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Children᾽s Carnival, op. 25, has six movements, which are named after characters or episodes that may be found in pantomime or commedia del᾽arte. The first movement, “Promenade,” is the march-style introductory piece to the suite. “Promenade” opens with a trumpet-like, four-measure fanfare in octaves with both hands playing together. The fanfare features repeated notes and arpeggios, and Beach was very specific regarding fingering in this section.
Beach᾽s fastidious and thorough fingering indications demonstrate her desire to help students develop good technique, and provide her interpretation, as a pianist-composer, of the best execution of the piece. “Promenade” has a right-hand melody with a broken-chord
accompaniment. The primary rhythmic skill addressed in “Promenade” is the execution of the dotted-eighth-sixteenth rhythm in the melody. The B section contrasts this skipping dotted-eighth-sixteenth rhythm with a flowing scalar even eighth-note rhythm to reinforce the stylistic difference between the two rhythms. “Promenade” closes with a sudden return to the dramatic octave fanfare opening of the work.
“Columbine,” in 6/8 time, is the second piece of Children᾽s Carnival. The feminine character of Columbine is depicted in the cantabile left-hand melody of the piece, with a piano or pianissimo dynamic throughout. The right hand accompanies the melody with arpeggios or broken chords, except for a short section with the melody in the right hand. This piece poses two major technical challenges for the young student. The first is smoothly shaping the legato melodic phrase in the left hand with refined dynamics and control. The second challenge is in balancing the expressive left-hand melody with the right-hand accompaniment, since the normal roles of the hands are reversed. Again, Beach is very specific with regards to fingering for both the chords and melody.
“Pantalon” is the third piece of Children᾽s Carnival. After a decorated introductory section shared between both hands, an energetic melody consisting of rapid turning and scalar figurations takes over in the right hand. At measure 37, the melody passes to the left hand, then back to the right for the close of the piece. In her edition of “Pantalon” (prepared from the original manuscript), Sylvia Glickman encourages students to practice this work “slowly, and always with the correct fingering” when first starting to learn the piece, since Beach had specified fingerings for scalar passages to help develop execution of this technique.
“Pierrot and Pierrette” is a waltz with a right-hand melody and broken-chord accompaniment. The melody and chords of the waltz are more easily coordinated if the studentfollows Beach᾽s fingering recommendations. Beach only gave the tempo marking Tempo di
Valse for this movement, so it could be performed by treating the triple meter as being either “in three” or “in one,” to match the needs of the student.
“Secrets,” the fifth piece in Children᾽s Carnival, ha
