Classical Music | Music for Quintet

Claude Debussy

Children's Corner  Play

Akropolis Reed Quintet Quintet

Recorded on 09/17/2014, uploaded on 03/14/2015

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

 

Children’s Corner Claude Debussy, arranged by Raaf Hekkema


I.    Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum
II.   Jimbo's Lullaby
III.  Serenade for the Doll
IV.   The Snow is Dancing
V.    The Little Shepherd
VI.  Golliwogg’s Cakewalk

Children’s Corner was a dedication to Debussy’s daughter, Claude-Emma, whom he affectionately called Chouchou. Arranged by Raaf Hekkema of the Calefax Reed Quintet, the work evokes memories through musical gestures. Rather than traditional melody, bass line, and harmony, Debussy paints with a hazier brush, utilizing ostinato (a term referring to a repeated musical pattern) and harmonies which, instead of following traditional patterns, sound more spontaneous and in-the-moment, following the composer’s feelings, not musical structures or systems.      Akropolis

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Claude Debussy composed Children’s Corner, a six-movement suite for solo piano, for his three-year-old daughter Claude-Emma who was often referred to by her nickname “Chou-Chou.” It was published in 1908 and was premiered in December of that year by Harold Bauer. Like Robert Schumann’s Kinderszenen composed seventy years earlier, Debussy did not intend his suite to be performed necessarily by children, but rather for the work to be evocative of youthful scenes from a child’s life. Similarly, Debussy also provided descriptive titles for each piece to aid the performer in rendering the chosen scenes. These titles were given in English, partly because Claude-Emma’s English nanny helped in pick them, but also due to the widespread infatuation of English culture that had gripped Paris, as well as Debussy himself, during the time of the suite’s composition. While the pieces of Children’s Corner are not representative of Debussy’s mature Impressionistic style, they nonetheless display his highly imaginative ability to create a myriad of tone colors.

The first piece, “Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum,” is a good-humored jab at Muzio Clementi’s famous manual of piano exercises Gradus ad Parnassum, published in 1817. One hears the student diligently beginning a finger exercise in C major, but soon either because of boredom or curiosity ventures off into other keys. He returns to the exercises, yet grows impatient and rushes hurriedly to the final cadence. The following piece, “Jimbo’s Lullaby,” describes a toy elephant, depicted in the lumbering opening melody heard in the bass. Debussy here quotes the French lullaby “Do, do, l’enfant do.”

Next comes “Serenade of the Doll,” a lighthearted Allegretto marked to be played throughout with the soft pedal of the piano depressed. Fourth in the suite is “The Snow is Dancing.” Debussy here captures many a child’s favorite scene — the gentle descent of snowflakes which slowly and magically cover the outside world. Then follows “The Little Shepherd,” which depicts a little shepherd boy playing his pipe. The melody in this piece is at times calm and pastoral, while at others playful and energetic. Last in the suite is “Golliwogg’s Cakewalk.” Utilizing the ragtime music of America, this final piece was inspired by the popular Golliwogg (and the rag dolls which share its name) series of children’s books by Florence Kate Upton. During the finale’s central episode, Debussy pokes a little fun at Richard Wagner, quoting the principal motif from his opera Tristan und Isolde, which is immediately answered by comical imitations of the banjo.      Joseph DuBose