Claude Debussy

Golliwogg's Cake-Walk

Children's Corner is a six-movement suite for solo piano by Claude Debussy published in 1908 and later orchestrated by Debussy's friend André Caplet. The sixth and last piece of the suite is Golliwogg's Cakewalk, a ragtime piece with its syncopations and banjo-like effects. The dynamic range is quite large and very effective. The dance is interrupted on several occasions by the love-death leitmotif of Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde, marked 'avec une grande émotion' where each quotation is followed with banjo imitations. At that time, 'Golliwoggs' were in fashion. They were stuffed black dolls with red pants, red bow ties and wild hair, somewhat reminiscent of the black-face minstrels of the time. The cakewalk was a dance or a strut and the dancer with the most elaborate steps won a cake.