Gollywog's Cakewalk PDF - Debussy

21 SET WORK D3 ‘Gollywog’s Cakewalk’ from the Piano Suite Children’s Corner - Claude Debussy (18621918) Biography & Musical Output Claude Debussy (1862–1918) was a 20th-century French composer and one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music. He was born on the 2...

21 SET WORK D3 ‘Gollywog’s Cakewalk’ from the Piano Suite Children’s Corner - Claude Debussy (18621918) Biography & Musical Output Claude Debussy (1862–1918) was a 20th-century French composer and one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music. He was born on the 22nd August 1862 in SaintGermain-en-Laye, France. Despite being born into near poverty, he showed an early gift for the piano and this led to his winning a place at the junior department of the Paris Conservatoire in 1872 when he was only 10 years old. Soon thereafter, he was employed as pianist by Nadezhda von Meck, Tchaikovsky’s patroness. Influenced by the Symbolist poets and Impressionist painters, he was early inclined toward a compositional style of great originality, shunning the strictures of traditional counterpoint and harmony to achieve new effects of great subtlety. Regarded as the founder of musical Impressionism, he used unusual voice leading and timbral colours to evoke pictorial images and moods, especially of languor and hedonism. Debussy was a late bloomer and it was not until 1894, aged 32, that Debussy completed the first piece to truly declare his independence of thought: Prelude a l'Apres-midi d'un Faune, a highly innovative piece inspired by a poem of Stephane Mallarmé. After his first successes, Debussy began serious work 22 on his opera Pelleas et Melisande (completed in 1902) and the three orchestral Nocturnes (completed in 1899). Debussy entered a new creative phase in 1903 with La Mer, completed while staying in Eastbourne in the UK, where he observed that "the sea behaves with British politeness." The success of Pelleas et Melisande's long-delayed premiere made Debussy a celebrity. Although already married to a dressmaker, he left his wife and began a passionate affair with Emma Bardac, a one-time mistress of composer Gabriel Fauré, whereupon his wife unsuccessfully attempted to shoot herself. After a divorce, he married her in 1905. In 1914, just as he was at the height of his powers, Debussy discovered he had cancer. An operation left him so debilitated that he composed nothing for over a year. Before his death on March 25th 1918 in Paris, he completed one final masterwork, the Violin Sonata. He is seen by many as the most influential French composer of the last three centuries. Examples of his works Orchestral music – Prelude a l’apres-midi d’un faune; Nocturnes; La Mer Operas – Peleas et Melisande Ballets – Jeux Piano music – Suite pour piano; Suite Bergamasque; Estampes; Images; Children’s Corner; Preludes and Studies Chamber music – String quartet; Cello sonata; Violin sonata; Sonata for flute, viola and harp Children’s Corner Suite Gollywog’s Cakewalk is the final piece in this suite, written originally for piano in 1908. It was dedicated to his daughter Claude Emma (nicknamed Chou-Chou), who was just a baby at the time. He is said to have anticipated that she would be able to play it when she was older, as there is not a single octave struck as a chord in the whole suite. The pieces in the suite are as follows: 1. Dr Gradus ad Parnassum 4. The Snow is Dancing 2. Jimbo’s Lullaby 5. The Little Shepherd 3. Serenade of the Doll 6. Gollywog’s Cakewalk