Finally
in the edition
he deserves
In these days of multiple fine editions of most musical masterpieces, it is rare indeed for a new edition to make a substantial difference to how a major composer’s music might actually sound. However, this has happened in the case of Fauré.
In common with many composers, Fauré’s relationships with his original publishers were often less than satisfactory. Given the general precision of his written intentions, this can to some extent be ascribed to his publishers’ shortcomings. However, in certain aspects, Fauré set considerable challenges for his editors, notably regarding tempo and metronome indications – a fact he came to acknowledge.
The longevity of copyright protection militated against the proper evaluation of such textual ambiguities, some of them crucial to the essence of a performance, until many years after the composer’s death. Since the mid-1990’s, however, Fauré aficionados have had significant cause to be grateful to the renowned French music specialist, Roy Howat, for his painstaking and pioneering work in equipping us with the range of information required for cohesive and convincing interpretations.
Already internationally established, these editions are finally available also in France from October 2009. Some of the volumes offer pieces not previously available in any other standard publication. Each edition features a preface in French. All original pieces are presented in fully critical Urtext editions, with no unspecified editorial accretions. This even extends to fingering; any such indications are by the composer himself. Although Fauré was by no means a purist regarding arrangements of his music, the arrangements and transcriptions in some of these volumes are also presented with due fidelity to all extant sources.
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The new Peters edition of Fauré's Barcarolles, like that of the Nocturnes, draws on a very wide range of sources including piano rolls played by him and printed copies bearing his corrections. Along with other rare sources, these offer some variant textures in the First Barcarolle and throw important light on tempo and rhythmic treatment in (particularly) the first two Barcarolles. The Fifth Barcarolle shows a vital manuscript variant and some variant rhythmic notation that impinge strongly on the piece's tonal and rhythmic structure; in the Eighth Barcarolle a whole series of faulty or missing accidentals is corrected. A longstanding confusion of slurs and ties is resolved in the Tenth Barcarolle, along with a problem of continuity at one point. Some oft-debated textures in the Eleventh and Twelfth Barcarolles are clarified, along with the correction of an unusually large number of wrong notes in the Eleventh. The remaining pieces appear with by many smaller but telling corrections, in all bringing a new clarity to this epoch-defining series of pieces spanning four decades.
