The last two chamber-music works, which I would like to discuss in more detail below, came out in time for the anniversary year: the Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp HN and the string quartet parts edition HN , score HN In the summer of Debussy tackled a major project, to include six Sonatas for various chamber music ensembles in the spirit of the classical French tradition. Of these, he was able, owing to illness, to carry out only three works, with the second Sonata for flute, viola and harp standing out because of its unusual scoring.
With its distinctive, slightly melancholy sound, it is probably the most beautiful of the three late Sonatas, but at the same time also the least known, for works with harp still eke out only a shadowy existence in the chamber-music business. All the notes are the same, only the viola has at the start of measure 73 an eighth-note rest instead of two d 1 sixteenth notes. The autograph shows a correction at this spot: Originally, in measure 73 Debussy also notated a d 1 still clearly recognisable by the beaming, then erased the note and notated the eighth-note rest instead:.
Apparently, Debussy created this headache that at first glance appeared like an uncomplicated viola spot. So, no problem — or what? As is known from other instances, Debussy often repeatedly changed measures in the manuscripts before or during the publication process, sometimes, though, even still afterwards. No document for the Harp Sonata is known with a subsequent change at this spot, nevertheless, there still remains some uncertainty: Can we be certain that had Debussy, then already seriously ill, taken the opportunity for an intensive scrutiny of the print, he would have altered it in the sense of an alignment?
To take this uncertainty into account, the Henle edition adds a reference to the comments where changes in the manuscript sources are explained, indicating explicitly that we cannot rule out the possibility that both measures are supposed to be the same in the first edition.
Violists who might prefer to perform both measures the same need not therefore have a guilty conscience. Title page of the first edition of the string quartet Durand Apropos, changes after publication. A prime example of this exists in the string quartet published in Extant are two exemplars of this first edition with corrections.
