Claude Debussy

Douze Etudes pour Piano

These Etudes are deliberately presented without fingering for the following reasons: It is only logical that a single set of fingering will not suit all shapes and sizes of hand. Some modern editors try to get round this by piling different fingerings on top of one another, which only serves to add to the confusion… Music then starts to resemble some strange mathematics, producing an inexplicable phenomenon, whereby the fingers unaccountably multiply. The story of Mozart who, as a child prodigy on the harpsichord, finding himself unable to span all notes in a chord, fondly imagined he could hit one with the end of his nose, does not really resolve the problem; and in any case may owe more to the imagination of an over zealous editor than to reality. Our old Masters - I might mention here 'our' admirable harpsichordists - never indicated any fingering, undoubtedly relying on the intelligence of their contemporaries. Similarly, it would be individious to doubt that of today's virtuosi.
In conclusion: the absence of fingering is an excellent exercise, removes the temptation to change the composer's fingering merely for the sake of contradiction, and confirms the old saying anew, 'Your own best servant is yourself.' Let us discover our own fingering.