Golliwog’s Cakewalk

[carl-swanson]

Well, now I’ve heard everything! My editor contacted me today to tell me that the next edition he wants me to do is Children’s Corner suite of Claude Debussy. The movements all sound great on the harp, although two of the movements-Snow is Dancing, and Golliwog’s Cakewalk- both have difficult pedals.

Most of the work is already done. But he said that we would have to publish it WITHOUT Golliwog’s Cakewalk, because my publisher got an enormous amount of flack for including it in other editions in the last couple of years, the complaint being that there is a 19th century association with plantation owners and slaves. Huh???

The name Golliwog actually refers to a black doll that was enormously popular with French children at the time that Debussy wrote this. Most likely his daughter Chouchou had one, hence the title. The Cakewalk was a 19th century dance that, while it did start amongst slaves, grew to enormous popularity with blacks and whites alike as the century progressed.

The historian Barbara Tuchman once said that the most difficult thing to do as a historian is to see the period they are studying through the eyes of someone who lived it. Debussy couldn’t possibly have made the associations with the Cakewalk that people are accusing him of today. So unfortunately, this will be Children’s Corner without Gollywog’s Cakewalk!

[charles-nix]

I suppose we shouldn’t be playing spirituals either. Nor should anyone who does not have forebears from Africa ever touch, let alone actually play, a banjo.

Have you considered publishing only that one piece through Harp Column Music with the rest of the set at your publisher? Debussy would be public domain in the US, isn’t he?

[carl-swanson]

Thank you for the post Charles. This took me completely by surprise. I did most of the work on this last year, so all of the movements are ready to go. I just have to write the preface. Honestly, I never saw this coming. My very first reaction was that I would do exactly what you suggested. So I probably will put that one movement up on the Harp Column Music site. I just think it’s a shame that the piece has to be published minus its most famous movement.

[billooms]

I agree with Charles — put the “banned” movement out on Harp Column Music along with a preface explaining why it’s not part of the Carl Fisher edition.

[carl-swanson]

Hi Bill, and thanks for the input. The issue to me is more complicated. There are many arrangements of Golliowog’s Cakewalk for all kinds of instruments, and in the last few years Carl Fischer has published collections of pieces which included this one movement from Children’s Corner. I can (sort of) understand their deciding not to include this one piece in future collections because of the flak they have gotten. But I’m not trying to publish a collection of pieces chosen by me, in which one of those pieces is Gollywog’s Cakewalk. I’m trying to publish the original Suite, complete and intact. Children’s Corner, today, is thought of as one piece of music, divided into six movements. To leave out one of those movements is what bother’s me. I could put an explanation about the controversy in the preface, and basically say, if you are offended by this piece, then don’t play it.

My edition of Ravel’s Mother Goose, which came out last September, almost was published without the Beauty and the Beast movement, because I couldn’t find a way around the extensive chromaticism. My editor really really wanted to publish the whole suite, complete, and asked me if I could “simplify” the movement to get it to work. In the end, I worked out a solution, without having to simplify it at all. So they felt very strongly that publishing the whole suite was really important. If it was important then, then it’s important now.

[charles-nix]

Maybe you have thought of this already: if the offensive parts are “Golliwog” and “Cakewalk,” just change the name to something inoffensive like Doll’s Dance.

I doubt anyone seeing that movement on a recital program would know what it used to be called. It is not unknown for a music publisher to retitle a piece for better sales (tongue in cheek).

[Zeke]

I absolutely love that piece and it would be a shame if it was left out of your book, I think you should definitely at least ask your publisher if Charles’ suggestion above would be feasible. Especially since you’ve already put the effort in arranging it.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by Zeke.

[carl-swanson]

Charles- I doubt that most people, seeing that movement on a recital program, would have any idea what “Golliwog” or “Cakewalk” even mean!

I spent a good deal of time writing a response to my editor about this. I’m planning to send it in the next day or so. Since I was already planning on writing a preface, with explanations of each of the movements, in light of this unforeseen development, here is what I suggest using to describe Golliwog. Let me know what you think of this:

GOLLYWOG’S CAKEWALK

This movement, which ranks among the most famous of Debussy’s works, references two different images, both having to do with Black culture. The name Gollywog refers to a doll that was the Black version of a rag doll. Like a rag doll, it had very simple stitched or drawn on facial features, a simple shock of yarn for hair, and it was enormously popular with French children of the early 20th century. It is certain that Debussy’s daughter Chouchou, to whom the suite is dedicated, had one of these dolls, and was the inspiration for this movement.

The Cakewalk as Debussy would have known it was a dance that was very popular with both white and black cultures. Its origins trace back to American Black pre-civil war culture, i.e., the era of slavery. But so did other Black artistic forms, including ragtime, jazz, blues, and spirituals, and they were all enormously popular in white culture as well as Black. France in the early to mid-20th century adored American Black entertainers and their musical forms, and many American Black artists made careers in France for this reason. Debussy loved the music that these entertainers introduced to France, and this piece is his tribute to that rich culture.

In recent years, there has been an unfair and inaccurate revisionist evaluation of this piece and its title by some who feel it is racist and demeaning. If the reader of these words feels, in spite of what has been said, that this is the case for this piece, then there is a very simple solution. Don’t play it!
*****************************
I then added the following paragraph to finish the email:

I hope you will reconsider. I know you feel you are in a damned-if-you-do/ damned-if-you-don’t position on this. But my explanation above tells prospective buyers that 1) you are aware of the controversy, and 2) there are two sides to the story. Publishing the entire suite is musically correct, and, with my explanation of the piece, puts the decision to play or not play the last movement on the player, not the publisher.
**********
Let me know what you think about this. Thanks.

[balfour-knight]

I think your explanation is very good, Carl. I agree that this piece is probably the most popular one of this entire suite, so by all means, it should not be left out. When I first learned to play The Children’s Corner on piano, many years ago, “Golliwog’s Cakewalk” was my favorite, as were the ragtime pieces by Scott Joplin. I do hope your publisher will be open-minded enough about this to include Golliwog. I personally would not buy an edition which did not include all the pieces that Debussy wrote for this beautiful suite. I would feel cheated!

Best wishes,
Balfour

[balfour-knight]

Part 2, ha, ha! There must be a difference of opinion about the spelling of the title of this piece. In the Alfred edition, 1984, edited by Margery Halford, it is spelled “Golliwogg’s Cake Walk.” It is movement (or piece) number VI, and above the piece is this explanation: “The Golliwogg is a little doll whose popularity, Schmitz says, was ‘assured in Europe by his simultaneous appearance with newly imported and sought after minstrel groups.’ The cake walk is a lively dance.”

I hope this helps.
Balfour

[charles-nix]

That reads like a wonderful explanation. I certainly hope some arrangement can be made to publish it all as the original set of music.

[billooms]

Good explanation, Carl. I hope that will change their minds.

[balfour-knight]

One more tidbit about the history of this suite: Debussy wrote the titles in English because of the English governess of his little daughter, Chouchou.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by balfour-knight.

[carl-swanson]

A harpist friend of mine asked a bunch of her black musician friends what their problem was with this piece. They said that the Cakewalk was a dance that the slaves were “forced” to do by their plantation owners, for the owner’s amusement. I have looked all over the internet and read many articles about the Cakewalk, and I can’t find a single word to back up that statement. Nothing. What the articles I found said was that when the slaves got together socially, they would dance in a rather high stepping, showy way, often mocking the formal, stilted dances of the “white folks.” The white plantation owners really enjoyed watching these dances, and were sometimes asked, by the slaves, to judge the dancing and an ornate cake would be given to the winner. Sometimes the Cakewalk consisted of dancing, other times it was a kind of promenade around the dance floor. After the Civil war, it made its way into minstrel shows (shows with whites in blackface, but also blacks in blackface) and became a key part of the show. Minstrel shows, both white and black shows, were enormously popular at the end of the 19th century, and it is very possible that Debussy was introduced to the Cakewalk at one of those.

Looking back from our perspective today, a lot of this probably looks degrading to some people. But it didn’t look degrading at the time to them, and Debussy would not have written a piece that demeaned anybody. The piece was written out of a love for his daughter, and a love for an American Black entertainment.

[charles-nix]

Taking offense is in the hearing of communication, not the sending. If someone finds something offensive, logic and facts will rarely change their mind, at least in my experience.

People find the confederate battle flag offensive, and racist groups have, indeed, used it as a symbol, yet people I know saw and still see it as a symbol of regional pride and remembrance of history — remembrance of both the good and the evil parts of history. Obliterating memory of history is the surest way to end up repeating it.

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