Ma Mere l’Oye (“Mother Goose”)

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Performance Information: Daniel Meyer conducting The Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, August 13, 2016 at School for Creative & Performing Arts Corbett Auditorium

Ma Mere l’Oye combines childlike simplicity with a rich, eclectic harmonic language, in which ancient church modes, parallel chords, “Oriental” pentatonic scales and “white-key” pandiatonicism all lend their magic to the fairy-tale atmosphere. The Belgian critic and composer Roland-Manuel, in his youth a student of Ravel, described the “fairy garden” movement as “the green paradise of childhood loves, where desires are not accompanied by remorse, where creatures are only loved for the beauty which they reflect and where [the] Holy Innocents play catch with their haloes.”