Serenade for the Doll (Children's Corner, No. 3)

Background

Serenade for the Doll is the third piece in Children's Corner, the suite Claude Debussy dedicated to his small daughter Chouchou and published in 1908. Its six pieces look at the world through a child's toys and games: a piano exercise, a toy elephant, falling snow, a shepherd with his pipe, a dancing rag doll and this serenade.

A serenade is traditionally an evening song sung beneath someone's window, often to the accompaniment of a guitar or mandolin. Debussy imagines one sung to a doll, so everything is miniature: the "guitar" is a pattern of light, plucked notes and the song above it is short and shy. In the score he gave an unusual instruction: the soft pedal (the left pedal) should be held down for the whole piece, even in the places marked loud. Even the loudest moments, then, belong in a doll's-house world.

How to practise it

The piece is in E major and opens with the "guitar": the notes E and B, an open fifth, repeated in quick, light, detached notes.

In this arrangement the E is repeated on every quick note while the B joins it on every other one, so the two sounds alternate with a tiny catch. Practise this alone before anything else. Keep the wrists loose and play from the fingertips, letting each key rise fully so the next repeat speaks. Change fingers on the repeated E if it helps it stay light (for example 3, 2, 1 in turn).

The tune is made of tiny figures: a quick two-note grace before a main note, little turns, and short phrases that use many black keys, F sharp, G sharp, C sharp and D sharp. Learn them slowly, one figure at a time, keeping the grace notes short and the main notes gentle.

The trickiest part is that the guitar never stops while the tune moves above it. The arrangement shares the work between the hands according to where the notes lie, so experiment with which hand takes each note in the busier bars, and once you have a plan, keep to it every time.

In the middle of the piece the music grows louder in places and the bass moves around more. Even there, keep the touch crisp and the sound bright rather than heavy; with the soft pedal down, the loudest passages still sound small.

The piece ends with a quick, light arpeggio flicking up the keyboard to a very high E.

A plan:

1. The repeated E and B alone, until they are even and light.
2. The tune alone, figure by figure.
3. Hands together at about half speed, in short sections.
4. Gradually faster, keeping everything detached and delicate.

Use the sustaining pedal sparingly, only to colour longer notes, so the plucked character is not lost. This arrangement has flexible timing; follow its gentle lilt, but keep the guitar pattern steady underneath.

Another piece from the same suite is The Little Shepherd.