Debussy: Footprints in the snow triplet: 16th, 8th, 8th, missing 16th rest/note?

[Derek]

I'm trying to read through Debussy's Footprints in the Snow. There's a triplet figure that appears throughout most of the piece. It looks like it is saying there are to be 3 eighth notes where there were two. The first note appears to be notated as a sixteenth note. Thus, I would expect this to mean that there would be 6 sixteenth notes where there had been 4. However, it is followed by only two eighth notes (leaving what I'd expect to be a sixteenth rest or a sixteenth note). Can anyone help explain how to interpret this figure?  Thanks.  *edit* is the remaining sixteenth beat just implied or unwritten?

[Derek]

I wrote to some friends privately and I've received a response on this issue. It sounds like the first three sixteenth beats, or that sixteenth note and the following eighth note, are the triplet, followed by two regular eighth notes. That's the only way it could add up correctly, so I'm assuming the reader is just expected to figure that out. Usually triplets have some kind of bracket as a visual aid to the reader to point out which notes the triplet applies to. I'm guessing in this case it is "the only way it can work," thus the reader is expected to just understand that. Am I right?

[pianowolfi]

It's a sixteenth triplet, followed by one tied regular eighth note. The little 3 is placed clearly between the sixteenth note of the triplet and the following tied eighth, which contains the other two triplet sixteenths. The following eighth note (which is tied as well) counts as a regular eighth note.

I think my approach to learning this would be to think in sixteenth triplets throughout the whole first measure, and the respective other measures. So you have three sixteenths in the triplet, three triplet sixteenths in the following eighth note and six triplet sixteenths in the following (also tied) quarter note. And of course 12 triplet sixteenths in the underlying half note.
The lack of the triplet 3 later on reads as "simile", it's all the same rhythm (ostinato pattern).

In measure 3 (and 18, and 19) you need to think two of these triplet sixteenths in each eighth note of the triplet in the right hand, to get it correctly together.

[Derek]

Thanks pianowolfi, that was really helpful.