Much played, but rarely in a version reflecting the latest state of research. A fresh look at the music text of Debussy’s symphonic poem La Mer has long been needed.  This has been provided in Douglas Woodfull-Harris’s new edition.

Claude Debussy’s symphonic sketches La Mer – nowadays probably his most frequently- performed orchestral work alongside Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune – left the audience baffled at its premiere in 1905: “some never find the sea again, others the music”, Paul Dukas summed up the reservations. People’s expectations were disappointed, for La Mer offers neither illustrative, pleasing tone-painting, nor does it follow in the tonal language of the composer’s earlier popular works. The three movements with their titles “De l’aube à midi sur la mer”, “Jeux de vagues” and “Dialogue du vent et de la mer” elude all attempts at analysis; they are, as an American reviewer stated in 1907, “as incomprehensible and at the same time capricious as the sea itself”. For Debussy, who loved the ocean and had once wanted to become a sailor, the sea and its incomprehensibility formed a focal point of abstract imagination. This manifested itself in La Mer in previously unheard, colourful-shimmering sounds and unusual forms. Only when Debussy himself conducted his work in Paris at the beginning of 1908 did La Mer’s enduring success begin.

But the publication of the first edition in 1905 did not mark the end of the compositional process: the music remained in flux as demonstrated by the famous fanfare in the third movement, bars 237ff. This was cut in 1910 in the new edition, evidently without any resistance from the composer. The composition also evolved through the performance practice of conductors such as Pierre Monteux, Charles Münch, Dimitris Mitropoulos and Ernest Ansermet. But above all, it was Debussy himself who continued to refine his work further until 1913. This is demonstrated by two previously-unknown sources from private collections with extensive autograph markings, one of which is a study score which the composer later gave to his wife. This scholarly-critical edition by Douglas Woodfull-Harris evaluates these sources in full for the first time and also draws on a wealth of further important sources, with variant readings, some of which have not previously been taken into consideration. This means we are now able to present the musical public with an edition which reflects Debussy’s last alterations and offers numerous new insights into details, such as in the wind parts in the 1st movement, bars 23-30.

At the same time the edition also takes into account the performance tradition by once again including the fanfare in the third movement, clearly indicated in the full score and parts in cue-sized notes and square brackets; the particular history of the problems of tonal balance associated with this are discussed in detail in the foreword to the full score.

The “fresh perspective” which the new Bärenreiter Urtext edition reveals can only be good for a frequently-performed work such as this.

Gudula Schütz

(from [t]akte 2/2014)