Ma mère l'Oye (Mother Goose; "Oye" is correctly capitalized, being a proper name) is a musical work by French composer Maurice Ravel. Ravel originally wrote Ma mère l'Oye as a piano duet for the Godebski children, Mimi and Jean, ages 6 and 7. Ravel dedicated this work for four hands to the children (just as he had dedicated an earlier work, Sonatine, to their parents). Jeanne Leleu and Geneviève Durony premiered the work at the first concert of the Société Musicale Indépendante on 20 April 1910. In 1911 Ravel orchestrated the five-piece suite, and in this form it is most frequently heard today. Later the same year he also expanded it into a ballet, separating the five initial pieces with four new interludes and adding two movements at the start, Prélude and Danse du rouet et scène. The ballet premiered on 29 January 1912 at the Théâtre des Arts in Paris. The piece was transcribed for solo piano by Ravel's friend Jacques Charlot the same year as it was published (1910); the first movement of Ravel's Le tombeau de Couperin was also dedicated to Charlot's memory after his death in World War I. WIKIPEDIA
VIDEO: Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France Myung-Whun Chung Feb 25, 2010
