Would someone (or several people) take a few minutes to answer a
performance question that has been puzzling me? Are there straightforward
rules about how to play a triplet rhythm in one voice against a dotted
rhythm in another? I don't mean the 3-against-4 figure, but 3 against a
dotted eighth and a sixteenth, for example.  I've read that in earlier
music (through baroque) the two last notes of these figures should be
played together.  However, one often finds in later music (for instance,
Chopin's Polonaise-Fantaisie) that the score is clearly printed as if these
notes are meant to be struck simultaneously.  If so, why does the composer
write the dotted rhythm?--why not just triplets in each voice? If not, why
is the printing consistently misleading? I suppose I should be able to sort
this out by listening to performances, but those I have been able to hear
never clearly answer this question for me.  Probably I am just being
stupid--but, if so, that should make it a quick and easy job for someone to
set me right!  Thanks in advance.

Dorothy