Description

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, both of which 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 many smaller but telling corrections, in all bringing a new clarity to this epoch-defining series of pieces spanning four decades.