A new section is being opened in the “Quaderni dell’Istituto Liszt” in order to enlarge the scope of the collection.
Liszt and his relatives, friends and pupils still remain the main subjects of our research work, but from now other scholars will be invited to participate in the team with their specific competence, in order to illustrate original documents which till now have remained unknown. In focus will be not only music of the 19th but also novelties from the 20th century.
The first document to be illustrated is a short letter by Claude Debussy not included in the collection of his printed correspondence.
The letter itself is not connected with Liszt’s biography, but one must not forget that during his last stay in Rome in January 1886, Liszt met Debussy three times. As Alan Walker states, it was not a «fleeting encounter» but something which could have left a sign in the history of music. During the last of the three meetings, in fact, Liszt played his own Au bord d’une source, a piece not stylistically unaffecting for the later master of musical Impressionism.
To provide a commentary for this small jewel, and to put it in its correct historical context one of the most prominent expert of Debussy was invited to contribute to volume n. 7 of the “Quaderni”:
Denis Herlin is researcher of the CNRS and collaborator of the François-Rabelais University of Tours. He is managing editor of The complete works by Claude Debussy (34 volumes) and of the publications of the French Society for Musicology.