Jimbo's Lullaby (Children's Corner, No. 2)

Background

Jimbo's Lullaby is the second piece of Children's Corner, the six-piece suite Claude Debussy wrote for his daughter Chouchou and published in 1908. Jimbo was one of her toys, a stuffed elephant, and the name is a child's version of Jumbo, the famous elephant of London Zoo in the nineteenth century, who was sold to the American showman P. T. Barnum in 1882. The English titles of the suite are often explained by Debussy's fondness for things English and by Chouchou's English governess.

In this piece Debussy pictures the elephant being sung to sleep. The opening is marked doux et un peu gauche, "soft and a little clumsy", which is exactly how a heavy toy elephant might dance. Later a fragment of a traditional French lullaby, usually identified as Do, do, l'enfant do, drifts through the music.

How to practise it

The piece begins with the left hand alone, very low, plodding through a short tune that uses only a handful of notes:

Learn this tune first. Play it slowly and softly, letting each note ring before the next, like big, sleepy footsteps. When it comes back a little later it goes even lower, down to a very deep F.

Soon the music adds a new sound: two neighbouring notes, F and G, played together as a soft, blurred second.

Press both keys of each second at exactly the same moment, with the hand relaxed and close to the keys. They should sound like a gentle rocking, never like a clash. In several places the right hand also moves through notes a whole step apart, such as D flat, E flat, F and G, which gives a dreamy, floating effect.

The middle of the piece brings a higher tune in the right hand over these rocking seconds. Keep it simple and singing, a little louder than the accompaniment. Later the bass sinks again, with some low chords spread wider than an octave; share them between the hands or roll them gently from the bottom.

The final bass note is the lowest B flat on the piano. Find it in advance, so you can play it softly instead of searching for it at the last moment.

A plan:

1. The low tune alone, in the left hand.
2. The seconds, hands separately, then together.
3. Each section on its own at about half speed.
4. The whole piece, gradually moving towards full speed.

Low notes blur easily, so change the pedal often and listen carefully; many pianists also use the soft pedal to keep the sound hushed. This arrangement has flexible timing, so let the music rock gently rather than tick like a clock.

Another piece from the same suite is The Snow Is Dancing.