This book traces the sophisticated and intricate patterns of symmetry and Golden Section that underlie the forms of Debussy's major works, including structures based on the associated Fibonacci and Lucas number sequences.
"Roy Howat's book represents the most important advance in unravelling the mysteries of Debussy's music that there has ever been." Music & Letters
Critical Editions
Roy Howat's editions for the Œuvres Complètes de Claude Debussy (published by Durand, Paris) are now available in budget reissues, as well as their original collected hardback volumes. Click here and scroll down for a complete list. These quality budget volumes are now replacing Durand's old Debussy editions. Distribution in the UK is by United Music Publishers, in the US by Hal Leonard (insist if necessary: they don't always know what they have), and at very good prices on amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, etc.
These go far beyond any other editions in their fidelity to and range of sources used: the first page of the first Prelude alone supplies four chords absent in all other editions; the fourth Prelude supplies a bar missing in earlier editions.
"Howat's editorial work throughout is meticulous in the extreme… As Howat is equally renowned as an interpreter with an encyclopædic knowledge of the minutiae of Debussy's piano music and as a musicologist/analyst, he represents an ideal editor for this series." Robert Orledge, The Musical Times
Click here for an Errata list for the hardback volumes (corrected at every opportunity in the paperback offprints).
Other Debussy Urtexts or critical editions by Roy Howat:
Jane, song for voice & piano (1st publication, with commentary). Theodore Presser (1982)
Etude retrouvée for piano (different version of the Etude “Pour les arpèges composés”, discovered and realized by Roy Howat, with facsimile of Debussy's ms.). Theodore Presser, 1980
Morceau de concours, piano; Editions Durand (1980)
Page d'album, piano; Presser (1980)
Images (oubliées), piano (musical text edited by Arthur Hoérée & Roy Howat). Presser (1977)
Facsimile Editions:
Claude Debussy, Preludes Book 1. The autograph score. Introduction by Roy Howat. (The Pierpont Morgan Library Music Manuscript Reprint Series.) Dover Publications, 1987. View on amazon.com
Claude Debussy, Etudes pour le piano. Fac-similé des esquisses autographes (1915). Introduction par Roy Howat. (Publications du Centre de Documentation Claude Debussy, Tome 5.) Minkoff Editions (Geneva), 1989
For Roy Howat's Debussy CD series on Tall Poppies, see Recordings
Roy Howat (chapters and articles)