Ma Mère l’Oye (Mother Goose) Suite

Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant (Sleeping Beauty’s Pavane)

Petit Poucet (Tom Thumb)

Laideronnette, Impératrice des Pagodes

(Little Ugly, Empress of the Pagodas)

Les entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête

(Conversations of Beauty and the Beast)

Le Jardin féerique (The Enchanted Garden)

Perhaps because he never quite grew up himself, Ravel was more at ease with children than with most grown-ups and, because he identified so closely with them, had no trouble in projecting himself into their world. The second of his two operas, L’Enfant et les Sortilèges, is uncanny proof enough of that. His Mother Goose music is no less remarkable in that it creates such authentic fairy-tale atmosphere through such limited means: it was written in the first place as a piano duet for the two young children of two of his best friends in 1910. The magical orchestral version derives from a ballet compiled by the composer from these five pieces (together with some new material) two years later.

Just how Sleeping Beauty would dance a pavane it is difficult to imagine but, if she could, it would be in this dreamy, lonely and innocently expressive way. Tom Thumb is lonely too as he feels his way on woodwind through the forest of strings, trying to trace the path he had marked with crumbs. But, of course, they have been eaten by the hungry birds heard here calling on piccolo and flute and twittering in glissando harmonics and trills on solo violin. Little Ugly, on the other hand, has a whole entourage of attendants - called Pagodins in Mme d’Aulnoye’s story Serpentin vert - tiny creatures of crystal, porcelain, and precious stones who sing to her and play in exotic modes on walnut-shell theorbos and almond-shell viols.

The encounter of Beauty and the Beast is a touching little scene, Beauty characterised by a graceful waltz on clarinet, the Beast by a growling double bassoon. He can express himself more eloquently than that, however, and as she is persuaded to dance with him, bringing clarinet and double bassoon together, he is duly transformed. The rhapsodic Fairy Garden, which is based on no particular story, could almost be a hymn to their happiness ever after.

Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant    (Sleeping Beauty’s Pavane)

Petit Poucet    (Tom Thumb)

Laideronnette, Impératrice des Pagodes

          (Little Ugly, Princess of the Pagodas)

Les entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête

          (Conversations of Beauty and the Beast)

Le Jardin    féerique    (The Enchanted Garden)

Though a life-long bachelor with no family of his own, Ravel was happy in the company of children and at home in their world.      It was for the two youngest children, Jean and Mimie, of his great friends the Godebskis that he wrote his Mother Goose    Suite - for four hands at one piano - to encourage them in their practising.      One of his most enchanting creations, it is all the more inspired for the severe limitations imposed by the restricted technique of two small children.

      Three years later, in 1911, Jacques Rouché, director of the Paris Opéra, asked Ravel to arrange a little ballet from his Mother Goose    music.      So he made orchestral transcriptions of the five movements - in which form they will be heard tonight - and added introductory and connecting material to suit the scenario he had in mind.

      In the first part of the ballet, which is not included in the concert suite, Princess Florine pricks her finger at her nurse’s spinning wheel and faints.      To the sound of a gentle pavane - beginning with a solo flute over a counterpoint on muted horn in unison with plucked, muted violins - she is gently carried to a couch where she will dream the time away until she is reawakened in the approved fairy-tale manner.

      She dreams of Tom Thumb feeling his way on woodwind through the forest of strings, marking the path with crumbs which, alas, are eaten by hungry birds calling on piccolo and flute and twittering in glissando harmonics and trills on solo violin.      As Little Ugly, Florine is marooned on the Island of the Pagodins - tiny creatures of crystal, porcelain, and precious stones - who sing to her and play (in pentatonic modes of course) on walnut-shell theorbos and almond-shell viols.      In another dream Florine is Beauty in conversation with the Beast - she in a modest waltz tune on clarinet, he gruff but increasingly passionate on double bassoon, the two together in an intimate duet, he finally transformed into a handsome prince with his theme high on solo violin and cello.      In the meantime, in her Fairy Garden - and in music as expressive as any Ravel ever wrote - the sleeping princess is discovered by Prince Charming, who awakens her with a kiss.