Ma mère l'Oye

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.

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.

Both piano versions bear the subtitle "cinq pièces enfantines" (five children's pieces). The five "pieces" were as follows:

On several of the scores, Ravel included quotes to indicate clearly what he was trying to invoke. For example, for the second "piece":

Sleeping Beauty and Little Tom Thumb were based on the tales of Charles Perrault, while Little Ugly Girl, Empress of the Pagodas was inspired by a tale (The Green Serpent) by Perrault's "rival" Madame d'Aulnoy. In this movement, Ravel takes advantage of the pentatonic scale. Beauty and the Beast is based upon the version of Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont. The origin of The Fairy Garden is not entirely known, although the ballet version interprets this as Sleeping Beauty being awakened in the garden by her prince. The "Mouvt de marche" of Little Ugly Girl uses quartal harmony:

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