Debussy: Children’s Corner (Crossley, Bavouzet) - YouTube

It’s always a lot of fun to listen to the results when great composers turn their hand to writing music for (on in Debussy’s case, about) children. The reason is that such pieces pose a really severe challenge to composers – by virtue of their subject matter they’ve got to be quite evocative, but also demand that composers work from a really restricted range of materials. And how well a composer manages to wrangle these two pretty nasty requirements often tells you a lot about what their creative gifts and instincts are. (There’s a funny story about how Debussy left the concert hall at this suite’s premiere because he was completely terrified that having people hear this music would ruin his reputation as a serious composer.) When Debussy wrote Children’s Corner his style had already fully matured (Estampes and Images were already completed, and work on the Preludes was to start the year after), and it’s wonderful to see how even with a return to relatively simple textures and old-fashioned working-cla