Ravel: Ma Mère l'Oye, Le tombeau de Couperin & Shéhérazade, ouverture de féerie

Featuring

François-Xavier Roth
Les Siècles
Maurice Ravel

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Interpretation

The ensemble Les Siècles performs these works on French-made instruments from the late 19th or early 20th century, the same period Maurice Ravel knew.

Instruments

The recording uses gut strings, which were common in Maurice Ravel's time, to achieve a silky, enveloping sound and incisive attack and articulation.

Critical Reception

Maurice Ravel's Shéhérazade, ouverture de féerie was met with mixed reactions at its 1899 premiere, being both booed and applauded, with Ravel himself later considering it "badly constructed."

Composition History

Maurice Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin is a tribute to French Baroque music and is dedicated to friends who died in the First World War.

Composition History

All three works on this album—Shéhérazade, ouverture de féerie, Ma mère l'Oye, and Le Tombeau de Couperin—were originally composed for piano before Maurice Ravel orchestrated them.

Composition History

Maurice Ravel's Ma mère l'Oye was originally a suite of children's piano pieces, inspired by Charles Perrault's Mother Goose Tales, and dedicated to the children of his friends, Mimie and Jean Godebski.