Le petit nègre

The Anacrouse collection offers pianists, beginners and advanced alike, a wide choice of classical works from the Renaissance to the present day. It brings together major works of the repertoire as well as rarer pieces, and also offers transcriptions for piano solo or four hands, selected for their musical and educational interest. Each score, available individually, benefits from careful editorial work: a rigorously established musical text, clear and legible engraving, accompanied by a short biography of the composer and a note on the work.

“Le petit nègre” is a charming, universally known sketch that has passed, and will certainly long continue to pass, under the fingers of every apprentice pianist. This piece is an ideal introduction to the world of Claude Debussy, offering playful work on the syncopated rhythm characteristic of ragtime, the precision of staccatos and the handling of sudden dynamic changes.

The exact date of its composition remains uncertain, but the work was first published in 1909 in Théodore Lack’s Piano Method. It features the main theme of the famous “Golliwog’s Cake-walk”, written a year earlier, which bears witness to the composer’s fascination with the African-American rhythms then booming in Paris.