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1 Prélude
2 Danse du rouet [Dance of the Spinning Wheel] – Scène [Scene] –
3 Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant [Pavane of the Sleeping Beauty] – Transition –
4 Les entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête [Conversation between Beauty and the Beast] – Transition –
5 Petit Poucet [Hop-o’-My-Thumb] – Transition –
6 Laideronnette, Impératrice des Pagodes – Transition – [Little Ugly, Empress of the Pagodas]
7 Apothéose: Le jardin féerique [Apotheosis: The Fairy Garden]

Ravel possessed one of the most refined gifts for orchestration in the history of music, which is what made him such a remarkable arranger both of the works of others (Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, for instance) and of his own output. Several of his works that started life for piano were transformed in this way, and none more scintillatingly than Mother Goose. This was originally a suite for piano duet for the two young, and obviously talented, children of close friends of his. The five original pieces are piquantly coloured portraits of fairy-tale figures that would have been very familiar to the children, Beauty and the Beast and Sleeping Beauty among them. That was in 1910; a year later Ravel orchestrated the five pieces and then extended them into a ballet that was premiered at the Théâtre des Arts in Paris in January 1912.

In order to transform Mother Goose from suite to ballet Ravel not only had to extend the music, but he also reordered some of the original numbers to make more of a coherent narrative, centred around the story of Princess Florine, the ‘Sleeping Beauty’, who duly pricks her finger on the spinning wheel and, as she falls asleep, is visited in her dreams by the mythical characters of Ravel’s original suite.

This was exactly the kind of subject matter that Ravel adored – and that world is vibrantly conjured in the new Prélude, with a twinkling, far-away kind of magic that immediately transports the listener from the everyday. The newly composed ‘Dance of the Spinning Wheel’ comes next, and Ravel wonderfully conveys a darker undertone beneath its outward simplicity, as the Princess encounters an old woman at a spinning wheel. She trips and pricks her finger on the spindle. In the Pavane, which has a grave beauty to it, the old woman reveals herself to be the Good Fairy. As two servants appear, she bids them guard the Princess and ensure sweet dreams.

The third scene contrasts Beauty and the Beast, the one featuring two clarinets, elegant in waltz rhythm, the other the stuttering awkardness of a contrabassoon. But, as the Beast is turned by Beauty’s love into a handsome Prince, Ravel underlines that transformation with a refulgent harp glissando. ‘Hop-o’-My Thumb’ – or Tom Thumb as we tend to know him – enters next. It is nightfall, on the edge of the forest. Tom scatters breadcrumbs so as not to get lost, but the birds eat them, and the halting progress of the music – again – tells a tale that needs no explanation. We travel to the mystical East in ‘Little Ugly’, Ravel conjuring the exoticism of his subject matter with the use of pentatonic scales and bell-like sounds.

As we come to ‘The Fairy Garden’ it is dawn, and Prince Charming arrives to awake the Sleeping Beauty with a kiss. This is one of Ravel’s most magical soundscapes, full of delicacy and other-worldly tenderness; as the Good Fairy appears and blesses the couple, the ballet closes in the manner of all the best fairy tales, with the Prince and Princess living happily ever after.

Programme note © Harriet Smith