Debussy: Children's Corner No.6 "Golliwog's Cake Walk" - symphonic wind
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 Caplet was premiered and subsequently published.
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.
The suite is in six movements, 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.
This is my arrangement of No.6.for double wind quintet/bass.
One of Debussy’s more popular pieces of music.
The cakewalk 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 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's opera Tristan und Isolde. The opening bars turn the famous half-diminished Tristan chord into a jaunty, syncopated arpeggio, 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.
My arrangement does not have all the players playing all the time: but I have still captured the essence and harmonies of Debussy’s original.
Give it a try!!
I have arranged this movement and other movements for clarinet trio and wind quintet.
