Description
Golliwog’s Cakewalk is the last movement of Debussy’s Children’s Corner – a suite of six pieces for solo piano. Written in 1906-1908, Debussy dedicated the suite to his beloved daughter (Claude-Emma, but nicknamed Chou-chou).
At the time (and, indeed up to the 1970s) golliwogs were popular toys. These days the golliwog doll – with its jet-black skin, white-rimmed eyes, exaggerated red lips and frizzy hair – and simply the term ‘golliwog’ is widely considered a racist caricature of black people. Turning to the other half of Debussy’s title, in 1903 Paris was ‘cakewalk crazy’. However, the cakewalk’s origins are also unsavoury. It was most likely a development of the 19th century ‘prize walk’ – a dance contest with a cake as the prize. With its comical formality, enslaved workers subtly poked fun at their enslavers.
Putting aside the unpalatable back stories, Debussy’s music is, of course, still wonderful – and great fun to play for bassoon and piano. Golliwog’s Cakewalk is in a ragtime style (a development of the cakewalk, and also very much in vogue at the time). Jaunty syncopations and banjo-like effects abound, but there are also (curiously) a number of quotations of the love-death leitmotif from Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde – perhaps this was an in joke?
Printed sheet music and PDF options available, as is an mp3 bundle of the whole piece for bassoon and piano, and the piano accompaniment only (i.e. 2 mp3s included).
