Product Description
Claude Debussy was, by all accounts, totally devoted to his daughter Claude-Emma (affectionately known as "Chouchou") The suite "Children's Corner" (for solo piano) is dedicated to "Chouchou". She outlived her father by scarcely a year, succumbing to the diphtheria epidemic of 1919. (with information from Wikipedia). The naming of one or two among Debussy's piano works can raise issues in the light of current trends. These were not an issue during the composer's life, but are unlikely to be ignored today. The word "Golliwog" may have unwanted implications, but its omission may cause confusion with another of the composer's short piano works known simply as "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 United States.... It was originally a processional partner dance danced with comical formality, and may have developed as a subtle mockery of the mannered dances of white slaveholders. Following an exhibition of the cakewalk at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, the cakewalk was adopted by performers in minstrel shows, where it was danced exclusively by men until the 1890s. At that point, Broadway shows featuring women began to include cakewalks, and grotesque dances became very popular across the country." [Wikipedia]
The grotesque aspect of some later "cakewalk" dance steps may well be heard in the accompaniment to this work: the oboist's endeavors to produce a soft low B-natural (!) will help create this effect.
Technically this piece is intermediate, but the range of the bassoon (especially), oboe, and (to a lesser extent) horn parts are an additional challenge for those players.
This product was created by a member of ArrangeMe, Hal Leonard's global self-publishing community of independent composers, arrangers, and songwriters. ArrangeMe allows for the publication of unique arrangements of both popular titles and original compositions from a wide variety of voices and backgrounds.