Ravel Ma mère l’Oye Suite

Gemma New Conductor

Maurice Ravel chose Mother Goose tales as inspiration for a work that he wrote for the young daughters of his close friends. The resulting work, a five-movement two-piano suite called Ma mère l’Oye (Mother Goose), has movements based on Perrault’s versions of Sleeping Beauty and Hop o’ My Thumb (or Tom Thumb). Madame d’Aulnoy’s version of The Green Serpent inspired the third movement, while Jeanne-Marie le Prince de Beaumont’s Beauty and the Beast inspired movement no. 4.

On hearing these charming children’s pieces, Ravel’s publisher Jacques Durand encouraged Ravel to orchestrate it – leading to the Mother Goose Suite, which has justly joined the pantheon of brilliant story-inspired pieces in the classical music repertoire.