Introduction and Allegro

Description

Harp — PrefaceSometimes the stars seem magically to align, bringing the right people together at the perfect time and place, and when this occurs, extraordinary things happen. Such a confluence occurred in Paris in the early 1900s. Two competing harp companies, locked in a battle for dominance in the harp market, commissioned two young and controversial composers to write for each company’s respective instrument. The two companies were Pleyel, the chromatic harp maker, and Erard, which made double action pedal harps. The composers were Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, and the compositions were the Danses sacrée et profane, and the Introduction and Allegro, the two most perfect pieces ever written for the instrument by two of the greatest composers of the twentieth century.What makes this all the more extraordinary is that there was a ferocious battle being waged at exactly the same time over the direction in which French musical composition should proceed. On the one side were the academics of the Paris Conservatory, led by its president, Theodore Dubois, whose forces included composers like Gabriel Fauré, Camille Saint-Saëns, Gabriel Pierné, Jules Massenet, Vincent d’Indy, and other now long forgotten names. They staunchly believed that French composition should stick to the tried and true forms and formulas of the nineteenth century, and that is what was taught at the Paris Conservatory in the 1890s and early 1900s. On the opposing side, led by Claude Debussy, were Eric Satie, Albert Roussel, Maurice Ravel, and a small army of devoted followers, many students at the Paris Conservatory. To them, the nineteenth-century forms were dead, and a new musical direction was dawning, led by Debussy. Those advocates of this radical new approach to musical composition proudly called themselves Debussyists. When Pelléas et Mélisande, Debussy’s only completed opera, debuted at the Opéra Comique, many of these “Debussyists” went to every performance. In the 1902 season, the year of its premier, the opera was performed fourteen times, and Ravel attended all fourteen shows.Thirteen years younger than Debussy, Ravel was also a member of Les Apaches [the hooligans] a loose-knit group of composers, writers, poets and painters who, among other things, formed organized support for Debussy’s opera. Other better known members of this group included Igor Stravinsky, Florent Schmitt, and Manuel de Falla.Today, the names of Debussy and Ravel tower over virtually all other composers of that period, French and otherwise. That was not the case during their lifetimes. Debussy was detested by most of the French critics throughout his life. They simply could not grasp what he was doing compositionally, and felt that, while he did elicit extraordinary colors in his orchestrations, these amounted to nothing more than surface beauty, and were totally lacking in form and depth. Ravel didn’t fare much better. He competed in, and failed, the prestigious Prix de Rome competition five times! It is one of the great embarrassments of the Paris Conservatory that he never won the Prix de Rome, and his last failure caused such a scandal that the president, Theodore Dubois, was forced to retire and was replaced by Gabriel Fauré, who was brought in to make a total reorganization of the Conservatory.So it is in this context that these two composers were chosen to write for the harp. Both harp company presidents, Gustave Lyon from Pleyel, and Albert Blondel from Erard, could have gone with any number of well-known establishment, academic composers. But both presidents chose young, outside-of-the-establishment renegades to write for their instruments. It is unfortunate that no one asked either of them what led them to these composers. We should all thank our lucky stars in perpetuity that they made the choices they did.The Danses came first. Debussy received the commission from Gustave Lyon, president of the Pleyel company, in 1903, and the piece was published in 1904. It quickly became one of the most performed of Debussy’s works. Ravel received the commission for the Introduction and Allegro in 1905, and it was published in 1906. When it was done, Ravel went to Alphonse Hasselmans, harp professor at the Paris Conservatory, to ask if he knew anyone who could play the premier. Hasselmans, a staunch academic in musical taste, looked the piece over quickly, then said to Ravel, “I have a youngster who just got her first prize. I’m sure she can do justice to your piece.” That person was Micheline Kahn, an accomplished and intelligent harpist, who was, in addition, exceptionally beautiful by standards of the day. These qualities endeared her to a number of composers, resulting in important additions to our repertoire. Une Chatelaine en sa tour…of Fauré is dedicated to her. Caplet’s Masque of the Red Death was written at her encouragement, as well as his two Divertissements.The circumstances surrounding the composition of the Introduction and Allegro are amusing. Ravel was a slow and meticulous composer, spending enormous amounts of time agonizing over every detail of his compositions. For this reason, his total output is less than seventy works. After receiving the commission from Erard’s Blondel, Ravel was invited by wealthy friends to join them on a seven week cruise down the Rhine on their private yacht, and the deadline for the harp composition fell in that seven week period. And so, unlike any of his other compositions, the Introduction and Allegro was written in less than a week, and included a couple of all night sessions. Then, in his haste to get to the dock, he accidentally left the manuscript at his tailor’s shop. Ravel asked his friend Maurice Delage to get it, but the shop owner was a music lover and had personally returned the music to Eduard Ravel, Maurice’s brother, because he did not wish to have the responsibility for such a valuable item.For reasons that have never been explained, Ravel omitted the Introduction and Allegro from a catalogue of his works, and never mentioned it in his autobiography. He referred to it in only two letters. And yet, he included it on many of his concerts, and it was the first of a small number of his own compositions that he recorded.The Reasons for this EditionThe original Durand engravings of the Introduction and Allegro were made in 1906, and represent how harp music was published in the early twentieth century. It seems strange now, but at that time, there was no protocol for writing in all of the pedals. So, while some pedal changes are printed, especially concerning the glissandi, they are in the French solfège system, and many pedal changes are simply not there.There are notes throughout the piece that have to be played enharmonically, but are not notated that way, requiring every harpist learning the piece to figure this out and either circle these notes, or white them out and rewrite them. In addition, it is not always clear in the original engravings how certain passages are to be played, or which hand plays what. In short, it is not notated the way it is played.The fact is that for the whole history of this piece, harpists have had to spend countless hours marking up the music, figuring out where pedals need to be written, which hand plays what, what fingerings to use, etc., or they had to borrow the music from someone else and copy out their markings. For these reasons, it was time for a new edition, engraved the way the piece is actually played, and which would save the harpist all of this preparation time.But there is another reason as well for this new edition. Since its publication in 1906, the natural assumption of all musicians playing this piece was that all the parts were correct. In my work on the Debussy Sonate pour flûte, alto, et harpe, I discovered that inaccuracies can and do happen, sometimes in astounding numbers. Examining the printed version of the Introduction and Allegro carefully and comparing it to the source material has revealed numerous inaccuracies. The harp part alone had a surprising number of misprints: Incorrect accidentals, unneeded accidentals, missing musical indications, to name just a few. The work here consisted of checking not only the harp part, but also all of the other parts as well, to make sure that everyone is looking at the same information. The goal was to produce a new edition that reflects how harp music is now published, that shows clearly how the harpist is to play the notes, and which makes sure that all parts are accurate and faithful to what Ravel actually wrote.One would think that the best approach would be simply to find the original manuscript and copy that exactly, with no additions or decisions made on the part of the person researching the piece, (what the Germans call an Urtext edition). But it’s more complicated than that. In the case of the Introduction and Allegro, the only known manuscript is in the Harry Ransom Library at the University of Texas in Austin, and it is not the engraver’s manuscript. We know this because an engraver’s manuscript is messy, covered with pencil markings put there by the head engraver as he planned how the piece was to be engraved: where the page turns would be, how individual parts would be engraved, where cues were needed, etc. So the manuscript in Austin is a working manuscript, probably the one that Ravel wrote when he worked out the piece in less than a week. It contains differences in notes and musical nuances that are not in the final Durand engraving. It is therefore clear that Ravel made changes after the initial writing of the piece, and the Austin manuscript cannot be considered the final version.At this time, no one knows where the engraver’s manuscript is, or even if it still exists. It may have been sold at auction to a private collector, as happened to the Sonate of Debussy. So while I did consult the manuscript in Austin, I felt that many of the differences from the published score, both notes and musical nuances, really did not fit with the Durand edition.Without the engraver’s manuscript, the next best source is the printed full score. That would have been engraved first (before the individual parts), and Ravel would have proofed the galleys for the full score, but probably not the ones for the individual parts. What I discovered was that all of the individual parts are either missing some musical indications, or that some of those indications are misplaced. Sometimes these musical indications in the full score are in French, and in the individual parts in Italian. There are also places in the full score where all seven instruments are playing, and all of the instruments except the harp have clearly marked dynamic indications. So in those places, the harpist doesn’t know what everyone else is doing dynamically. An example of this is mm. 73 through 78 (Rehearsal 6). In the full score, starting at m. 73, the strings and wind instruments have a crescendo that continues through the next two measures to ff at m. 76, followed immediately by a decrescendo to the downbeat of m. 77. In the individual harp part, there are no dynamic markings at all in exactly the same places. It is reasonable to assume that if everyone else is playing ff, then the harp should too! In the measure before Rehearsal 6, where the harp is playing alone, all of the other instruments have a fermata over the third beat rest of that measure, clearly indicating that the harp is going to take its time getting to the downbeat at 6. But that is not indicated in the harp part. Thus, to insure that all of the parts contain the same information, I have included a list of corrections for each of the instruments.One of the most perplexing aspects of the original engravings involves the tempo indications. There are many tempo changes throughout the piece, and all of the instruments have tacets as well, measures in which they do not play. The Durand engraver apparently felt that, if an instrument was not playing for several measures, there was no need to indicate that there was a tempo change in those measures. So for all of the players, even if they are not playing, there are tempo changes that they should nevertheless know about. In some cases, the engraver put a tempo indication (accélérez, retenu, a tempo, etc.) where the player comes back in again, when, in fact, that tempo indication started one or two measures earlier, during the tacet. For these reasons, I have indicated these missing tempo changes in the list of corrections for each part. In some instances, in the harp part, I have, for example, divided a four measure tacet into two and two, because one of them has a tempo change that the harpist should know about.It is obvious that a harpist, probably Alphonse Hasselmans, edited the manuscript before it was engraved. But there are still some places where the notation is a bit murky as to which hand plays what, or which notes need to be played enharmonically. I have therefore re-notated those places so that it is instantly clear how the passage should be played. An example of this is mm. 247 through 252. Those three arpeggios were each notated differently at the top end. I changed the notation of the first two to match the way the third arpeggio is notated. I have included in the footnotes two different fingerings of mm. 41 through 44: one that was in the Durand edition, the other by Grandjany. Each provides alternate ways of playing those measures.Lastly, there are a couple of note changes that are standard alterations, the biggest one being in mm. 73, 74, and 75. Those measures are printed exactly as Ravel originally wrote them. But I have also included three different versions for those measures, by Pierre Jamet, Marcel Grandjany, and David Watkins.Minimal fingerings are included because that can be such a personal issue. They are present only in places where I feel it helps to clarify how a passage can best be played. In the end, all of the fingerings are suggestions, and can be changed if necessary to fit the individual hand and technique.This edition is not simply a copy of the way I have always played the Introduction and Allegro. Preparing it for publication has allowed me to look at it with fresh eyes, and to scrutinize every aspect of it in a way that I never did as a performing harpist. It also gave me an opportunity to look at what some of our greatest harpists had done, in particular, Renié and Grandjany. In addition to my own work on the piece, I asked four very fine harpists to look at what I had prepared and make any comments they wanted. So in the end, this edition, in all its aspects, is a fresh look at one of the most important pieces in the harp repertoire, and an effort to correct a century of misprints, mistakes, and unclear notation, and incorporate the best ideas into its corrected presentation.Lastly, let me state clearly here that I did not alter in any way Ravel’s composition or musical intent. Everything in this edition is Ravel, and only Ravel.—Carl SwansonPerformance ConsiderationsThe description of the piece, which is on the front cover under the title, is really the main instruction in performing the piece. It reads: “For harp, with the accompaniment of string quartet, flute and clarinet.” It is fundamentally a concerto for harp. Despite the fact that it was conceived and written as a chamber piece, Ravel was open to the idea of it being performed by a larger ensemble. In 1911, in a letter to the conductor Desiré-Emile Inghelbrecht, he talks about this:With regard to the piece for harp, it is not, properly speaking, a piece for orchestra. There are seven instruments in all. But it could be arranged: The string quartet could be doubled or even tripled. And, with the exception of several solos, it would sound even better than the original.With either ensemble (septet or small orchestra), the primary and overriding issue in performing this piece is that of balance, and, more specifically, making sure that the harp is not buried by the other instruments. The reason for this concern is simple. When a composer writes a work for string quartet, for example, there is instant balance because the four instruments produce their sound in exactly the same way. The same is true for music for wind ensemble. But wind instruments produce a much louder and more piercing sound than string instruments, and the very nature of their sound is stronger than strings. There is a reason why symphony orchestras have ten to fourteen first violins, but do not have ten to fourteen clarinets or flutes. Because of this, when wind and string instruments are mixed in chamber music, the winds have to adjust their dynamic markings to a much lower level. In the case of the Introduction and Allegro, and in the order of loudest to softest, the ensemble consists of two wind instruments, four bowed instruments, and one plucked instrument.Ravel was acutely aware of the balance issues. In many places in the Introduction and Allegro, when all seven instruments are playing, his dynamic marking for the flute and clarinet is pp, but for the strings is p, and for the harp is mf. So the flute and clarinet in particular often have to play at a very soft level in order to balance the other instruments. This is even more true in the higher register of those instruments. The harp, on the other hand, will often have to bump up the dynamic levels to achieve balance. So the point that all players must understand is that dynamic markings are relative to the situation. A dynamic marking of pp means one thing in a Mahler symphony, and something else in a Wagner opera. It means one level in a solo piece, and something completely different in a chamber work for mixed instruments.The seating arrangement for the ensemble should take its cue from the way in which Ravel orchestrated the piece. The orchestration is very classical, with the two wind instruments forming one unit, and the four string instruments forming another. So these two units should be grouped accordingly: the flute and clarinet together, and the string quartet together. The harp can be in profile to the audience on the right of the ensemble when facing the stage, or in the center, facing towards the audience, with the flute and clarinet on one side, and the string players on the other. The harp in general projects straight out from the soundboard, and therefore any harp is going to be heard best facing directly towards the audience, rather than in profile. Ultimately, the success of this piece will depend on a combination of factors: the acoustics of the hall, the sound produced by the harp and harpist, the configuration of the musicians on stage, and most of all, on all players being extremely sensitive to the balance issues that the music presents.Pedal Markings and DiagramsThe majority of harpists spend most of their careers reading music in which they have written the pedals themselves, and all harpists have their own particular way of marking them. Some write the pedals only below the lower staff, others only between the staves. Some favor right foot above left, others left above right. Some write their pedals in red or green ink, others in pencil or black ink. The variations are endless. The problem is that, when harpists see pedals written in a way that is not exactly how they write them, or simply in a different hand, they freeze up and usually rewrite them, even if those pedals are correct.There are a 219 pedal changes in the Introduction and Allegro (there are 209 in the Debussy Danses). It would have been pointless to come out with a new edition of this piece and not include pedal markings. It takes a lot of time to figure them out and write them. So they are all here, in a size large enough for most harpists to read easily. By working for a week or so with this edition without making any changes, it should be possible to become comfortable with the pedal markings as they are printed. If after that there is a need to change any markings, use white-out tape (not the liquid white-out) to cover anything that needs to be moved.My rules concerning how I write the pedals are as follows:1) While my first choice is to place pedal markings between the staves, that is not always possible. So pedals are written where space permits. In some cases, pedals are placed below the lower staff because it looks cleaner and less congested.2) For the sake of consistency, right foot is always written above left.3) In places where there are a lot of pedal changes in a short tacet, as there are for many of the glissandi, I usually start with the pedals that are farthest away (A and D) and work both feet towards the center. In some cases, I pair pedals that are both moving in the same direction (both to flat, both to sharp, etc.).4) I have included pedal diagrams throughout the piece. The diagram indicates the pedal arrangement at the beginning of the measure in which it appears. If there are pedal changes on the first beat, they are reflected in the pedal diagram. No pedal changes after that are included in the diagram.5) In places where the pedals are in a key, I use a common shorthand to indicate that. (6b) means the pedals are in the key of G≤. (3b + G#) means the pedals are in the key of E≤ but with G# too. If needed, circling those in red will make them stand out.The GlissandiThere are eleven glissandi in the Introduction and Allegro. Three of them are written in single notes, and all the rest are written as chords. There are a number of issues to deal with in playing these glissandi, and from my research, there doesn’t seem to be a definitive answer as to how they should be played.David Watkins, in his excellent two-part article on the practical considerations when playing the Introduction and allegro, written for the old Harpa magazine (Spring 1994, and Summer 1994, which can be found in the International Harp Archives at Brigham Young University, Provo Utah) talks at length about this, and about the pros and cons of the various ways of playing the chordal glissandi. In the following quote, he is talking about the two glissandi that start in mm. 88 and 92. But what he says applies to all of the chordal glissandi:At bars 88 and 92, Ravel uses the harp glissando to marvelous effect. If all the notes are played (4-3-2 in the left hand, and thumb down, then 2 up in the right), the sound becomes rather muffled, as there is not enough air between the notes. Some harpists only play the top and bottom notes of the glissando (both thumbs going down, both second fingers going up) and the result is brilliant and sonorous but lacking in body. The best solution is to play the lowest two notes of the chord with 2 and 3 of the left hand (with the left elbow very far forward), and the upper note with the right hand (thumb going down and 2 going up), thus giving you a three-note chordal glissando, not four.Watkins’ advice is excellent, but I think the final decision on how to play these will rest with the individual harpist. I suspect that a larger hand and longer fingers are better suited to his last suggestion. But he does offer an alternative in his second solution that anyone should be able to do.The single note glissandi (at mm. 11, 146, and 200) present a different problem. The lines with arrows indicating that a glissando is to be played should not be taken literally, meaning down or up as the lines show. Each of these glissandi has the words ad libitum above them, and it is up to the individual harpist to come up with a pattern for each glissando that fits the performance well.At Rehearsal 17, the glissando leading into the cadenza takes up six measures, and here, because of the speed and intensity, Watkins suggests that the first three measures be only down glissandi (with both thumbs) and that the last two measures be only up glissandi. For the first three measures after Reh. 17, he suggests one downward glissando per measure. For the last two measures, he suggests three upward glissandi. So the pattern would be (starting at Rehearsal 17) left down, right down, left down, right up, left up, right up.In the original Durand edition, in both the harp part and the full score, the two glissandi that occur at 3 and 4 after Rehearsal 10, and 7 and 8 after 10, do not have enough beats in the second measure of each glissando. Everywhere else, Ravel is very precise with his notation of the glissandi, and tells us exactly where the glissando stops, then fills the remainder of the measure with the appropriate rests. In both of these glissandi, there are two beats in a three-beat measure! Since these two glissandi are virtually identical to the glissandi in mm. 88, 89, and 92, 93, (as concerns the musical material being played), I took the liberty of adding a quarter rest to indicate the third beat of each of the measures in question.The final glissando requires special treatment in order to bring the piece to a dazzling conclusion. Again, I quote from David Watkins’ article:Marie Goossens used a most ingenious system for this final glissando. The right hand ascends smoothly as written, using 2 and 3, while the left hand pumps short glissandi on each quarter note. It is loud and exciting and reinforces each pizzicato in the strings.My preferred ending is to play the glissando with 2 and 3 of each hand smoothly and then suddenly increase the speed sharply to coincide with the last pizzicato. The hands will go over the head in a dramatic gesture leaving the harp resonating gloriously. Don’t dampen too soon or it will kill this wonderful moment.Instrumental CorrectionsThere is a small list of corrections to be made in each of the individual parts so that they all match both the full conductor’s score and each other. The corrections are listed here.For all InstrumentsThere are two metronome markings in the full conductor’s score that one can only assume were put there by Ravel himself. The first, at the beginning of the piece, is Œ = 40. The second, at Rehearsal 1, is Œ = 50.The great harpist Marcel Grandjany worked directly with Ravel on this piece. He had metronome markings that one can safely assume were sanctioned by Ravel. Here is a list of Grandjany’s metronome markings:7 after Reh. 1: Modérément animé Œ = 66Reh. 2: Allegro Œ =112Reh. 8: Un peu plus lent Œ =723 after Reh. 10: a Tempo Œ =112Reh. 12: a Tempo Œ =112Reh. 18: 1° Tempo Œ = 112–1206 after Reh. 19: Œ = 120Reh. 24: a Tempo (più vivo) Œ = 1525 after Reh. 27: accélérez Œ =1763 after Reh. 28: Animé Œ =192Violin I3 after Reh. 1: There is no p.2 before Reh. 2: The dynamic marking is pp, not p.2 before Reh. 4: The decrescendo continues to the downbeat of1 before Reh. 4.Reh. 8: The tempo indication is Un peu plus lent, not Plus lent.Reh. 10: The tempo indication is revenez au tempo for two measures. A tempo starts at 3 after Reh. 10.4 before Reh. 11: the chord on the downbeat should be quarter notes, not eighth notes.3 after Reh. 12: The decrescendo starts on the third beat, not the second.The cadenza starts at 10, not 11, after Reh. 17.5 after Reh. 24: There is a p on the second beat.Reh. 25: The crescendo starts on the second beat, not the first beat of the following measure.2 before Reh. 26: The mf is on the second beat, not the first.The decrescendo continues to Reh. 26.Violin II7 after Reh. 1: There is a tempo indication of Modérement animé.3 before Reh. 2: The rallentando is here and not at 2 before Reh. 2.Reh. 2: There is a dynamic indication of pp.5 after Reh. 6: There is a dynamic indication of p.Reh. 8: the tempo indication is Un peu plus lent.5 after Reh. 9: The tempo indication says retenu and has a dotted line after it for the next two measures.2 before Reh 10: The tempo indication is Presque lent, not tempo.Reh. 10: the tempo indication is Revenez au mouvt. It covers two measures.3 after Reh. 10: The tempo indication is a tempo.3 after Reh. 13: There is a tempo indication of retenu.2 before Reh. 16: There is a crescendo that starts on beat 3 and continues until Reh. 16.9 & 10 after Reh. 17: There is an accent (>) on each downbeat.5 before Reh. 21: There is a decrescendo that starts on beat 3 and continues through the next measure to the f in 3 before Reh. 21.1 before Reh. 21: There is a decrescendo through the whole measure. Remove the decrescendo in 2 and 3 before Reh. 21.5 after Reh. 22: The decrescendo starts immediately after the mf.5 after Reh. 24: There is a p at beat 2.4 before Reh. 26: There is a decrescendo starting in that measure, not in the previous measure.Viola5 after Reh. 1: Accélérez starts here and not 6 after Reh. 1.3 before Reh. 2: Rallentando begins here and not 2 before Reh. 2.Reh. 8: The tempo indication is Un peu plus lent.5 after Reh. 9: The tempo indication is retenu and a dashed line follows it for the next three measures, until the Presque lent.Reh. 10: The tempo indication here, for two measures, is revenez au mouvt. The a tempo is in measure 3 after Reh. 10.5 after Reh. 12: There is a p on the first beat.Reh. 17: The dynamic indication is fff, not ff.The cadenza starts 10, not 11, after Reh. 17.2 before Reh. 26: There is a decrescendo that starts immediately after the mf and continues for two measures.5 after Reh. 27: There is an accélérez in this measure.Violoncello3 before Reh. 2: There is a decrescendo over the whole measure.2 & 1 before Reh. 2: there is a decrescendo starting immediately after the p at the beginning of the measure and continuing to the pp at Reh. 2.Reh. 8: the tempo indication is Un peu plus lent, not Plus lent.Reh. 10: the tempo indication is revenez au mouvt., not tempo.2 after Reh. 10: the tempo indication is tempo.The cadenza starts at 10, not 11, after Reh. 17.Reh. 22: The dynamic indication is p, not mp.4 before Reh. 25: There is a dynamic indication of p.2 before Reh. 26: The decrescendo starts immediately after the mf, not on the third beat.Clarinet5 after Reh. 1: The crescendo continues for two measures to the f at 7 after Reh. 1.Reh. 4: There is an accent(>) under the B≤, and again two measures later.1 before Reh. 6: There is a fermata on the third beat.Reh. 8: The tempo indication is Un peu plus lent, not Più lento.5 after Reh. 9: The tempo indication is retenu, and it continues for four measures. The Presque lent is at 2 before Reh. 10, not 4 before 10.3 after Reh. 12: The dynamic indication is pp, not p. The same for 7 after Reh. 12.3 after Reh. 13: The tempo indication is retenu, for two measures.2 before Reh. 16: The crescendo starts on the third beat, not the first.The cadenza starts on 10, not 11, after Reh. 17.3 after Reh. 26: The trill notes are F≥ and G≥.Flute3 before Reh. 1: The decrescendo continues through the second beat of 2 before Reh. 1.5 & 6 after Reh. 1: The crescendo continues through both measures, until the f at 7 after Reh. 1.1 before Reh. 2: There is a decrescendo after the pp to the downbeat of Reh. 2.6 & 7 after Reh. 4: There is a cédez on both these measures.Reh. 8: The tempo marking is Un peu plus lent.5 after Reh. 9: The tempo marking is retenu, and it continues through four measures until the Presque lent at 2 before Reh. 10.Reh. 10: The tempo indication is revenez au mouvt. for two measures, then tempo for two measures.3 after Reh. 12: The dynamic marking is pp, not p. Same for 7 after 12.The cadenza starts 10, not 11, after Reh. 17.4 after Reh. 26: the chord on the first beat has a second ledger line Ab as the bottom note. (This might possibly be a misprint in the conductor’s score. Try it and see how it sounds).Reh. 27: The crescendo is followed by a dashed line for the next three measures, to the f at 5 after Reh. 27. This critical edition of Ravel's Introduction and Allegro has been carefully prepared by Carl Swanson. The preface includes historical and performance information on the piece, including a comparison of the separate parts of all seven instruments to the full score with a list of corrections for each instrument. It has been published the way that it is actually played, making it clear to read and consistent with Ravel's music and musical intent.