Gaspard de la nuit, for Piano Solo by Roger Nichols; Maurice RavelReview by: Mark DeVotoNotes, Second Series, Vol. 49, No. 2 (Dec., 1992), p. 799Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/897968 .

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Music Reviews 799

may be identified as follows: (1) Psalm 95:11, 13; (2) Verse from the great anti- phon of 21 December ending with the sec- ond half of Psalm 106:10; (3) Nonscrip- tural text; (4) Psalm 96:8; and (5) Isaiah 9:6 and a nonscriptural (?) refrain, "expectavi- mus eum, . . . " In combining these dispar- ate verses, Martin set a text that highlights some of the most important scriptural pas-

sages of the Christmas season. The care with which he observes the syntax of the text, the emphasis created by rhetorical flourishes on important words, and the highly inflected harmonic language will surprise and delight both performer and listener.

ROBERT M. CAMMAROTA New York City

Maurice Ravel. Gaspard de la nuit, for piano solo. Urtext edition by Roger Nichols. London: Peters, 1991. [Editorial method and sources, table of source abbreviations, preface, editorial practice, pp. 3-5; score, pp. 7-44 (poem in Fr., Eng., preceding each movement); critical com- mentary, pp. 45-46. Edition Peters No. 7378. $17.50.]

In the June 1991 issue of Notes (pp. 1303-1305) I described the publication his- tory of Maurice Ravel's largest and best work for solo piano and evaluated two new performing editions that appeared in 1990. I mentioned then that yet another new edi- tion was imminent, and here it is. Roger Nichols's edition is the first of this mas- terpiece that can be called authoritative. Its sources are as comprehensive as possible. Ravel's autograph (now at the University of Texas), his own personally corrected shelf copy of the original Durand edition of 1909 (at the Bibliotheque nationale), and an an- notated Durand score formerly owned by Ravel's friend Lucien Garban (now at Cal- ifornia State College, Bakersfield) are the most important of these, but the written and recorded testimony of three pianists, Robert Casadesus, Jacques Fevrier, and Vlado Perlemuter, all of whom studied Ga- spard with the composer, has also been drawn upon.

After closely examining the new edition I can find no flaw in its editing and its printing. Up to 1990, every pianist who studied Gaspard had to put up with a score that was beautifully printed but full of er- rors, including omissions of every type, from ottava signs and slurs to accidentals and clef changes. In eighty-one years, and perhaps longer, Durand & Cie. never saw fit to correct these errors through numer- ous reprintings. It now appears that this failure may possibly have been caused by the publisher's reluctance to presume to correct the composer; most of the errors, including the most obvious, can be found in Ravel's autograph. Yet why Durand

never acted on Ravel's own autograph cor- rections, in his personal copy, is a mystery.

Nichols gives detailed explanations for his emendations in a two-page critical com- mentary. (I note one error: on page 45, the last line of Nichols's comment to m. 73 of Ondine refers to m. 74.) There are several instances where Nichols does not annotate his discretionary editing, as for instance the addition of staccato dots to mm. 489-90 of Scarbo and several other places where sim- ilar figures occur. Nor is Nichols's deletion of the natural sign before the penultimate right-hand note (that is, leaving it as GO) in m. 298 in Scarbo mentioned in the com- mentary; the deletion contradicts the Du- rand edition, but it is obvious that GO is correct. I would have liked to see an Au mouvt. at either m. 22 or m. 23 of Ondine- probably the latter-but apparently Ravel never indicated one anywhere. As for fin- gerings, only those few that Ravel himself provided are included.

After so many years, it is good to have one of the greatest piano compositions of the twentieth century available in a docu- mentarily definitive edition. The pianist who studies this demonically difficult work, however, may prefer to have an edition more oriented to the practicalities of per- formance. For that purpose, Nancy Bri- card's minutely annotated and fingered performing edition (Alfred Publishing Co., Inc., 1990), is strongly recommended, but it should be corrected according to Ni- chols's commentary to make it fully accu- rate.

MARK DEVOTO Tufts University

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