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''Children's Corner'', L. 113, is a six-movement suite for solo piano by
Claude Debussy Achille Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influe ...
. It was published by Durand in 1908, and was first performed by
Harold Bauer Harold Victor Bauer (28 April 1873 – 12 March 1951) was an English-born pianist of Jewish heritage who began his musical career as a violinist. Biography Harold Bauer was born in Kingston upon Thames; his father was a German violinis ...
in Paris on 18 December that year. In 1911, an
orchestration Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra (or, more loosely, for any musical ensemble, such as a concert band) or of adapting music composed for another medium for an orchestra. Also called "instrumentation", orch ...
by
André Caplet André Caplet (23 November 1878 – 22 April 1925) was a French composer and conductor of classical music. He was a friend of Claude Debussy and completed the orchestration of several of Debussy's compositions as well as arrangements of severa ...
was premiered and subsequently published.


History

Debussy composed ''Children's Corner'' between 1906 and 1908. He dedicated the suite to his daughter, Claude-Emma (known as "Chou-Chou"), who was born on 30 October 1905 in Paris. She is described as a lively and friendly child who was adored by her father. She was three years old when he dedicated the suite to her in 1908. The dedication reads: "A ma chère petite Chouchou, avec les tendres excuses de son Père pour ce qui va suivre. C. D." (To my dear little Chouchou, with tender apologies from her father for what follows). The suite was published by Durand in 1908, and was given its world première in Paris by
Harold Bauer Harold Victor Bauer (28 April 1873 – 12 March 1951) was an English-born pianist of Jewish heritage who began his musical career as a violinist. Biography Harold Bauer was born in Kingston upon Thames; his father was a German violinis ...
on 18 December that year. In 1911, an orchestration of the work by Debussy's friend
André Caplet André Caplet (23 November 1878 – 22 April 1925) was a French composer and conductor of classical music. He was a friend of Claude Debussy and completed the orchestration of several of Debussy's compositions as well as arrangements of severa ...
received its premiere, and was subsequently published.


Structure

The suite is in six
movements Movement may refer to: Generic uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Movement (sign language), a hand movement when signing * Motion, commonly referred to as movement * Movement (music), a division of a larger c ...
, each with an English-language title. This choice of language is most likely Debussy's nod towards Chou-Chou's English governess. The pieces are: # Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum # Jimbo's Lullaby # Serenade for the Doll # The Snow Is Dancing # The Little Shepherd # Golliwogg's Cakewalk A typical performance of the suite lasts roughly 15 minutes.


1. Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum

The title of the first movement alludes to sets of piano exercises of that name ('' Gradus ad Parnassum'' translates as "Steps to
Parnassus Mount Parnassus (; , ''Parnassós'') is a mountain range of central Greece that is, and historically has been, especially valuable to the Greek nation and the earlier Greek city-states for many reasons. In peace, it offers scenic views of the c ...
"), several of which had been published in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including one by the prolific publisher of piano exercises
Carl Czerny Carl Czerny (; ; 21 February 1791 – 15 July 1857) was an Austrian composer, teacher, and pianist of Czech origin whose music spanned the late Classical and early Romantic eras. His vast musical production amounted to over a thousand works an ...
, and
Muzio Clementi Muzio Filippo Vincenzo Francesco Saverio Clementi (23 January 1752 – 10 March 1832) was an Italian-British composer, virtuoso pianist, pedagogue, conductor (music), conductor, music publisher, editor, and piano manufacturer, who was mostly ac ...
. The harshness and mechanicalism is supposed to play a joke at the excessive exercises of Czerny and Clementi. This piece is a rather ingenious study in finger independence with a twentieth-century vocabulary. In the middle, the pianist slows down and tries the material in other keys for exercise. Debussy's "Doctor Gradus Ad Parnassum" is of intermediate difficulty and requires the ability to play more quickly and wildly. The pianist gets more frantic toward the end and finishes the piece with a bang. Debussy told his publisher that the movement should be played "very early in the morning".


2. Jimbo's Lullaby

This work describes an elephant,
Jumbo Jumbo (December 25, 1860 – September 15, 1885), also known as Jumbo the Elephant and Jumbo the Circus Elephant, was a 19th-century male African bush elephant born in Sudan. Jumbo was exported to Jardin des Plantes, a zoo in Paris, and then tr ...
, who came from the French Sudan and lived briefly in the
Jardin des plantes The Jardin des Plantes (, ), also known as the Jardin des Plantes de Paris () when distinguished from other ''jardins des plantes'' in other cities, is the main botanical garden in France. Jardin des Plantes is the official name in the present da ...
in Paris around the time of Debussy's birth. The misspelling "Jimbo" betrays the Parisian accent which often confuses the pronunciation of "um" and "un" with "im" and "in". It is a beautiful lullaby with some dark moments and whole-tone passages in the middle.


3. Serenade for the Doll

This piece, in triple meter, is marked ''Allegretto ma non troppo'' (moderately fast, but not too fast). Debussy notes that the entire piece should be played with the
soft pedal The soft pedal or , is one pedal on a piano, generally placed leftmost among the pedals. On a grand piano this pedal shifts the whole action (including the keyboard) slightly to the right, so that the hammers, which normally strike all three ...
. The piece's title—referring to a porcelain doll—alongside its delicacy, prominent featuring of bare fifths, the
pentatonic scale A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave, in contrast to heptatonic scales, which have seven notes per octave (such as the major scale and minor scale). Pentatonic scales were developed independently by many ancient ci ...
, and parallel fourths, mark it as an example of
chinoiserie (, ; loanword from French '' chinoiserie'', from '' chinois'', "Chinese"; ) is the European interpretation and imitation of Chinese and other Sinosphere artistic traditions, especially in the decorative arts, garden design, architecture, lite ...
.


4. The Snow Is Dancing

This piece can be considered quite difficult as it requires precise semi-detached playing in both hands with the melody between them. Again, there are darker moments in the bass near the middle. It portrays snow and muted objects seen through it.


5. The Little Shepherd

"The Little Shepherd" depicts a shepherd with his flute. There are three solos and three commentaries following them. The first solo has a breath mark at the end. This piece has different modes in it and uses dissonances, which resolve into tonality.


6. Golliwogg's Cakewalk

At the time of its composition,
Golliwog The golliwog, also spelled golliwogg or shortened to golly, is a doll-like character, created by cartoonist and author Florence Kate Upton, which appeared in children's books in the late 19th century, usually depicted as a type of rag doll. I ...
gs were in fashion, due partly to the popularity at that time of the novels of
Florence Kate Upton Florence Kate Upton (22 February 1873–16 October 1922) was an American-born (Queens County, NY) British dual-national cartoonist and author most famous for creating the Golliwog character, featured in a series of children's books. Early life ...
("golliwog" is a later usage). They were stuffed black dolls with red pants, red bow ties and wild hair, reminiscent of the
blackface Blackface is the practice of performers using burned cork, shoe polish, or theatrical makeup to portray a caricature of black people on stage or in entertainment. Scholarship on the origins or definition of blackface vary with some taking a glo ...
minstrel show The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of theater developed in the early 19th century. The shows were performed by mostly white actors wearing blackface makeup for the purpose of portraying racial stereotypes of Afr ...
s of the time. The
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 Unit ...
was a dance or a strut, and the dancer with the most elaborate steps won a cake ("took the cake"). The piece is a
ragtime Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that had its peak from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its Syncopation, syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers ...
with its syncopations and banjo-like effects. The dynamic range is quite large and very effective. During the piece, Debussy alludes satirically to
Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...
's opera ''
Tristan und Isolde ''Tristan und Isolde'' (''Tristan and Isolde''), WWV 90, is a music drama in three acts by Richard Wagner set to a German libretto by the composer, loosely based on the medieval 12th-century romance ''Tristan and Iseult'' by Gottfried von Stras ...
''. The opening bars turn the famous half-diminished
Tristan chord The original Tristan chord is heard in the opening phrase of Richard Wagner's opera ''Tristan und Isolde'' as part of the leitmotif relating to Tristan. It is made up of the notes F, B, D, and G: : More generally, the term refers to any chord ...
into a jaunty,
syncopated In music, syncopation is a variety of rhythms played together to make a piece of music, making part or all of a tune or piece of music off-beat (music), off-beat. More simply, syncopation is "a disturbance or interruption of the regular flow of ...
arpeggio An arpeggio () is a type of Chord (music), chord in which the Musical note, notes that compose a chord are individually sounded in a progressive rising or descending order. Arpeggios on keyboard instruments may be called rolled chords. Arpe ...
, while the middle 'B' section of this dance is interrupted on several occasions by the love-death leitmotif, marked ''avec une grande émotion'' (with great feeling). Each quotation is followed by banjo imitations. Debussy composed one more piece in the same style a year later, "
The Little Nigar ''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 L ...
", as part of a piano method.


Orchestrations and arrangements

* French composer
André Caplet André Caplet (23 November 1878 – 22 April 1925) was a French composer and conductor of classical music. He was a friend of Claude Debussy and completed the orchestration of several of Debussy's compositions as well as arrangements of severa ...
orchestrated the entire suite in 1911. * Danish composer
Hans Abrahamsen Hans Abrahamsen (born 23 December 1952) is a Danish composer born in Kongens Lyngby near Copenhagen. His ''Let me tell you (Abrahamsen), Let me tell you'' (2013), a song cycle for soprano and orchestra, was ranked by music critics at ''The Guard ...
orchestrated the entire suite in 2015. * Scottish guitarist
Paul Galbraith Paul Galbraith (born 18 March 1964) is a Scottish classical guitarist known for his unique style of playing. Biography Paul Galbraith had his first guitar lessons with Graham Wade, continuing his studies with Gordon Crosskey at the Chethams Sc ...
transcribed the entire suite for
brahms guitar The Brahms guitar, or cello-guitar, is an eight-string guitar with a conventional resonating body, but also an external, box-shaped resonator. Classical guitarist Paul Galbraith, in collaboration with luthier David Rubio, invented the instru ...
in 2006. * Leigh Howard Stevens transcribed five of the six movements for
marimba The marimba ( ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the mari ...
. * Japanese composer
Isao Tomita , often known simply as Tomita, was a Japanese composer, regarded as one of the pioneers of electronic music and space music, and as one of the most famous producers of analog synthesizer arrangements. In addition to creating note-by-note realiza ...
transcribed the fourth and sixth movements for
Moog Synthesizer The Moog synthesizer ( ) is a modular synthesizer invented by the American engineer Robert Moog in 1964. Moog's company, R. A. Moog Co., produced numerous models from 1965 to 1981, and again from 2014. It was the first commercial synthesizer ...
in 1974 (RCA CD RCD14587).


References


Sources

* * *


Further reading

* * Schmitz, E. Robert (1950). ''The Piano Works of Claude Debussy'', pp. 117–125. 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 neoclassic ...
. New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce.


External links

* * *
G is for Gradus and Golliwogg – ''Children’s Corner'' Suite – Debussy
notesfromapianist.wordpress.com 2012

(in German) jochenscheytt.de
''Children's Corner'' – Eine Werkbetrachtung
(in German) christianjahl.de {{Use dmy dates, date=August 2019 Solo piano compositions by Claude Debussy Suites by Claude Debussy Music dedicated to family or friends 1908 compositions Orchestral suites