Ma mère l'Oye (English: Mother Goose, literally "My Mother the Goose") is a suite by French composer Maurice Ravel. The piece was originally written as a five-movement piano duet in 1910. In 1911, Ravel orchestrated the work.

Piano versions

Ravel originally wrote Ma mère l'Oye as a piano duet for the Godebski children, Mimi and Jean, ages 6 and 7. Ravel dedicated this work for four hands to the children (just as he had dedicated an earlier work, Sonatine, to their parents). Jeanne Leleu and Geneviève Durony premiered the work at the first concert of the Société musicale indépendante on 20 April 1910. The piece was transcribed for solo piano by Ravel's friend Jacques Charlot the same year as it was published (1910); the first movement of Ravel's Le tombeau de Couperin was dedicated to Charlot's memory after his death in World War I. Both piano versions bear the subtitle "cinq pièces enfantines" (five children's pieces). The five pieces are: Sleeping Beauty and Little Tom Thumb are based on the tales of Charles Perrault, while Little Ugly Girl, Empress of the Pagodas is inspired by a tale (The Green Serpent) by Perrault's "rival" Madame d'Aulnoy. Beauty and the Beast is based upon the version by Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont. The origin of The Fairy Garden is not entirely known, although the ballet version interprets this as Sleeping Beauty being awakened in the garden by her prince. On several of the scores, Ravel included quotes to indicate clearly what he is trying to invoke. For example, for the second piece, he writes: "Il croyait trouver aisément son chemin par le moyen de son pain qu'il avait semé partout où il avait passé; mais il fut bien surpris lorsqu'il ne put retrouver une seule miette: les oiseaux étaient venus qui avaient tout mangé. He believed he'd easily find his way because of the bread that he'd strewn all along his path; but he was very surprised to find not a single crumb: the birds had come and eaten everything."

• Charles Perrault

Orchestrated version

In 1911, Ravel orchestrated the five-piece suite. This form is the most frequently heard today. Later the same year, he also expanded it into a ballet, separating the five initial pieces with four new interludes and adding two movements at the start, Prélude and Danse du rouet et scène. The ballet premiered on 29 January 1912 at the Théâtre des Arts in Paris. The eleven numbers are:

1. Prélude – Très lent
2. Premier tableau – Danse du rouet et scène (Spinning wheel dance and scene)
3. Deuxième tableau – Pavane de la belle au bois dormant (Sleeping Beauty pavane)
4. Interlude
5. Troisième tableau – Les entretiens de la belle et de la bête (Dialogues of the Beauty and the Beast)
6. Interlude
7. Quatrième tableau – Petit Poucet (Hop-o'-My-Thumb)
8. Interlude
9. Cinquième tableau – Laideronnette, impératrice des Pagodes (Empress of the Pagodas)
10. Interlude
11. Sixième tableau – Le jardin féerique (The Fairy Garden)

Instrumentation

Ma mère l'Oye is scored for an orchestra with the following instruments:

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