Ma Mère l’Oye

Maurice Ravel’s Ma Mère l’Oye (Mother Goose) is a five-movement suite for piano four hands, composed in 1910. Inspired by the imaginative world of childhood, the work draws on French fairy tales by authors such as Charles Perrault, Madame d’Aulnoy, and Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. Unlike much of Ravel’s virtuosic piano writing, this suite was crafted with simplicity and clarity in mind, and was dedicated to Mimie and Jean Godebski, the young children of his friends. In 1911, Ravel orchestrated the suite and expanded it into a full ballet, but the original piano version remains one of his most cherished works for its charm and vivid storytelling. This arrangement transforms the piano duet into a flute duet for advanced players, with the first flute doubling on piccolo and the second flute doubling on alto flute.