions and modifications, and a few other things. If it encloses nothing or only a single music event, it no longer returns a sequential music list but rather a void music expression or just the music event itself, respectively.

New command-line option '--loglevel=level' to control how much output LilyPond creates. Possible values are ERROR, WARN, BASIC_PROGRESS, PROGRESS, DEBUG.

\set \once now correctly resets the property value to the previous value.

The alignment of dynamic spanners (hairpins, text crescendo, etc.) is now automatically broken if a different direction is explicitly given.

Appoggiaturas and acciaccaturas now also work inside a slur, not only inside a phrasing slur. Also, a function \slashedGrace was added that does does not use a slur from the acciaccatura note.

Many improvements have been made in the past two and a half years since the previous main stable version. A few major improvements are:

* LilyPond is now licensed under the GNU GPL v3 or higher.
* The vertical spacing engine has been drastically changed, making it much more flexible and easier to control.
* Automatic beaming is now more flexible, and beam collisions are avoided.

Work continues towards 2.14; the fourth alpha test, 2.13.38, is now online! This release still has one crash and two cases of suspicious spacing, so we cannot recommend it for daily production use. The current stable release is 2.12.3-2.

LilyPond 2.13.36 is out; this is the second alpha test of the upcoming 2.14 stable release. Users are invited to experiment with this version. New features since 2.12.3 are listed in the "Changes" manual on the website section about Development.

LilyPond 2.13.34 is out; this is the first alpha test of the upcoming 2.14 stable release. Users are invited to experiment with this version. New features since 2.12.3 are listed in the "Changes" manual on the website section about Development.

All details here