In his notes on the sources of the Second Symphony, Halbreich records a discrepancy between the two facsimile copies available to him in the early 1960s. One, the property of Charlotte Martinů , contained 56 extra bars in the Scherzo which had been removed from the copy deposited with the publisher, Boosey and Hawkes. Since that time, Madame Martinů’s copy has vanished, nor is there any trace of the autograph. A third copy has since been found in the Library of Congress, but its number of pages matches that of the publisher’s copy. Martinů’s full orchestration of the passage is therefore lost, at least for the time being. Fortunately, the content of these bars can still be inspected on pages 19 and 20 of the sketch, which are reproduced in facsimile overleaf. Towards the middle of the second stave, a38 time-signature can be seen, written in large numbers. This metre remains in force for the duration of the cut, which ends on the second page, on the eleventh stave from the bottom and four bars in from the right-hand margin.

If the cut bars were to be restored to the Symphony, they would be inserted two bars before figure 12, where in the final version a dramatic change in character comes over the movement. The reconstruction of the missing material is not a straightforward task. The sketch was clearly written at speed and uses a number of shorthand devices which were perfectly suitable for Martinů’s purpose but hamper later attempts to read it. Ex. 196 gives an indication of how his condensed notation works in the sketch. It represents, in unedited form, the four bars which immediately precede the cut (six bars before figure 12 in the score, allowing readers with scores to see the gulf between sketch and finished product for themselves

It can be seen at once from Ex. 196 that Martinů rarely uses clefs – indeed, comparison of these bars with the score shows that he can change from one clef to another on a single line, without indicating either. The third stave, for instance, begins with a chord of G minor and therefore starts in bass clef. After a separation mark, Martinů continues with the figuration to be found in the harp: this material has to be read in treble clef.