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In Debussy's preludes for piano, there is the number 5 entitled "les collines d'anacapri". It comprises the following Time Signature. One that I have never seen before, and was wondering what it meant?

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Neil Meyer
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1 Answers1

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A bar of 12/16, a bar of 2/4, a bar of 12/16, a bar of 2/4... '+' would be more usual. I imagine '=' indicates the bars are of equal duration.

However, I've seen it stated that "The "critical notes" to the Wiener Urtext publication of this prelude pretty much acknowledge that Debussy's notation for this piece is an inconsistent mess."

http://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/1578451/re-strange-time-signature-in-a-debussy-prelude.html

Laurence
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    Actually, in bar 3 you have 12/16 and 2/4 simultaneously on the same (top) staff, so it's not just "alternating bars". The strange time signature could be interpreted simply as "Sorry folks, I can't be bothered to write all the triplets I really need to notate this clearly - just figure it out for yourselves" ;) –  Aug 16 '18 at 10:22
  • Not to get too nit picky here but a “+” would most likely indicate both those signatures occurring in the same bar. – jjmusicnotes Aug 16 '18 at 10:59
  • And both DO occur in bar 3! – Laurence Aug 16 '18 at 11:47
  • Not convinced that the bars themselves are of equal duration. There are 6 quavers in the odd numbered and four in the even numbered bars. This would presume, since quaver is 184 bpm, that the odd bars are of 1.5x duration than the evens. – Tim Aug 16 '18 at 12:43
  • Indeed. I think we can go with 'inconsistent mess' :-) – Laurence Aug 16 '18 at 12:57
  • Yeah, it seems pretty debatable whether each 12/16 bar is supposed to take the same amount of time as each 2/4 bar or not. – Dekkadeci Aug 16 '18 at 14:25
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    @Dekkadeci - not really up for debate. Claude specified at the top. – Tim Aug 16 '18 at 16:57
  • There is some inconsistency, but at least this is consistent: all bars are meant to be of equal (musical) length. If you count 4 beats to each bar, then the pulse is modified by the tempo indications (Tres modéré -- Vif) but not by the dots. Each beat may be notated as a plain quaver/8th (giving 2/4) or a dotted one (giving 12/16). In your extract's 3rd bar, the 1st 3 beats are notated as dotted and the last beat as plain, but they last the same amount of time. It's really 2/4 with triplets but there are so many triplets that Debussy didn't want to write the customary 3s. – Rosie F Oct 15 '19 at 08:40