Ma mère l'oye (Mother Goose) is a musical work by French composer Maurice Ravel.

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.

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 is also dedicated to Charlot.

Both piano versions bear the subtitle "cinq pièces enfantines" (five children's pieces). The five "pieces" were as follows:

On several of the scores, Ravel included quotes to indicate clearly what he was trying to invoke. For example, for the second "piece":

Sleeping Beauty and Little Tom Thumb were based on the tales of Charles Perrault, while Little Ugly Girl, Empress of the Pagodas was inspired by a tale (The Green Serpent) by Perrault's "rival" Madame d'Aulnoy. In this movement, Ravel takes advantage of the pentatonic scale. Beauty and the Beast is based upon the version of Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont. The origin of The Fairy Garden is not entirely known. The "Mouvt de marche" of Little Ugly Girl uses quartal harmony:


Orchestrated work
In 1911, Ravel orchestrated the work. Then, in 1912, he expanded it into a ballet adding new movements ("Prélude" and "Danse du rouet et scène") and interludes:

It was premiered on 29 January 1912 at the Théâtre des Arts in Paris

Instrumentation

The orchestrated work requires 2 flutes (one doubling on piccolo), 2 oboes (one doubling on English horn), 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, (one doubling on contrabassoon), 2 French Horns, Timpani, Bass Drum, cymbals, triangle, tamtam, Glockenspiel, Xylophone, Celesta, Strings, Harp. (no trumpets, trombones, or tuba)

The above text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ( creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ ). It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Ma Mère l'Oie" ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_M ).