Ravel, Maurice

Maurice Ravel – Ma mère l’oye

Ballet en cinq tableaux et une apothéose (1911)

I – Prélude. Très lent – (attacca:) p. 1
II – Tableau I. Danse du Rouet et Scène. Allegro p. 11
III – Tableau II. Pavane de la belle au bois dormant
IV – Tableau III. Les entretiens de la belle et de la bête
V – Tableau IV. Petit poucet
VI – Tableau V. Laideronnette, impératrice des pagodes
VII – Apothéose. Le jardin féerique

Preface
Ma mère l’oye (“Mother Goose”), five children’s pieces on fairy-tale themes, was originally
written for piano four-hands in 1908-10, and thus at a time when Maurice Ravel was partly
occupied with two large-scale works, Gaspard de la nuit (1908) and the ballet Daphnis et Chloë
(1909-12). Ma mère l’oye captures the ineffable magic of imaginative children’s stories with an
enigmatic subtlety and refined dramatic structure that accords them a unique position in music
history, comparable in stature to the miniatures of Robert Schumann or the symphonic
narratives of Rimsky-Korsakov and Stravinsky. The version for piano four-hands, dedicated to
Mimie and Jean Godebski, received its première in the Salle Gavoty, Paris on 20 April 1910,
played by Jeanne Leleu and Geneviève Durony.
For his five-movement suite Ravel availed himself of various fairy-tales from the collections of
Charles Perrault (1628-1703), Marie-Catherine Countess d’Aulnoy (ca. 1650-1705), and Marie
Leprince de Beaumont (1711-1780). In 1911 he prepared an orchestral version of Ma mère
l’oye: Cinq pièces enfantines that soon became one of his most frequently played compositions
altogether. It was in this form that the work, published by Durand in 1912, entered the world’s
symphonic repertoire.
In that same year, 1911, Ravel also created a ballet version of Ma mère l’oye based on his own
scenario and consisting of five scenes and an apotheosis. He dedicated this new version “en
amicale reconnaisance” to Jacques Rouché, who directed the première at Paris’s Théâtre des
Arts on 28 January 1912 with the collaboration of Gabriel Grovlez (conductor), M. Dresa
(scenery and costumes), and Jeanne Hugard (choreography). For the ballet version Ravel not
only composed transitions between the scenes to maintain the musical continuity, he also
augmented the existing five movements with a newly composed Prélude and, as first scene, a
Danse du Rouet et Scène, both in the same fairy-tale spirit as the previous music. He then
connected the next five movements with musical transitions, some splendidly balanced, other
effectively contrasting, and rearranged their original order: the fourth movement, the waltz Les
entretiens de la belle et de la bête, advanced to second position (i.e. Tableau III), and
movements 2 and 3 (Petit poucet and Laideronnette) were moved back accordingly to become
Tableaux IV and V. Sleeping Beauty’s Pavane retained its position at the opening (Tableaux II)
and Le jardin féerique its function as a finale, following the five tableaux and given the new
heading Apothéose.
The score of the ballet version of Ma mère l’oye was originally published by Durand of Paris
in 1912. We reproduce it faithfully from that edition for the first time in miniature score.

Translation: Bradford Robinson, 2008

For performance materials please contact the publisher Durand et Cie., Editeurs, Paris
(www.durand-salabert-eschig.com or www.editionsrico-rdi.com or www.ricordi.de).

Read preface / Vorwort > HERE