NOTATIO

I have been tasked with engraving a new edition of Debussy's Suite Bergamasque.
After consulting most available sources (notably: Complete Debussy by Durand, first edition by Fromont, modern Henle & Barenreiter), I have come to the conclusion that Debussy liked to omit rests while keeping the effect of the stem direction change. An example among many could be this one, where we have reinstated the missing rests: Another, bigger, problem, though, comes in the third movement, Clair de Lune, in 9/8 metre, where the bass line is not written to last for the full bar, but there is no LV tie, no Ped marking, and no explicit rest. See this example: Now, it is quite obvious to me and after listening to recordings of this overly famous piece that the bass line should sound until the end of the bar. Editorially speaking, though, every edition I consulted simply removes the rest and writes nothing in the Critical Notes, not even a mention.
The approaches here could be:

• keep the explicit rest

• keep the rest but in parentheses

• remove the rest entirely (I don't like this)

• integrate the prolonging of the note with a dotted quarter tied to the dotted half

What do you think of this?
I will probably add more passages to this.
Thank you!

NeeraWM wrote: ↑27 May 2025, 09:10 I have come to the conclusion that Debussy liked to omit rests while keeping the effect of the stem direction change.

Interesting. I just wrote a post about this in regard to Beethoven. It's a natural thing to leave out superfluous rests since in piano writing, voices come and go freely. There is no reason to keep account of them by means of rests as if the music were in strict contrapuntal voices. Yet editors insist on putting them all in. I see a lot of other rests in the original edition that look somewhat editorial, but Debussy's manuscript is apparently no longer extant, so it is impossible to know for sure. And keeping the stem direction the same in such cases is also the musical thing to do, and that is what one sees in so many autographs. So I wouldn't of change the stem direction or add rests.

To understand the issue with the low notes in Clair du lune, which is a well-known editorial problem, one must realize that Debussy adhered to the newer system of showing pedaling by means of the length of held notes, rather than using pedal signs.

Here are two possible explanations of the notation in Clair du Lune notation, which are perhaps not mutually exclusive:

1. Debussy might have considered the bass part to be in 3/4 time for the purposes of simplifying the notation, and it is thus already notated to hold through the entire measure of three beats.

Or

2. He is implying that the pianist should give the impression that the bass is holding through the entire measure but is not constrained to actually doing so because of the potential blurring of the upper parts, which is going to require some finesse to present cleanly. This might involve lifting the pedal gradually as the measure progresses, for example.

So I would leave the notation exactly as it is. If one ties a and a as one often sees in later editions, or adds a rest, it says something quite different from what Debussy might have had in mind. That is, it says either that one must hold the bass note for exactly the entire measure, or one must release the pedal on the third beat, which, as you said, is not what pianists do.

But measure 13 could seem contradictory to both hypothesis, but I think it's actually the opposite: Here he is showing that the left hand should release the chord at Y so the right thumb can play the F. But this meant putting in rests at the end of the third beat tenor part. If he writes only a in the bass part (at X) as before, the rests might be interpreted to affect the bass as well as the tenor. So here, he feels that he must tie the

But shouldn't the fact that he only ties the when forced to do so give an editor pause for thought? Maybe the guy who wrote one of the most famous pieces in the world knew exactly how he wanted it notated?

Thank you, John, and yes, I had seen your post on Beethoven, it just went much beyond what I could comprehend as a non-pianist

I agree with you the Debussy may have known exactly how he wanted to notate things but, in several, too many places, he (or the copyist of the first edition, or both) was just lazy, omitting articulation marks, slurs, and rests when they would clearly help the reading. Sadly, neither Henle nor Barenreiter do a great job into solving doubts or clarifying matters.
In your last picture, for example, there is no real reason for omitting the 8th-rest in the RH at the beginning of the second bar, since it is there both in the 1st and 3rd bars. That is to say that: either the composer is a machine of precision—I know some!—or having genuine doubts should be allowed.

While I agree (150%!!) that the stem direction should not be changed, I think that adding rests in only those scenarios helps a lot (my first picture).
What I don't agree with is that beaming or stem direction alone should carry a definitive meaning to the music.
In Ravel's Sonatine's autograph he puts the dynamics above staves countless times: is it a musical thing? Absolutely not! He just didn't have room between the hands. And yet, the first edition reproduced it faithfully, creating ugly slurs and plenty of collisions. I think that clarity should be the top #1 priority. Only a later Peters engraving solved this with much better visual results and the same exact musical meaning!

Also, and this will be controversial, we tend to sanctify what these famous masters did and then draw *a posteriori* conclusions (even forge new rules) based on what they did which, at least sometimes, was dictated by haste, convenience, space on paper, and other very mundane matters. This takes nothing away from their genius, I simply think we should analyse everything with a critical eye, regardless of the source.

Based on all this, and on your most precious explanation of the pedal usage, I will hide the rests again in most places.
Some times I think he is implying the 3/4 indeed, but not always ...
Now, a personal question: how would you play this? With pedal up to the end of the bar or gradually lifting it?

The last installment of Beethoven Stems 7 is pretty clear cut and deals with the exact issue you brought up. Beethoven omits rests in the alto in ms. 10-11 of the Arietta from op. 111 and continues up-stemming the upper voices against the "rules", just as in your first example.

Yes, the art of it is to work out when one is dealing with a mistake either on the composer or engraver's s part, an idiosyncrasy, an artifact caused by extra-musical factors like crowding (as with the Ravel dynamics, and he is not the only one who does that), or a notation of genius that doesn't happen to follow present editorial practice. That's where the sleuthing comes in. Clearly we are not dealing with a mistake in the case of the bass note notation, because its not a one-off, and goes on for many measures.

Another factor is the particular composer. When it comes to a Mozart, Beethoven or a Chopin, the consistency and ingenuity of the notation is staggering, and the errors are usually ones of omission or artifacts of crowding, easy to spot and take care of. In my opinion, the main editorial problem with these composers is not that their notation has been treated as sacrosanct, but that it is not been taken seriously enough. The liberties taken and errors committed even in the first editions were an unending irritation for these composers. And this lack of understanding continues to the present day, even in the best editions. Other composers are more or less like that. Generally "the better the composer, the better the notation". When the manuscript is missing and the publisher of the first edition is not meticulous, as in the case of the Suite Bergamasque, the editor's job becomes even harder.

The method of sustaining the bass note in Clair du Lune has to vary somewhat and involves quick half-pedaling where necessary and lifting the pedal toward the end of most of the measures. Another important factor is the voicing. Impressionistic music is the ultimate test of a pianist's control over the different voices to create a transparent environment that minimizes unwanted pedal blur.

The passage that follows your example in the Clair du Lune, the Tempo rubato, is another interesting case that points to solution no. 2. in my previous post. Now, the holding of seems to apply to not one but two measures! So one would give the impression that the bass holds for two measures, and make use of the same techniques to avoid blur. I believe that the sostenuto pedal was not yet in common use when this piece was written, but now its use is certainly not to be ruled out for this section.

It is a cliche to say giving impressions and creating illusions is an important part of the piano playing.

Concerning the missing eighth rest in the Clair du Lune middle voice. I notice that Debussy omits it each of three times it occurs and to my pianist's eye, it looks better that way. Perhaps this one is not a matter of logic but a matter of tradition, being a single note within an octave instead of a chord that is really just an extension of the left hand chord that itself requires an eighth rest. So, out of respect for Debussy's instinct, I would omit it.

I cannot say if it is only the rules, but to me having the stems up without something else causing it is highly disturbing and would not help my reading or understanding of the melody or of the voicing. But hey, plenty of composers wrote every stem to the left of the notehead until not so much ago, so ... at least when it comes to handwriting, it is very personal, like the stroke of a painter, and needs to be respected.
When it comes to final engraving, though, I would think it at least odd to see that stemming in Beethoven's 111.

On the damages done by editors we could spend time uncountable; perhaps I expressed myself inefficiently as I meant that we the musicians and engravers should not take this exceptional notation as a Holy Grail. There is logic in it, fine, but I'm sorry, if it looks wrong it just looks wrong (or at least incomplete).
I don't think that, in Beethoven 109 in your example, having the stem correctly written up would have changed the meaning of the music by even a tiny bit. If the voicing were so important, why then when bass and tenor cross voices the tenor doesn't keep the "wrong" upstem? This is causing unnecessary confusion, but it does only if we want to see something in the forced downstem bass voice, which perhaps we should not?

Now, back to Debussy's Claire de Lune, what do you think of this bar (65)? This is how the first edition writes it and it is quite ugly to me. Even assuming that the treble A belongs to the upstem voice, what about the bass clef A? Is it a continuation of the upstem voice, and should then be flipped up or is it an octave echo of the bass line? If the first, should a rest be shown? I clearly lack about 35 years of piano training, but the way it is notated now it is far from crystalline for me!

That is actually a wonderful example of what I have been talking about.

Debussy is telling us that something special is going on here: the high A flat is an important melody note that would have been played by the right hand on top of that right hand chord except that it is unpianistic to do so and has to be played by the left hand as a convenience. In other words, the A flat is not a displaced accompaniment note added for a little color, it is an essential note that should be played with full tone. And actually it is the climactic note of the entire piece.

If you look through the piece, you will see how important that A flat (and F) "dyad" is, starting with the very first measure and ending with the last chords.

Nice!
What about the last A, then, the one in F clef?

Going OT now: would there be a hand shift in the RH between the 1st and 2nd beat? If so, the A would be playable by the RH, I think, being within the octave. If this ruins the legato, though, then no.

The A flat is part of the bass line so its stemmed down just like the note it comes from, the A flat dotted half note at the beginning of the measure.

That's correct, playing the A flat with the right hand makes legato impossible. In fact, even without the A flat, it's difficult. The following intricate fingering allows all three chords to be connected, which is best for control. The pedal would also be employed to connect the notes that the fingers can't connect. As long as one finger connects from chord to chord, tonal control can be maintained.
If a pianist were not inclined to use finger substitutions, then the arm would create gestures that would mimic the connection of the uppermost notes of the three harmonies. But this would be a second-best approach.

Simply fascinating!
Thank you so much for this!

You are very welcome, Neera. I responded to your comment above regarding Beethoven's op. 111 in the thread called Beethoven Stems 7.