Debussy Trio edition discrepancy

[lollyburg]

Dear Harp Column Hive Mind,

In regards to the flute part, 3rd movement, of the Debussy Trio:  I have always played from the Durand edition.  A local flutist found another edition on SheetMusic.com that omits the first entrance of the flute (m.5, I believe) so the flute does not enter until 4 bars later. As far as I know, this is clearly wrong. Am I missing something all these years? (Asking for a friend, as the saying goes…)

[emily-mitchell]

Carl Swanson has a new edition of the Debussy Trio fully researched. Check with his score. I’ve got a copy of it, but can’t find which means I lent it to a student and didn’t get it back!

[lollyburg]

Thanks for the reply, Emily, and the reminder about Carl’s edition! I have not (yet) purchased his annotated work so was unable to compare directly.  I have read the Journal articles he wrote on the first two movements — fabulous scholar. I checked a 1915 manuscript found on IMSLP, and the flute part begins with the pick up to the 5th bar there, just as we are accustomed to hearing. It seems to me that leaving out an entrance is a big deal and I am just stumped over it. One would think that in the case of a discrepancy in an individual part, one should defer to the full score. Or at least defer to the way the piece has been performed for the past 100 years, from the original edition.

[carl-swanson]

I can’t imagine how that edition could have left out the first entrance of the flute in the 3rd movement.

 

By the way, there is one wrong note in my (Carl Fischer) edition. Kathy Bride discovered it when she was coaching a group at Eastman. The flutist had played it before and asked her about it. She passed the question on to me and sure enough, there was a wrong note! There were three of use proofing the galleys and this was something that we all missed.

 

It’s in the flute part in measure 161, and concerns the 32nd note E at the end of the third beat. That 32nd note should be an F#, not an E. The E on the first beat is correct. The one on the third beat is wrong.

 

Carl Swanson

[lollyburg]

Thank you, Carl.  I agree that it is a bizarre mistake in that edition.

Thanks also for the alert about the flute note in your edition!

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