• arranged for Niborii guitar orchestra

• Duration: 3'
• in 1 movement
• Composed in 2007
• First performance: 23.02.08
• ISMN: 979-0-9016509-5-4
• Parts: available from the composer
• Downloadable scores for inspection:
  Golliwogg_s_Cakewalk6.pdf

Golliwogg’s Cakewalk is the last of the six movements in Debussy’s Children’s Corner, written between 1906 and 1908. Debussy had three sources of inspiration: the golliwog; cakewalk; and ragtime and jazz, Wagner’s music.
Golliwog is the name American illustrator Florence Kate Upton gave to a doll she created. This humorous little black doll became the source of inspiration for an immensely successful series of 13 children books published from1894 to 1909. In 1919 during the First World War, Upton donated her original dolls and drawings for a successful fund-raising auction. With the proceeds, the Red Cross purchased an ambulance and christened it Golliwogg, Golliwogg later served in the trenches in France.
Cakewalk refers to a dance competition in which African-American slaves mocked the dances of their white owners with pompous parading and grotesque elegance. Other historians believe the slaves were imitating dances of the Seminole Indians. All agree that plantation owners, who were the judges, arrived at a decision by a process of elimination. The prize was a cake.
Golliwogg’s Cakewalk was one of the very first pieces by Debussy in which ragtime characteristics of a march-like beat with dotted rhythms and accents show up.  Later examples include Le Petit Nègre, La Boîte à Joujoux, and the two preludes: Minstrels, General Lavine. As the title indicates, Golliwog’s Cakewalk is supposed to paint a picture of this ridiculous doll trying to dance with all kinds of clumsy movements and high kicks, falling down, getting up, bowing and leaving the dance floor. Debussy was a fervent Wagnerite, and in 1888 at the age of 26, he accomplished the obligatory artistic pilgrimage to Bayreuth. During the years leading to the First World War, Debussy became increasingly nationalistic, anglophile and anti-German to the extent of calling himself Claude de France. In this piece, Debussy parodies the theme from the Prélude to Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde, as his way of sneering or laughing at Wagner’s romanticism. Unfortunately, the grotesque quoting of Wagner which would not have fallen on deaf ears of French pre-WW1 audiences, has lost its force to contemporary ears.
In any case, Golliwogg’s Cakewalk has remained a witty and charming piece of music delightful to listen to.