Debussy Danses New Pedalling!

[carl-swanson]

That is the most pathetic defense of Salzedo’s indefensible solution to that passage that I have ever heard!

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

There is nothing indefensible about it. Really, that’s a ridiculous thing to say. You might as well say Renie’s recomposings are indefensible.

[carl-swanson]

+There is nothing indefensible about it. Really, that’s a ridiculous thing to say. +

Alright, I just took another look at the Salzedo version, with the complete score right next to me, and the Salzedo version is even more ridiculous than I thought.

The whole sequence is a series of diminished chords, which consist of four different notes(all a minor third apart). Salzedo eliminates two of the four notes in each chord, completely changing the harmony, particularly in the third and fourth measures of the Animez, where the orchestra stops playing completely and the harp, all alone, has to provide that diminished chord harmony. So the core harmony of the passage is missing.

IN ADDITION, in the original, as well as every other solution to this passage I have found, the left hand provides emphasis to the right hand notes that start each beat. Debussy has double stems on those notes to indicate that they are to be emphasized. So in the original version those notes are played in octaves. In the Salzedo version they are not.

So please, I think I’ll add the qualifier ‘idiotic’ to indefensible!

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

How do you know you have the Salzedo version?

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

What Salzedo wisely did, to make the passage secure, audible, and playable in any tempo, is omit a chord tone that is played by the accompaniment. The root and third of the chord are present, which is enough to establish the basic tonality, and while the diminishing of the fifth is very important, the fact that it is doubled makes it possible to leave it out. When reducing chords, doubled tones are the first to go, and the root and third are more important than the root and fifth.

The question of whether or not we should have shortcuts in pieces is a separate one and an important one. They are often merely necessary. If the Danses were left only to those who could play every note,

[carl-swanson]

The accompaniment is there ONLY for the first two measures, not for measures three and four of that passage. So when the orchestra stops playing, there is no longer a diminished chord.

What’s truly bizarre is that in all of the other solutions I have found- and I’ve found 5 so far-each solution deals with the real problem, which is the pedals. Salzedo is the only one who simplifies the notes, irrespective of necessity in pedaling. In other words, he apparently felt that the notes were hard as well as the pedals. I’ve never felt the notes, meaning the strings you have to hit, were difficult in this passage, and I don’t think anyone else does either. It’s exclusively the pedals that cause nightmares. At least Jamet’s solution, which may have been his or may have been Renie’s, sounds like the original, which is the goal of any simplification. Salzedo’s does not.

And by the way, two different Salzedo harpists sent me copies of what they do in that passage, and they’re both the same. So I think I’m using the version that Salzedo forced on his students.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

It was not forced. Please restrain your word choices. Salzedo often had four years or less to train a student who would then get a professional orchestral position, and have to have the Danses in their repertoire. If they had not been playing long, then having the simplified version made it accessible to them as well as to students. If you are playing in the kind of tempo Debussy indicated, with an accelerando in that passage, as he indicates, the notes by themselves are a scramble and sound so in many performances. Salzedo prized clarity and speed, a very French characteristic, and so, his version has its justifications. I have no problem with explaining or discussing Salzedo’s work, but I am tired of the hostile tone you keep reverting to.

[carl-swanson]

Salzedo’s career is what it is. When he taught his students his versions of many pieces in the repertoire, like the Mozart Concerto to site one example, he never told them that they were not playing the original, or anything like it.

One of his students at Curtis from the ’40’s, who then got a major orchestra position, went on a Fulbright to France about 8 years after graduating from Curtis. There she studied with Lily Laskine, who she adored. At one point Laskine suggested they work on the Mozart, so this harpist brought her Salzedo version, which she had already learned with Salzedo, to the next lesson. “That’s not the Mozart,” Laskine told her, and they then proceeded to work from the original score. In writing home to a friend about this episode, the harpist ended her account by saying, “the little man has a lot to answer for.”

Salzedo’s version of the Danses, including the glissandos on the last page, are just another example a domineering narcissistic ‘leader’ playing fast and loose with the music.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

If one plays the last page of the Danses up to tempo,

[carl-swanson]

Debussy was one of the most effective writers for harp that we ever had. Trust me, he knew the difference between glissandi and fingered arpeggios. In addition, the transcription for pedal harp made by Renie had to have been seen by Debussy. In fact, Renie gave a performance of the Danses in 1910 and I have no doubt that Debussy was present. If, when Renie made the arrangement for pedal harp, the issue of the arpeggios on the last page even came up, which I sincerely doubt, the decision was made to use fingered arpeggios. The reason is obvious. They sound so much better than glissandi. Glissandi at the end of this gorgeous piece make it suddently sound like a 1950’s cigarette commercial.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

You are making assumptions that cannot be substantiated and so do not support your argument. What is most obvious is that Debussy availed himself readily of glissandi, and could not when writing for a chromatic harp. Maybe you have watched too many tv commercials to come up with such an association.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

I meant to point out that there is, in my experience, always a tremendous balance problem at the conclusion, and that after the harp plays those majestic chords, it suddenly disappears as the strings swell and drown out those fingered arpeggios. Only the glissandi can maintain sail amid those swelling seas of strings. The fingered arpeggios, especially as written, fail to activate the resonance of the harp fully. It can be helped by using flat enharmonics, but it is still unsatisfying as a climax. I could describe this in terms of e.d., but I won’t.

[David Ice]

Marjorie Call told me that when Salzedo played the Danses for Debussy, he used the glissandos.

[carl-swanson]

How interesting David. But I still think that Debussy, when Renie made the transcription, could easily have asked for glissando’s there and he didn’t. Also, in all of the years that Renie and Pierre Jamet-both of whom worked directly with Debussy on this piece- taught the Danses, neither of them ever mentioned glissandi as an option. So in that context I’m very, VERY suspicious of Salzedo attributing that remark to Debussy. Frankly, I don’t believe it. I think Salzedo made it up to justify his arrangement and to get Marjorie off his back.

[Elizabeth Volpé Bligh]

When I studied Danses Sacree et Profane with Judy Loman, she taught me to play

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