Armande de Polignac, Preludes for Piano
Overview # Armande de Polignac (1876-1962) composed pieces in a wide variety of genres; most remain unpublished. Some of her manuscripts can be found in archives, along with a few editions published during her lifetime. Her Preludes for Piano, which she published in about 1900, have survived in their entirety only in a very rare edition preserved by her descendants. In the critical edition presented here, Florence Launay’s detailed preface situates these preludes, whose style is ‘uncluttered, almost ascetic, and tinged with nostalgia’, in the context of the composer’s career.
Felix Mendelssohn, Prelude Op. 104a, No. 2 (MWV U 123)
Overview # The manuscript of this prelude has been lost, and the surviving sources (an earlier draft manuscript and the first several editions, all posthumous) raise questions that cannot be answered with certainty, because it is not known which 19th-century editors had access to the lost manuscript. The critical edition presented here attempts to deal with these problems in a consistent way, as well as to enable the performer to evaluate the merits of other solutions. The performance edition suggests fingerings.