Children's Corner

1. Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum

1. "Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum"

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The title of the first movement alludes to sets of piano exercises of that name (Gradus ad Parnassum translates as "Steps to Parnassus"), several of which had been published in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including one by the prolific publisher of piano exercises Carl Czerny, and Muzio Clementi. The harshness and mechanicalism is supposed to play a joke at the excessive exercises of Czerny and Clementi. This piece is a rather ingenious study in finger independence with a twentieth-century vocabulary. In the middle, the pianist slows down and tries the material in other keys for exercise. Debussy's "Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum" is of intermediate difficulty and requires the ability to play more quickly and wildly. The pianist gets more frantic toward the end and finishes the piece with a bang. Debussy told his publisher that the movement should be played "very early in the morning".^[3]

2. Jimbo's Lullaby

2. "Jimbo's Lullaby"

This work describes an elephant, Jumbo, who came from the French Sudan and lived briefly in the Jardin des plantes in Paris around the time of Debussy's birth. The misspelling "Jimbo" betrays the Parisian accent which often confuses the pronunciation of "um" and "un" with "im" and "in". It is a beautiful lullaby with some dark moments and whole-tone passages in the middle.

3. Serenade for the Doll

3. "Serenade for the Doll"

This piece, in triple meter, is marked Allegretto ma non troppo (moderately fast, but not too fast). Debussy instructs that the entire piece be played with the soft pedal, even in parts marked forte. The piece's title—referring to a porcelain doll—alongside its delicacy, prominent featuring of bare fifths, the pentatonic scale, and parallel fourths, mark it as an example of chinoiserie.^[4]

4. The Snow Is Dancing

4. "The Snow Is Dancing"

This piece features soft, syncopated alternation of the hands. Again, there are darker moments in the bass near the middle. It portrays snow and muted objects seen through it.^{[citation needed]}

5. The Little Shepherd

5. "The Little Shepherd"

"The Little Shepherd" depicts a shepherd with his flute. There are three solos and three commentaries following them. The first solo has a breath mark at the end. This piece has different modes in it and uses dissonances, which resolve into tonality.

6. Golliwogg's Cakewalk

6. "Golliwogg's Cakewalk"

Bars 10–13

Four measures of "Golliwogg's Cakewalk" that quote the opening of Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde

At the time of its composition, golliwoggs were in fashion, due partly to the popularity at that time of the novels of Florence Kate Upton ("golliwog" is a later usage). They were stuffed black dolls with red pants, red bow ties and wild hair, reminiscent of the blackface minstrel shows of the time. 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^{[citation needed]}.

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,^[5] 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.

Debussy composed one more piece in the same style a year later, "The Little Nigar", as part of a piano method.