Back in the 1970’s this Heugel edition (in 4 volumes) was hailed as a milestone.
(In spite of K.Gilbert’s scholarship being marred by the poor quality of the printing and binding, not to mention their preposterous sale price).
What I had hardly realised at the time is that this edition has quite a few errors: at this stage I estimate something like one error every 2 or 3 pieces!
I found some of these errors while preparing my baroque-fingered edition: I have my fingerings pencilled down in my copy of the KG edition, and I insert them into scans of the Chrysander 1888 edition. Whenever I spot a difference, I check with Couperin’s original editions. Some errors are indeed in Chrysander, but others are in KG!
Unfortunately, this procedure spots only some of the errors (those where Chrysander and Gilbert differ), and only in the pieces I have fingered. I estimate that my list of errors in KG is incomplete (about 1/3rd of the total). Once my edition is finished, I will gladly post here a document with it.
Since many harpsichordists still use the KGilbert edition, they will find very useful to have a complete Errata list. Unfortunately, I have been unabled to find any such a thing online.
If, as I fear, such an Errata does not exist, I am ready to go through all my fingered pieces (more than 50% of the total), and perform a full revision and complete Errata list of KGilbert’s ed., provided somebody else does the same for the remaining pieces (I am ready to prepare a full list).
There are quite some mistakes in KG’s Scarlatti edition as well, especially in the first volume. As for Couperin: I prefer Chrysander. Looks much better and seems more reliable. In case of doubt I check the original edition, which is also not without some ambiguities.
You are right, Pieter, Scarlatti’s KG also has errors. Which is not surprising: Gilbert produced this “in a hurry”, as attested decades ago personally to me by his friend Hubert Bëdard, who was not happy with this way of working.
Back to the F.Couperin edition, having collated Chrysander and Gilbert for about 50% of the total, I find Gilbert preferable for the following reasons:
Heugel printing may not be stellar, but is more legible than Chrysander (of which I once had original printings and now have the excellent hi-res-scan Dover reprint).
Chrysander converted all the straight and square slurs in Couperin onto the modern curved slurs: Gilbert reproduced Couperin’s originals.
Chrysander often changed the beams: Gilbert reproduced the originals.
I estimate that Chrysander has about twice the errors than Gilbert.
EDIT:
5. Whenever Rondeaux had to be repeated identically, Couperin marked this with signs (e.g. “Rxx”). Gilbert wrote always “D.C:”. Chrysander instead reprinted the Rondeau each time.
There is a new edition of Couperin by Barenreiter. I do not have it, but would it not have corrections such as you have mentioned? Why the need to correct the other two editions? Of course, nobody gets everything right, but I would have thought the Barenreiter new edition would be fairly good. No?
Le 24/04/2023 14:18, Claudio Di Veroli via The Jackrail écrit :
Given the popularity of Chrysander, perhaps I should aim at TWO lists!
Errors in K.Gilbert
Errors in Chrysander
The worst aspect of the Heugel edition, in my opinion, is the numerous
page turns. Some pieces (Les Amusemens) have six page turns in Heugel,
compared to zero in the original edition. Which is why many
harpsichordists, including myself, prefer to play from the facsimile. So
the most interesting list for us would be “errors (and ambiguities) in
the original edition” (taking into account the different reprints). I’m
lucky to own a copy of the superb Broude facsimile edited by… Kenneth
Gilbert. The Bärenreiter edition is much better, page-turn-wise, but has
its own issues.
I worked for years with Kenneth Gilbert, and know that he himself had a
list of errors in his editions.
The new Baerenreiter is excellent. Denis Herlin has exhaustively collated the numerous changes and corrections Couperin himself seems to have made between almost every printing of each volume. It seems clear from Herlin’s notes that Couperin kept on finding details that needed to be added and sometimes deleted. So just looking at IMSLP at one particular printing of the original may not be the “last word”.
Thank you Dennis for your very thorough review of the Bärenreiter edition!
Needless to say, had I the money and time to spare, I would get it just to have fun collating it with my own good-old-annotated-fingered-whatsoever Heugel.
