The bulk of La mer was composed during a visit to Burgundy – a long way
from the nearest sea – although the work was completed in the English
seaside town of Eastbourne. The composer himself argued that his
inspiration was drawn from a range of ocean view paintings and from
literature in which the sea played a major part. Debussy described the
work as 'Three symphonic sketches for orchestra' (Trois esquisses
symphoniques pour orchestre), thus avoiding the term 'symphony', which
would have imposed a specific musical structure, as well as the
expression 'symphonic poem', which would imply that the music was
descriptive in nature. 'Sketches' was a wise choice, precisely because
it neatly conveys that the music is meant to do no more than provide an
impression.
Whereas Debussy occupied himself spontaneously and intuitively with
looking for new sounds, Ravel placed much more emphasis on the effect
that the sounds could have in the context of a musical story.
One of these dazzling impressionist tales was the suite Mother Goose (Ma
mère l’Oye). Between 1908 and 1910, he wrote a simple suite of piano pieces for four hands for the children of some friends, inspired by a
few fairy tales that he took in part from the Tales of Mother Goose by
Charles Perrault. Albeit the music was not technically difficult, the
subtlety of the sound and melodies imbued the work with extreme
refinement. This became clearly evident when he subsequently arranged to
work for orchestra, refining the music even further with the larger
orchestral sound palette. Ravel used this orchestral version in 1912 for
a ballet.
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