Children's Corner

Children's Corner (English to German " Children's Corner ") is a work by the French composer Claude Debussy; the subtitle is Petite Suite pour piano seul (French to German " Little Suite for piano alone ").

• 3.1 Literature
• 3.2 External links
• 3.3 Notes and references

Composition and performance history

1880, at eighteen, was Debussy house pianist and traveling companion of the wealthy and art-loving Filaretowna Nadezhda von Meck, Tchaikovsky's patroness and penpal. Presumably during these months he met Mussorgsky's song cycle nursery, about which he wrote in 1901: "No one has with zärtlicherem, tiefbewegterem tone of the most precious things in us, spoken ... Never was such a refined sense with so simple a means to express ... "

Similar, albeit leichtherzigere objectives pursued Debussy himself in his cycle Children's Corner, composed 1906-1908 - after completion of the symphonic sketches La Mer ( "The Sea " ) and the same with the second episode of his images ( "Images") for piano. The front cover page of beautiful, published by A. Durand & Fils edition bears a handwritten drawing of the composer and the words " Juillet 1908 " ( " July 1908 "). Debussy dedicated the cycle time of his almost three year old daughter Emma -Claude, called Chouchou. The in said first edition decorated with the red outlines of a plush elephant dedication reads: " A ma chère petite Chouchou, avec les tendres excuses de son Père pour ce qui va suivre " ( " my dear little Chouchou, with the most loving excuses her dad's for the, what follows ").

The suite is unlike Schumann's Album for the Young and similar to the same composer's Kinderszenen, no educational work. Certainly, were the scenes of children and also Fauré's Dolly Vierhändigzyklus dedicated to the half-sister of Emma -Claude Debussy models. Professionals to remember, though the piano part of the six pieces had little or no virtuosic, sensitive and delicate. The work was to be faced by children barely, as regards rate and content, and " ultimately the mature players reserved ".

The premiere took place on 18 December 1908 in Paris by the distinguished English pianist Harold Bauer. Created in 1911 Debussy's former student André Caplet an orchestration of the work. 1912 played by the composer himself the whole suite one on a Welte-Mignon reproducing piano.

The individual pieces

The individual engages Title I jokingly back in the history of music, the Title II -VI describe toys Chouchous; (not consistently correct ) use of the English language was probably a tribute to Dolly Gibbs, Chouchous English governess. Incidentally tune the individual title in the price list, the table of contents and in the score of the first edition do not coincide with each other. Most convincing is the version of the price list. The index corresponds to this version, but writes all Latin and English words in capital letters. In the Music Section additional errors have crept in, as the following comparison shows:

The slightly different spellings below correspond to the compromises that The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians has been found.

Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum

An excellent piece with a doctorate initiates the cycle. Gradus ad Parnassum (Latin to German "step to Parnassus", for Musenberg Greek mythology ) was already a counterpoint teaching of Johann Joseph Fux, then above all, an extensive series of piano etudes by the Italian composer Muzio Clementi. The C major piece comes settled the einsinkenden in the flat keys midsection, in 37 of 64 cycles with no black keys. The sleek piano with his pedal points, disassembled chords and the continuous semiquavers, reminiscent of several of Bach's C major Preludes; significantly as a consequence, the influence of the most simple " walking exercises " about Charles -Louis Hanon, the sequenzierend on and screw downward. Debussy commented: "This is a kind of hygienic and progressive gymnastics; it is therefore advisable to perform the play every morning fasting, from modéré for animé -enhancing. "

Jimbo 's Lullaby

With " Jimbo " is certainly the English name elephant "Jumbo" meant; in French pronunciation are similar to the two words confusingly. The Lullaby of stuffed animal is first heard unanimously in appropriate low register. The tonality is refined in limbo: The nursery rhyme -like Rufterz f -d right at the beginning, as the fifth and third sounds like a major pentatonic on b, proves in progress as octave and a sixth major pentatonic on f; the later supervening accompaniment sweeps turn the major pentatonic to b.

Other elements are interspersed large second and a fourth in the space diatonic falling, embossed by repeated notes issue happens ganztönige and halbtönige fields and eventually connects naturally with the lullaby - tune.

Serenade for the Doll

The Far Eastern character of the " Evening Serenade for the doll" results from a pentatonic melody, together with exotic Quart proposals on the black keys jumps back and forth. Located on the white keys, however, the bottom accompaniment e - h ( nachschlagend at the beginning, at the end of pendulum ); the combination results in a Lydian scale. Like all pieces from Children's Corner is also the Serenade based on a not-too- obvious bow shape.

The Snow is Dancing

" The snow is dancing " - perhaps in a snow globe. This pianistic particularly challenging piece plays with soft non- legato semiquavers in the zipper -like change of hands: a tone at the left, a sound right. A surprising in Tritonusverhältnis added kicking sound proves to belong to the conventional D minor Tonvorrat. In the middle of the left hand must take all sixteenth, the right hand plays triplets, quietly plaintive repetitions. The continuous, a long snow day suggestive sixteenth chain is interrupted only once, and that just before the end, in the sixth from last cycle.

The Little Shepherd

" The Little Shepherd " was described as a " resin after and even after fresh paint " smelling character. The composition recalls in her pastoral mood and very concrete in their unanimous, schalmeihaften beginning to turn Debussy's Prélude à l' après -midi d'un faune by 1894. The tritone motif unusual of the beginning proves to gradually (similar to The Snow is Dancing ) as part of a quite conventional Tonvorrates, in this case, the A major scale. On the unanimous opening follows a graceful dotted melody, which, though accompanied by Head of strange sounds, but ends in pure A- flat major. A second, much the same molding ends in E major, the third mold part ends in harmony uncertain - but then close to the same bars that are already rounded off the first mold part.

The piece has comfortably on two pages of music space, making it the shortest of the suite.

Golliwogg 's Cake -walk

Golliwogg is according to the dictionary, a " negro doll "; easy to imagine is also a jumping jack; Debussy's title page drawing Golliwogg appears as air balloon with bold face and wig.

The final piece of the Children's Corner is a ragtime composition with typical foreplay and having a central portion, the cited four times untransposed the first notes from the opera " Tristan and Isolde ", " avec une grande émotion " ("very taken " ), each time but instead leads to trivial sounds in the original Tristan Chord: The first and the third time the composer sets a Dominantseptnonakkord by reinterpreting the Tristan chord (fh -dis - gis) (f- ces - it -as) and one of the keynote adds, that transforms with limited means an unusual sound in an ordinary; the second and the fourth time the associated tonic sounds to sat, provided with a sixte ajoutée. The result is an unexpected link between the cakewalk, a dance craze of the era, and the turn of the century in France much -received Richard Wagner - at any rate the piece illustrates Debussy's ambivalent relationship to the German composer. The interspersed proposals that seem almost like a silly laughter, even suggest, Debussy wanted to sneer at the exaggerated pathos of Wagner's Tristan music.

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