Mother Goose

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Harp — MAURICE RAVEL To Mimie and Jean GodebskiMa Mère l’OyeCinq pièces enfantine(1908–1910) Mother Goose: Five Children’s Piecesfor Solo HarpTranscribed by Carl Swanson Table of Contents AcknowledgementsDedicationPrefaceGlossary of French Musical Terms Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant(Pavane of Sleeping Beauty)Petit Poucet(Little Tom Thumb)xadxadxadIII. Laideronnette, Impératrice des Pagodes(Empress of the Toy Mandarins)Les entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête(Conversations of Beauty and the Beast)Le jardin féerique(The Enchanted Garden)xadxadxadxad Acknowledgements There are several people whose contributions have been invaluable to the creation of this edition: Bill Ooms, my Finale guru, taught me how to use this music-setting program and found a solution to every problem that I encountered along the way.Lynn Williams and Merynda Adams, both professional harpists with broad experience in all forms of music for harp, examined the pieces in this edition numerous times prior to publication and provided invaluable feedback.Elizabeth Huntley, former editor of the American Harp Journal, as well as a fine harpist, provided organizational advice and editing concerning the text in this edition. All four of these people helped bring this edition to its final form, and to them all I am deeply grateful. —Carl Swanson Dedication Several years ago I was visiting Sam Milligan (1932–2019). After dinner, Sam sat at his harp and played “Pavane of Sleeping Beauty” and “The Enchanted Garden.” His playing of these pieces was gorgeously musical and took my breath away. That was the start of my interest in Ravel’s Mother Goose as repertoire for harp. I therefore dedicate this edition to the memory of Sam Milligan. Sam contributed so much to the harp world, and those of us who had the privilege of knowing him were so lucky! —Carl Swanson Preface Maurice Ravel (1875–1937), along with Claude Debussy, is considered to be one of the most important figures in French music, and amongst the greatest of twentieth-century composers. Interestingly, his rise to fame and respect as a major composer was slow and uneven. As a child and then as a student at the Paris Conservatory, he was considered talented and highly musical, but not a prodigy. He was, at best, a mediocre piano student. He competed in the prestigious Prix de Rome competition five times and never won. The very conservative composition faculty at the Paris Conservatory of the 1890s detested everything he did. He was expelled from the Conservatory twice, both times for having won no prizes in the annual composition exams.In spite of this, his main desire was to be a composer. Gabriel Fauré, one of his composition teachers, accurately recognized his real abilities. In fact, as a result of the huge scandal that occurred when Ravel lost his fifth attempt at the Prix de Rome, Fauré was installed as president of the Conservatory in 1905 to overhaul the entire curriculum.Composing did not come easily to Ravel. From his earliest compositions, he was his own severest critic. He labored endlessly, first over the pieces he was creating, and then over the orchestrations of his larger works. He detested deadlines because his creative process was so time consuming, and for this reason, his total lifetime output was only around seventy works. But his labor and self-criticism paid off. Virtually all of his compositions are considered masterpieces, and he was one of the greatest orchestrators in the history of music.Many of Ravel’s orchestra works began life as piano compositions and were then later expanded and orchestrated. It is unclear whether Ravel knew from the beginning of each piece that it would ultimately be orchestrated, or if it was a decision made after the piano piece was completed. So many of his orchestral works were committed to paper initially as piano pieces that it is possible that Ravel, for whom the work never came easily, needed to get the composition worked out first on piano, so that he could then focus exclusively on the orchestration. The Origins of Mother Goosexa0In 1908, Ravel was babysitting for the children of his friends Cipa and Ida Godebsky for a few days, with the help of the children’s English governess. In a letter to the parents, Ravel wrote that he had been telling the children stories “…not too gloomy in the evening to avoid nightmares” and, in all likelihood, he was reading fairytales to them as well. This experience inspired Ravel to write a short, simple piano duet dedicated to the children. The piece, which he called “Pavane,” was not, like his 1899 composition, a lament for a dead princess, but rather a lullaby for a sleeping one.A year later, at the urging of his publisher, Ravel added four more pieces and called the collection Ma Mère l’Oye, Cinq pièces enfantine (Mother Goose: Five Children’s Pieces). The origins of the name “Mother Goose” are blurry, and collections called Mother Goose contain different stories in different countries. In this case, three of the stories, “Sleeping Beauty,” “Little Tom Thumb,” and “Beauty and the Beast” come from a 1697 collection by Charles Perrault. “Empress of the Toy Mandarins” comes from The Green Serpent by Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy, Perrault’s rival in the realm of stories for children. The only piece not drawn from a fairy tale is the last one, “The Enchanted Garden.” Ravel never explained the origin of the title. Was it a compliment to the Godebsky’s country home and gardens? Was it some story he made up himself to entertain the children? We’ll probably never know.Ma Mère l’Oye followed Ravel’s standard way of working. The first version was for piano, four hands. Within a year, he orchestrated the whole thing, creating his Mother Goose Suite for orchestra, and then creating a children’s ballet, adding interludes and new movements. At the same time, his friend Jacques Charlot transcribed the original four-hand version, with Ravel’s blessing, into a work for solo piano.Four of the five movements are programmatic, that is, they are based on literary sources. Three of the movements have quotations from the story beneath the title, explaining what Ravel was invoking in the text. To save space, the quotations and their translations are printed below.  Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant (Pavane of Sleeping Beauty)This short, stately piece is a lullaby for a sleeping princess, waiting for a prince to come and awaken her from the spell she is under. The music is very slow and tranquil, with minimal, subtle nuance. The only dynamics throughout are p and pp.  Petit Poucet (Little Tom Thumb)This is the first of the three pieces that have actual quotations. Here is the original French quotation and my translation: Il croyait trouver aisément son chemin par le moyen de son pain qu’il avait semé partout xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 où ilavait passé; mais il fut bien surpris lorsqu’il ne put retrouver une seule miette: les oiseaux étaient venus qui avaient tout mangé.—Charles Perrault He believed he’d easily find his way because of the bread that he’d strewn all along his path; but he was very surprised to find not a single crumb: the birds had come and eateneverything. This is a story about a little boy lost in the woods. Ravel characterizes the story and action in two ways. First, it is written quite high on the instrument, like the voice of a small child. Secondly, the lost child’s footsteps are expressed with thirds that wander aimlessly throughout the entire piece. There are sounds that would scare a small child, like bird calls, and wind blowing, and a sad plaintive melody. But on the very last note of the piece, Ravel tells us how the story turns out! III. Laideronnette, Impératrice des Pagodes (Empress of the Toy Mandarins) Elle se déshabilla et se mit dans le bain. Aussitôt pagodes et pagodines se mirent à chanter et à jouer des instruments: tels avaient des théorbes faits d’une coquil de noix; tels avaient des violes faites d’une coquille d’amande; car il fallait bien proportionner les instrument à leur taille.—Mme d’Aulnoy: Serpentin Vert She disrobed and got into her bath. Right way, mandarin men and women began to sing and play their instruments: Some had theorbos made from a walnut shell; others had violins made from an almond shell; because it was important that they play instruments proportioned to their size.xa0Ravel’s genius and his love of other musical traditions are evident here. The whole piece is written using the pentatonic scale, which is the reason it has qualities of Asian music. The right-hand melody throughout, uses only five notes of the seven note scale, and never plays a B or an E (the left hand does). The piece starts with a tiny marching band, playing a bright, energetic march. They are heading to the palace of the Empress. Once there, they play slow, stately music. Then they march away, to the same music that brought them there.  Les Entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête (Conversations of Beauty and the Beast) - Quand je pense à votre bon coeur, vous ne me paraissez pas si laid.- Oh! Dame oui! j’ai le coeur bon, mais je suis un monstre.- Il y a bien des hommes qui sont plus monstres que vous.- Si j’avais de l’esprit je vous ferais un grand compliment pour vous remercier, mais je xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 ne suis qu’une bête. - La Belle, voulez-vous être ma femme?- Non, la Bête!... - Je meurs content puisque j’ai le plaisir de vous revoir encore une fois.- Non, ma chère Bête, vous ne mourrez pas: vous vivrez pour devenir mon époux!La Bête avait disparu et elle ne vit plus à ses pieds qu’un prince plus beau que l’Amour xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 qui la xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 remerciait d’avoir fini son enchantement. —Mme. Leprince de Beaumont*****************- When I think of your beautiful heart, you don’t seem so ugly.- Oh yes madam! I have a good heart, but I’m a monster.- There are certainly men who are more monstrous than you.- If I dared, I would offer you a great compliment to thank you, but I’m only a beast. - Beauty, would you be my wife?- No Beast! - I die content that I had the pleasure to see you one last time.- No my dear Beast, you won’t die: You will live to become my husband!The Beast had disappeared, and she suddenly saw a prince more handsome than love itself who thanked her for having broken his spell. This is the most detailed quotation in the collection. Ravel characterizes Beauty with a lovely waltz high on the instrument, and a thorny and dissonant melody and harmony very low to represent the Beast. The quotes come from three different places in the text, and give a truncated version of the story.  Le jardin féerique (The Enchanted Garden) The beauty of this movement is in the long, very slow build up, both in increasing volume and in the upwards movement of the musical lines, culminating in an explosion of fireworks with ringing church bells and a trumpet fanfare, backed up by a wash of glissandos, for a sparkling, grand finale to this wonderful suite. A Word about Performance There is no need to worry about either performing the whole suite as a unit, or not performing it at all. Each piece works very well on a concert program by itself. Two of the movements, “Sleeping Beauty,” and “The Enchanted Garden,” are much easier technically than the other movements. They are both at an intermediate level, and would make a wonderful addition to a student recital. The other three movements on the other hand, “Little Tom Thumb,” “Empress of the Toy Mandarins,” and “Beauty and the Beast,” are advanced repertoire. Technical Considerationsxa0Playing any piece that was not originally written for the harp by a harpist will always have a built-in awkwardness about it. Harpists have to deal with this in the majority of the repertoire and orchestra parts they play. For this reason, I have included occasional fingerings in order to provide some direction to the more ambiguous passages. These are only suggestions, and any harpist advanced enough to play these pieces will modify my suggestions to fit his or her hand and technique.The pedals in these pieces, in particular Beauty and the Beast and Little Tom Thumb, are very complicated and tricky. For this reason, I have at times repeated the letter of a pedal at the end of a line to remind the player which pedal is being moved. My first choice for pedal placement is between the staves. But because of the number of musical indications and the complexity of the pedals, most of them had to be placed below the lower staff.All harpists have their own way of writing pedals (only below the lower staff, only between staves, right foot above left, left above right, etc.) and in addition, are used to seeing pedals written in their own handwriting. The pedals in this edition have been printed large enough to easily see, and have been placed where space permits. It should be possible to adjust to them within a few days of practicing without having to move or re-write anything. —Carl Swanson Glossary of Musical Terms Ravel used standard Italian musical terms in these pieces. But he also used French ones as well. Here are the French terms he used, along with their English translations. Animez peu à peuxa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 speeding up little by littleArpéger le moins possiblexa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 arpeggiate as little as possibleAssez vifxa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 pretty livelydoux et expressifxa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 softly and expressivelyLentxa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 slowLent et gravexa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 slow and solemnMouvt. de Marchexa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 tempo of a marchMouvt. de Valse très modéréxa0 slow Waltz tempoPresque lentxa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 almost slowsans nuancesxa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 without any nuanceTrès courtxa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 very shortTrès expressifxa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 very expressiveTrès modéréxa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 very moderateun peu en dehors et bien expressifxa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 bring out the melodyxa0xa0 a little, and very expressiveun peu retenuxa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 a little held back (i.e., slower)  xa0 Maurice Ravel's Mother Goose is arguably one of the most well-known and well-loved of Ravel's works. Whether one encounters it first in its original iteration for piano, four hands, or in the sweeping orchestra transcription,Mother Gooseleaves an impression that isn't soon forgotten. The pieces are short, simple, and descriptive, but are nonetheless ravishing, and beautifully showcase Ravel’s genius and compositional skills. Now for the first time, the entire work has been transcribed for solo harp by harpist Carl Swanson. Each of the original five movements has been carefully edited, making the pieces playable on solo harp, while keeping the spirit that Ravel intended. Here is a valuable addition to the harp repertoire by one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century, Maurice Ravel.