World Premiere: Jan. 1912
Last HSO Performance: June 11, 2017
Instrumentation:  flute, oboe, clarinet,
bassoon, contrabassoon, French horn, timpani, percussion, strings
Duration: 16’

“I would settle down on his lap, and tirelessly he would begin, ‘Once upon a time ...’ It was Beauty and the Beast and The Ugly Empress of the Pagodas, and, above all, the adventures of a little mouse he invented for me. I laughed a great deal at this last story; then I felt remorseful, as I had to admit it was very sad.” So Mimi Godebski reminisced in later years about the visits of Maurice Ravel to her family’s home during her childhood. Ravel, a contented bachelor, enjoyed these visits to the Godebskis, and took a special delight in playing with the young children — cutting out paper dolls, telling stories, romping around on all fours. Young Mimi and her brother Jean were in the first stages of piano tutelage in 1908, and Ravel decided to encourage their studies by composing some little pieces for them portraying their favorite fairy stories. 

Ravel based his music on four traditional tales: Sleeping Beauty, Hop o’ My Thumb, Empress of the Pagodas and Beauty and the Beast. To these he added an evocation of The Fairy Garden as a postlude. In 1911, he made a ravishing orchestral transcription of the original five pieces, added to them a prelude, an opening scene and connecting interludes, and produced a ballet with a scenario based on the Sleeping Beauty story for the Théâtre des Arts in Paris. The production, though it quickly disappeared from the boards, was successful at the premiere, and its warm charm led the celebrated dancer Nijinsky, who was in the audience, to tell Ravel, “It’s like dancing at a family party.” 

Such child-like miniatures as comprise Ma Mère l’Oye were much to Ravel’s impeccable taste. Hardly over five feet tall, he was most comfortable in surroundings that were small in scale, and precisely managed. Lawrence Davies wrote, “The suite can be regarded as the equivalent of the dwarf trees, tiny glass models and china ornaments that filled the composer’s diminutive room [in his home].” Especially in the dazzling translucence of the orchestral transcription that the composer provided for the ballet, these tiny tone paintings display the polish, balance and logic that led Stravinsky to admiringly describe their creator as “a Swiss watchmaker.” To properly evoke the youthful naïveté of the fantasy tales, Ravel composed in a deliberately simplified style, characterized by suave melody and luscious, atmospheric harmony untouched by rhythmic or textural complexities. 

The opening Prelude and Dance of the Spinning Wheel present the Princess Florine, who pricks her finger on a spindle and falls into a deep sleep. The tiny Pavane of the Sleeping Beauty, only twenty measures long, summons the Good Fairy, who watches over the Princess during her somnolence. An interlude leads to the Conversations of Beauty and the Beast. Ravel prefaced this scene with lines from the tale as interpreted by Marie Leprince de Beaumont in 1757: “ ‘When I think how good-hearted you are, you do not seem to me so ugly.’ ‘Yes, I have, indeed, a kind heart; but I am a monster.’ ‘There are many men more monstrous than you.’ ‘If I had wit, I would invent a fine compliment to thank you, but I am only a beast.’ ‘Beauty, will you be my wife?’ ‘No, Beast!’ ‘I die content since I have the pleasure of seeing you again.’ ‘No, my dear Beast, you shall not die; you shall live to be my husband!’ The Beast had disappeared, and she saw at her feet only a prince more beautiful than Love, who thanked her for having broken his enchantment.” This piece, influenced by a certain Satie-esque insouciance, is among the most graphic in Ravel’s output. The high woodwinds sing the delicate words of the Beauty, while the Beast is portrayed by the lumbering contrabassoon. At first the two converse, politely taking turns in the dialogue, but after their betrothal, both melodies are entwined, and finally the Beast’s theme is transfigured into a floating wisp in the most ethereal reaches of the solo violin’s range. 

Following an Interlude, Hop o’ My Thumb treats the old legend taken from Perrault’s anthology of 1697. “A boy believed,” noted Ravel of the tale, “that he could easily find his path by means of the bread crumbs which he had scattered wherever he passed; but he was very much surprised when he could not find a single crumb: the birds had come and eaten everything up.” The strings meander through scales as the boy wanders through the woods, with a few of his aviary nemeses returning to scavenge for the last morsels of bread. 

Laideronnette, Empress of the Pagodas depicts a young girl cursed with ugliness by a wicked fairy. According to Ravel’s inscription, “She undressed herself and went into the bath. The pagodas [grotesque little figures made of porcelain, crystal or precious jewels] began to sing and play on instruments; some had theorbos [large lutes] made of walnut shells; some had viols made of almond shells; for they were obliged to proportion the instruments to their figures.” This tale, too, has a happy ending in which the Empress’ beauty is restored. The music, introduced by a lovely interlude featuring the harp, is decidedly oriental in character, and is playable in the original version almost entirely on the black keys of the piano. 

The rapt, introspective splendor of the closing Fairy Garden is not derived from a particular story, but is Ravel’s masterful summation of the beauty, mystery and wonder that pervade Ma Mère l’Oye. Its tranquil, shimmering serenity is matched among Ravel’s works only by some pages from the opera L’Enfant et les sortilèges, his other masterwork inspired by a vision of childhood. During this final scene of the ballet, Prince Charming awakens Princess Florine with a kiss, and all the characters gather around the royal couple as the Good Fairy bestows her blessing.

 Roland-Manuel, the composer’s friend and biographer, wrote of Ma Mère l’Oye, “By virtue of a privilege which he shared with the greatest creative artists, the composer never lost, in his obstinate determination to acquire technical mastery, that fresh sensibility which is the privilege of childhood and is normally lost with advancing years. He retained intact a freedom of imagination and an artless power.... Ma Mère l’Oye shows us the secret of his profound nature and the soul of a child who has never left fairyland, who does not distinguish between the natural and the artificial, and who appears to believe that everything can be imagined and made real in the material world, if everything is infallibly logical in the mind.”

©2023 Dr. Richard E. Rodda