The String Quartet in G Minor, opus 10, occupies a singular place in Debussy’s oeuvre. It represents his sole contribution to the most dignified, revered, and intimidating genre of chamber music in the common-practice period, and it embodies a most sophisticated demonstration of the “Franckian” practice of thematic transformation. The current musical text is reproduced from the OEuvres Complètes de Claude Debussy, Series III, volume 1. The principal sources are the autograph manuscript along with the proofs of the first edition, the first edition itself, two copies of the first edition with autograph annotations, the second edition of the score in both regular and miniature-score format, and the first edition of the individual parts.
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