Ma mère l'oye
Ma mère l'oye (German: mother goose, see also: Mother Goose ) is a composition by Maurice Ravel . It is available in various versions that were created between 1908 and 1911.
history
In 1908 Ravel composed a fantasy for the fairy tale La belle au bois dormant ( Sleeping Beauty ) as piano music for four hands for the children of a befriended family . At the urging of his friends and his publisher Jacques Durand, he composed four more pieces, also based on fairy tales, in 1910, which he combined into a cycle entitled Ma mère l'oye . Ravel was inspired by stories from a collection of fairy tales by Charles Perrault from 1697, which was subtitled Contes de ma mère l'oye (Eng. Stories of my mother, the goose ). Ravel took other motifs from fairy tales by Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy and Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont . The original pieces are:
- Pavane de la belle au bois dormant
- Petit poucet ( The Little Thumbnail )
- Laideronnette, impératrice des pagodes ( Le serpentin vert , Eng . The green snake )
- Les entretiens de la belle et de la bête ( Beauty and the Beast )
- Le jardin féerique (Eng: the fairytale garden - whether, and if so, from which fairy tale this motif is taken is unclear, presumably Ravel thought up this thematic end to his compositional cycle himself)
Ma mère l'oye was premiered on April 20, 1910 in Paris by Jeanne Leleu and Geneviève Durony . After great sales and public success, Ravel orchestrated the piano music and created a five-movement suite , which he added a year later to a ballet music with a prelude , an introductory movement entitled Danse du rouet et scène and interludes ( interludes ) between the movements ( tableaux ) expanded. The ballet premiered on January 28, 1911 at the Théâtre des Arts in Paris.
reception
The pieces, which are comparatively easy to master in the piano version, were enthusiastically received not only by amateur pianists and listeners, but also by professional pianists and music critics, who "have always been fascinated by the fact that such simple, even downright simple music is a has such a strong impact. " Theodor Adorno wrote: " Ma Mère l'Oye , in her innocence and sophistication , should be placed alongside Schumann 's childhood scenes , Mussorgsky's nursery and Debussy's children's corner ."
In Germany Kultur Björn Gottstein said in 2012: " 'Only Child' and 'witty' are for Ravel's Mother Goose keywords one hand, characterizes the simplicity of the musical facture the entire cycle Ravel dips his tales in a bizarre sound world of almost unearthly beauty blank With many... Intervals, with fourths, fifths and octaves, and modal melodies that seem almost medieval, it evokes the feeling of timelessness. " The orchestral versions were also praised by audiences and critics alike, are still performed frequently and, like the piano version, are available in numerous recordings by well-known performers.
literature
- Gerd Sannemüller : “Ma Mère l'Oye” by Maurice Ravel. Five pieces for children. In: Musik und Bildung 6 (1974), pp. 174–178
- Siegfried Schmalzriedt : Ravel's Piano Music - A Musical Work Guide , Verlag CH Beck , Munich 2006
Individual evidence
- ^ Siegfried Schmalzriedt: Ravel's Piano Music - A Musical Work Guide , Verlag CH Beck , Munich 2006, p. 91
- ^ Maurice Ravel: Ma mère l'oye. Suite for orchestra (1908-11) , Deutschlandradio Kultur, January 17, 2012