La Mère l'Oye (Mother Goose)
Maurice Ravel
(b. March 7, 1875 near Biarritz; d. December 28, 1937 in Paris)
Americans usually associate Mother Goose with nursery rhymes but her character lies deep in French culture and implies not rhymes but fairy tales. Four of the five movements have specific literary antecedents in works of Charles Perrault (1628-1703), Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy (1650-1705), and Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont (1711-1780).
“Pavane of the Sleeping Beauty,” from a Perrault tale, is a static tableau: The princess sleeps in her silent castle, surrounded by brambles. Flutes carry the primary melody while muted horns and violas playing pizzicato offer a counterpoint.
“Tom Thumb,” another Perrault tale, is the wandering Tom, lost because the bread crumbs he left to find his way back were eaten by the birds—ala Hansel and Gretel. The main melody first played by the oboe wanders as Tom does; in the middle section we hear the cuckoos and some other twittering as the strings play glissandos up on the fingerboard.
“Little Ugly One, Empress of the Pagodas” borrows from d'Aulnoy's tale “The Green Serpent.” Pagodas are Chinese nodding-dolls that are the retinue of the enchanted princess at her remote castle by the sea. They attend her busily—hear the pentatonic fidgeting begun by the piccolo. She enjoys a leisurely bath and is dressed resplendently, with great fanfare as the movement ends.
“Conversations of Beauty and the Beast,” from de Beaumont's tale, presents the beautiful princess as a graceful waltz melody. She is wooed by the beast—awkwardly by the contrabassoon. Repelled at first she finally comes to see the beast's inner beauty. A cymbal crash and the spell is broken. Her husband-to-be is restored to a handsome prince.
Any literary link to “The Fairy Garden” is unknown. We walk in an enchanted place with gossamer vines and shimmering foliage. We come to the center where magical buds open leisurely before us into fiery flowers. Our ears overloaded, our eyes invent a fantastical bouquet.
Ravel published Mother Goose Suite for piano duet in 1910 and intended it for the young children of his friends Ida and Cipa Godebski. Sensing more music in the pieces than even twenty fingers could render, Ravel orchestrated the suite's five movements the next year. Onto a good thing, he added two more movements and some interludes to produce a ballet before the suite he had just created had been performed. The eleven movement ballet premiered January 29, 1912, at the Théâtre des Arts in Paris.