Maurice Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite appeared first as a five-piece suite for piano four hands in 1908 and dedicated to the young son and daughter of his good friends, the Godebskis.
The affectionate musical gift was quite in character for Ravel, who was at once the most sophisticated and child-like of men. Like many another retiring bachelor, he loved children and found social communication with them easy and pleasurable; his musical communication he made in wondrously fresh and artless terms. With the title Mother Goose, the piece was introduced in 1910. The following year, Ravel orchestrated the music for ballet purposes, adding to the original five pieces a Prelude, a Spinning Wheel Dance and Scene, and four Interludes.
It is the original five pieces in the form of an orchestral suite which are best known to concert-hall audiences; the composer contrived a free-wheeling version of the Sleeping Beauty story to serve as a libretto for the ballet.
Here is Ravel’s “Ma Mere L’Oye” as conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen:
