Images (1894); Pour le piano; Children's Corner (review)

Claude Debussy. Images (1894-dédiées à Y. Lerolle); Pour le piano; Children's Corner. Édition de Roy Howat. (Œuvres complètes; sér. I, vol. 2.) (Musica gallica.) Paris: Durand, c1998. [Gen. pref. in Fr., Eng., p. ix; foreword, p. xi-xxi; selective bibliog., p. xxiii; score, 83 p.; abbrevs., p. 85; crit. notes, p. 87-96; variant readings, p. 97-108; appendix, p. 109-11; facsimiles, p. 115-19. Fr 597.20.]

Almost twenty years ago, the monumental task of preparing a new scholarly edition of all of Claude Debussy's music (Œuvres complètes) was undertaken in France by an international editorial board that included such illustrious scholars and musicians as François Lesure, Pierre Boulez, Claude Helffer, Marie Rolf, and Roy Howat, among others. The French government lent its support to this ambitious project which, when completed, will add up to over thirty volumes.

Luckily for pianists, of the ten projected volumes of series 1 that comprise the piano music, five are now available and include most of the well-known works: both books of Preludes (vol. 5, ed. Howat, 1985), the Etudes (vol. 6, ed. Helffer, 1991), both sets of Images, Estampes, l'isle joyeuse, Masques, and D'un cahier d'esquisses (vol. 3, ed. Howat, 1991), and the two-piano repertory (vol. 8, ed. Noël Lee, 1986). Published in 1998, volume 2 with the Images of 1894 (also known as the "Images oubliées"), Pour le piano, and Children's Corner is a remarkable achievement both from its mere visual aspect and from its scholarly rigor, and thus in keeping with the standards set by the earlier volumes. Although more recent editions than the first publications issued by A. Durand & Fils and E. Fromont (later Jobert) exist of Children's Corner (mainly Edition Peters, ed. H. Swarsenski, 1969; C. F. Peters, ed. Eberhardt Klemm, 1970; Ricordi, ed. Jörg Demus, 1975; G. Henle, ed. Ernst-Günter Heinemann, with a foreword by Lesure, 1983; and Wiener Urtext Edition, ed. Michael Stegemann, 1984) and of Pour le piano (C. F. Peters, ed. Klemm, 1973; and Henle, ed. Heinemann, with foreword by Lesure, 1984), with all of their acknowledged good qualities, none of them can match the thoroughness and the breadth of information provided by the new editions in the Œuvres complètes, nor the beautiful presentation in hardcover, with gold letters over a midnight blue background.

As for the Images of 1894, this is the only other edition since its first publication in 1977 by Theodore Presser, coedited by Howat and French musicologist Arthur Hoérée. The middle movement is an early version of the "Sarabande" from Pour le piano, and due to its pianistic texture and use of the familiar French nursery song "Nous n'irons plus au bois," the third movement is a precursor to the last movement of Estampes, "Jardins sous la pluie." The proximity in one volume of the two versions of the "Sarabande" allows for a most welcome study of Debussy's compositional process and fastidious notation. It is by observing in great detail the "Sarabande" of Pour le piano, a work for which Debussy had a soft spot, that we can appreciate and "retrace the steps taken by an artist of genius searching for perfection" (Hoérée, pref. to the Presser ed.). The most dramatic changes between 1894 and 1901 involve texture and spacing of chords, dynamics, phrasing, and articulation--all aspects of music notation that affect the quality of sound, the beauty of which forever preoccupied Debussy.

Why this set of Images was never published during Debussy's lifetime remains a mystery, especially since the middle movement appeared in a supplement to the magazine Le grand journal (no. 12 [17 Feb. 1896]: 8) as an announcement of the imminent publication of the triptych. The dedication to a young woman, Yvonne Lerolle, bears Debussy's characteristic contempt directed toward the musical salons of the time.

These pieces would take fright at brilliantly lit salons where gather...