Children’s Corner

The right hand plays semiquaver figures up and down the white keys above a low C. A slower melody soon enters between the semiquavers. Debussy marks the touch égal et sans sécheresse: even and without dryness.

On the dedication page of Children’s Corner in 1908, Debussy addressed his daughter: “To my dear little Chouchou, with her father’s tender apologies for what follows.” The page has drawings of two small elephants.

The opening semiquavers return in C major, very softly. The hands then move farther apart, and Debussy asks for more and more animation. By the final page the marking is Très animé, and the closing chords in C major are fortissimo.

The left hand begins alone, low on the piano, with a tune marked doux et un peu gauche (soft and a little awkward). It moves in short steps with long pauses, and the title names an elephant. Short, soft phrases follow in the upper register.

The suite’s dedication reads: “To my dear little Chouchou, with her father’s tender apologies for what follows.” Chouchou was Debussy’s daughter. On the contents leaf this second piece has the French subtitle Berceuse des éléphants, “lullaby of the elephants”.

A descending accompaniment fills the gaps between phrases. Longer notes carry the melody above it, and short pairs of notes reply. Later, at Un peu plus mouvementé, the bass moves in quavers.

Robert Casadesus recorded Children’s Corner on 11 April 1950 in Columbia’s 30th Street Studio in New York. Columbia had converted a disused church into the studio two years earlier, and its musicians nicknamed it “the Church”.

At 1° Tempo the opening tune returns above softly repeated notes, with the descending accompaniment beneath it. Debussy marks the passage Sempre pp et sans retarder, and the closing notes are marked morendo. The piece ends on a low B♭.

The piano plays detached chords that imitate plucked strings. The tune begins in the left hand, with grace notes leading up to each longer note, and then passes to the right hand. Debussy marks the passage léger et gracieux (light and graceful).

Sharps and flats enter the tune, and sudden accents break into its short phrases. In a footnote Debussy requires the soft pedal to stay down throughout, even in forte passages.

The grace-note melody returns in E major over continuous left-hand quavers. Near the end the hands again exchange short notes. The piano rises to a high E, and the final bar is a bar of rests under a fermata.

The two hands alternate in semiquavers, each playing in the gaps left by the other. Debussy marks the piano doux et estompé (soft and blurred), though the notes are short. A slower melody in longer notes enters among them, marked doux et triste (soft and sad).

Repeated notes in the treble fall into groups of three against the running accompaniment. Debussy marks Cédez un peu, then Au Mouvement. Sharply accented chords interrupt the figuration.

The opening alternating pattern returns molto pp. Its notes climb into the highest octaves, where Debussy writes perdendo (dying away). The score also marks Sans retenir.

A single line in the right hand moves down and up, with small ornaments, and ends on a pause. The left hand is silent. At Plus mouvementé the tune turns to dotted rhythms and soft left-hand chords enter underneath.

The dance stops on a held chord of A major, and the accompaniment stops with it. The shepherd’s melody returns unaccompanied, with changed notes and the same turns. Soft chords answer it, ending in E major on another long-held harmony.

The third call is a little stronger, and the answer is more animated. The dotted dance then returns pianissimo. Debussy marks it to be held back while keeping its rhythm, and the final A major chord is marked ppp.

The tune places its accents across the beat while the left hand plays a regular bass-and-chord accompaniment. Debussy marks it très net et très sec — very clear and very dry. Sudden loud notes stand out among the quieter ones.

In Paris in 1902–⁠03, seven African American women, the Florida Creole Girls, helped make the cakewalk a craze. Debussy’s title names a racist caricature, Florence Kate Upton’s blackface doll, introduced in an 1895 picture book.

The slower middle section quotes the opening of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. Debussy marks the chromatic phrase avec une grande émotion (with great emotion). Short grace-note chords alternate with it.

The first tempo returns, with the three-flat signature of E♭ major and the bass-and-chord step of the dance. Near the end the tune breaks into short, quiet fragments. Two detached fortissimo chords close the piece.