''The Little Nigar'' (CD 122, L. 114) is the original title by composer Claude Debussy for a short piece for piano, composed in 1909 for a piano method and published the same year. It was later also published as a single piece, entitled ''The Little Negro'' and ''Le petit nègre''. In more recent times, the piece has also been published under the title ''Le petit noir'' (''The Little Black'').

History

Debussy composed ''The Little Nigar'' (giving the noun this spelling) in 1909 on a commission from Théodore Lack, for his piano method ''Méthode de Piano''. The subtitle describes it as a

cakewalk The cakewalk was a dance developed from the "prize walks" (dance contests with a cake awarded as the prize) held in the mid-19th century, generally at get-togethers on Black slave plantations before and after emancipation in the Southern Uni ...

. It is reminiscent of ''Golliwogg's Cakewalk'' from his ''

Children's Corner ''Children's Corner'', L. 113, is a six-movement suite for solo piano by Claude Debussy. It was published by Durand in 1908, and was first performed by Harold Bauer in Paris on 18 December that year. In 1911, an orchestration by André Caple ...

'', a piano suite that he had composed a year earlier. In both pieces, rhythmic outer sections frame a melodic middle section. In ''Golliwogg's Cakewalk'', the middle section satirically quotes the beginning of ''

Tristan und Isolde ''Tristan und Isolde'' (''Tristan and Isolde''), WWV 90, is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the 12th-century romance Tristan and Iseult by Gottfried von Strassburg. It was comp ...

'' by Richard Wagner, a composer who had influenced Debussy when he was young but from whose late romantic style Debussy later distanced himself. Debussy regularly sought exotic influences. In ''The Little Nigar'', he alluded to banjo chords and drums, influenced by American

minstrel show The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of racist theatrical entertainment developed in the early 19th century. Each show consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that depicted people spec ...

s. The piece, marked ''allegro'', begins with a first

theme Theme or themes may refer to: * Theme (arts), the unifying subject or idea of the type of visual work * Theme (Byzantine district), an administrative district in the Byzantine Empire governed by a Strategos * Theme (computing), a custom graphical ...

presenting "jazzy" syncopes in time, in the then popular

ragtime Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that flourished from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott J ...

style. It is followed by a lyrical passage, marked ''espressivo'' and ''pianissimo'' (very softly), which leads to a return of the first section. The first theme leans towards

pentatonic A pentatonic scale is a musical scale (music), scale with five Musical note, notes per octave, in contrast to the heptatonic scale, which has seven notes per octave (such as the major scale and minor scale). Pentatonic scales were developed ...

and is accompanied by a chromatic

sequence In mathematics, a sequence is an enumerated collection of objects in which repetitions are allowed and order matters. Like a set, it contains members (also called ''elements'', or ''terms''). The number of elements (possibly infinite) is calle ...

of broken minor thirds. ''The Little Nigar'' was first published in 1909 by

Éditions Alphonse Leduc The Éditions Alphonse Leduc company is a prominent French music publishing house specializing in classical music. It was created in Paris in 1841. Since January 2014, Leduc is part of the Wise Music Group (formerly the Music Sales Group). Hi ...

in Paris as part of Lack's piano method and again as a single piece in about 1934, now with an added repetition and entitled ''The Little Negro'', with subtitle ''Le petit nègre''. Debussy also used the piece's main theme in his 1913 ballet for children, '' La boîte à joujoux'', in which it characterises an English soldier. Numerous transcriptions in various instrumentations have been made of the piece. An arrangement for

woodwinds Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the greater category of wind instruments. Common examples include flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and saxophone. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and reed ...

has even been used for advertising

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dog food.

Literature

* Schmitz, E. Robert (1950). ''The Piano Works of Claude Debussy'', foreword by

Virgil Thomson Virgil Thomson (November 25, 1896 – September 30, 1989) was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as a modernist, a neoromantic, a neoclass ...

. New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce.

References

External links

*
The little nigar
(recordings) muziekweb.nl * Christine Stevenson
N is for Negre – Debussy’s Le Petit Negre
notesfromapianist.wordpress.com 2012 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Little Nigar, The Compositions by Claude Debussy Compositions for solo piano 1909 compositions