Mark Seeley commented:

>I was browsing the latest issue of Fanfare magazine.  In a review of the
>Sony reissue of the Bernstein/NY La Mer the reviewer noted that Bernstein
>"omits the optional trumpet fanfares in part III."  ...

Here's what I can tell you:

The fanfares aren't really "optional".

They were present in the MS [this is reproduced in the Peters edition of La
Mer] and in early states of the score.  They were removed by the composer
in the process of revision and republication.

Some conductors find that spot too sparse and reinstate them.  Others find
it a moment of incredible tension.  I've done it both ways myself.  I have
a recollection that Debussy allegedly removed them because they were
reminiscent of something in Puccini's Manon Lescaut.

There are several other textual issues which I've never seen explained
in terms of chronology and publication history.  The two most famous are:

In the first movement, between the unison climax and the famous divided
'cello passage, how many bars are there of bass-line ostinato and in what
rhythm?

In the last pages of the finale, the trumpet and cornet parts have radically
different readings in different states of the score.

There are also questionable or outright wrong notes both in score and parts
throughout.

It would be helpful to have a tabulation of which readings have been chosen
in which recordings, going back to Toscanini's live BBCSO performance from
the mid-1930s and I believe a Coppola Paris recording from about that time.
I personally don't have the recordings for it, and my many scores
themselves don't resolve these issues at all.

There are similar issues raised in the Nocturnes, but the can be resolved
more easily; there appears to be ONE revision, as seen in the score
published posthumously around 1930, and one early edition, now in the
public domain in the US.  The audible differences are most striking in
"Sirenes" but there are many minor divergences in the other two.

I'd welcome any expansion and correction from Debussy mavens (mavonim?):

Joel Lazar
Conductor, Bethesda MD
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