Customer Reviews

Three Great Orchestral Works in Full Score: Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune, Nocturnes, La Mer (Dover Music Scores)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

1.Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun 2.Nocturnes (a).Clouds (b).Festivals (c).Sirens 3.La Mer (a).From Down to Noon on the Sea (b).Wave Play (c).Dialogue of Wind and Sea

The music is of course fantastic, but I was dissapointed by the quality of the printing in this volume. Sometimes note stems are virtually nonexistent, and the very small verbal instructions are almost impossible to read. The reason for this is not Dover's fault; it's because this book was printed directly from ancient master plates of the original French editions. In fact, all of Dover's "reproductions of old French editions" series seem to share the same problems. Yet none of Dover's German editions has the problem. Oh well, I guess all I can say is: Let the Buyer Beware.

Sure, there can occasionally be problems with reprints of older editions (and I've seen some quite poor ones at that, notably with Belwin-Kalmus!); however, this one of Dover (as well as their reprint of the same composer's opera "Pelléas et Mélisande") is not one I'd slight in the least. My copy has very few problems indeed. I recommend this one unreservedly!

As the earlier reviewer pointed out, this Dover edition is a reprint of the orginal Durand score issued in the first decade of the 20th century. The downside of a reprint edition, especially from French publishers, who had a very distinctive engraving style, is that stems and staves tend to disappear in places, which makes it hard to read. Even so, Dover does a great service by making this masterpiece (I don't use that term lightly!) available at a reasonable price. If you really want to have a clean modern engraving, you'll have to shell out more than $100 for the cloth-bound critical edition.