Theme & Variations / Fairy Tales

Three melancholy moments of music that channel the mystery and wonder of our favorite enchanted stories.

Josette Day (Belle) and Jean Marais (la Bête) in Jean Cocteau's surrealist take on Beauty and the Beast (1946)

A few months ago,

M. E. Rothwell

posed a question to the readers of his fabulous bibliophile newsletter

The Books That Made Us

:

Which book has the best opening line you've ever read?

After rushing to my bookshelves to ensure I correctly quoted the two books that immediately came to mind — Gore Vidal's Myra Breckenridge and Phillippe Besson's In the Absence of Men — I clicked over to the comments section to offer my selections. That's when I saw another reader's response, truly the most potent answer to that question:

"Once upon a time …"

So simple, so obvious, so true. Four little words that immediately transport us to the world of the fairy tale — those faraway yet somehow familiar lands where the mundane mixes with the magical. For those who deeply love books, these stories of life and death, love and loss, joy and fear aren't just the starting point for a lifelong love of reading, they teach us how to interpret — and survive — our time in this world.

Because we are indeed surrounded by many a devious wolf and cunning ogre and evil elf, regardless of the human forms they assume around us. But fairy tales also show us that things are rarely what they seem, and even the most improbable of transformations are possible when there's so much hope and love in the world. By absorbing their timeless lessons, we stand our best chance of living happily ever after. 

Fairy tales are a lot like music — whether through words or harmonies, both feed our boundless imaginations, showing us that moments of awe, wonder, and beauty make life worth living. So to kick off a new series here at Shades of Blue, "Theme & Variations," let's take a look at three moments of melancholy music that channel the mystery and wonder of our favorite enchanted stories.

Maurice Ravel / Conversations of Beauty and the Beast, from Mother Goose Suite (Ma mère l'Oye)

Fairy tales as a portal to magic and mystery

Perhaps no composer has been better equipped to transfer the fantastical world of the fairy tale to music than Maurice Ravel. The composer and critic Alexis Roland-Manuel wrote that Ravel possessed: 

… the soul of a child who has never left the kingdom of Fairyland, who makes no distinction between nature and artifice, and who seems to believe that everything can be imagined and carried out on the material plane …

Inspired by hearing his close friend Ida Godebski read a set of Mother Goose tales to her children one afternoon in 1910, the composer set about writing a piano duet for the two children, both budding pianists, based on five of their favorite fairy tales. But Ravel didn't stop there — he orchestrated the Mother Goose Suite (Ma mère l'Oye) the following year, reimagining his work with the kaleidoscope of sparkling jewel tones he so skillfully extracted from the orchestra. 

The fourth movement, "Conversations of Beauty and the Beast" (Les entretiens de la belle et de la bête), is an exquisite example of Ravel's character painting. The scene opens with Belle, voiced by the clarinet, singing a lilting melody as gentle as the perfume of a rose garden. In contrast to her serene soprano, the Beast is personified by the gruff, gravelly contrabassoon, whose first entrance emerges from the depths of the orchestra, emphasized by anxious plucked notes in the basses and snarls in the horns.

Belle tells the Beast she no longer fears him because of the way he looks. His kindness has painted a new picture in her eyes. After the Beast asks for Belle's hand in marriage, their orchestral counterparts dance a joyful waltz together. Belle accepts the Beast's proposal, at which point he is transformed into his original guise: a handsome prince. 

Listen for this otherworldly moment in the music (starting at 4:08 in the recording below). As the strains of the couple's tender waltz dissolve, an eerie harmony envelops the orchestra, each ripple in the harp giving way to goosebumps. This spectacle of the Beast's metamorphosis is hushed, haunting — and we, just like Belle, are taken aback by what we're witnessing. A major chord of ethereal radiance hovers in the upper strings as the scene comes to a close.

Engelbert Humperdinck / Evening Prayer and Dream Pantomime, from Hansel and Gretel

Fairy tales as lessons in bravery

Hansel and Gretel, Engelbert Humperdinck's 1893 opera, was also inspired by two children — those of his sister, Adelheid Wette. As a gift for them one Christmas, Humperdinck composed songs for a series of poems Wette had written on the Hansel and Gretel tale. Quickly realizing that the story's dramatic arc would make for a captivating full-scale opera, Humperdinck asked Wette to pen a libretto for a new stage work.

Although based on the Brothers' Grimm take on the fairy tale, Wette added a slew of supernatural characters to the story — including the Sandman, who makes an appearance in my favorite scene of the opera. At the close of the second act, Hansel and Gretel are lost in the dark and foreboding forest near their home, where they've been banished by their mother for not completing their daily chores. The sun has set and without any light to help guide them out of the forest, the children become overwhelmed with worry. 

The Sandman appears to gently lull Hansel and Gretel to sleep. But before resting for the night on a makeshift bed of twigs, the two join hands for their evening prayer:

When at night I go to sleep,
fourteen angels watch do keep,
Two my head are guarding,
Two my feet are guiding,
Two upon my right hand,
Two upon my left hand.

Two who warmly cover
Two who o'er me hover,
Two to whom 'tis given
To guide my steps to heaven.

As Hansel and Gretel close their eyes and sleep washes over them, a mystical dream sequence begins in which the children's prayer comes to life. A cortège of 14 angels makes its way onto the stage to gather around the children. Some soar through the air, others arrive bearing a shimmering blanket to cover Hansel and Gretel as they sleep. The stage takes on the beauty of a Neopolitan nativity scene, as the simple strains of the folk-song prayer blossom into miraculous moments of celestial awe. Choirs of trumpets and horns bring the music to a radiant climax, and the scene ends with the sounds of strings and harps floating ever closer toward the heavens.

Hansel and Gretel survive their night alone in the forest — and learn in the process the importance of cultivating bravery and inner strength. For no matter how lost we become or how scared we feel, believing in our own strength and resilience can inspire the forces of the universe to protect us in our darkest hours.

Robert Schumann / Fairy Tale Pictures (Märchenbilder)

Fairy tales as invitations to rest

As children, when did we hear those simple words, "Once upon a time"? Oftentimes it was at night, tucked under the covers with only a bedside lamp or lone candle to illuminate the words on the page. No matter which fairy tale had been selected for the evening, the ritual of the bedtime story serves as our bridge to the world of dreams.

This is the association I make every time I listen to Robert Schumann's Fairy Tale Pictures (Märchenbilder) for viola and piano. The composer gave no clues as to the stories or the characters depicted throughout the work's four movements — instead we're left to illustrate each vignette with the rainbow palette of our imaginations.

The final movement — a lyrical lullaby marked simply Langsam, mit melancholischem Ausdruck (Slowly, with melancholic expression) — evokes the stillness we experience at that hazy border between awake and asleep. The shadowy tones of the viola sing gently over hushed chords in the piano, a melody so comforting we can't help but delight in its every repetition. Only in the middle section does the piano drive the music's motion forward — as if offering a fleeting glimpse of the spirited adventures we encountered earlier in the story, a vision that grows faint as our eyes become heavy with sleep. 

As the viola's final whisper fades away, the piano tries to recapture the energy of the middle section that so thrilled us before. But then, after just two bars ... silence. Our story has come to a close for the night.

Many hear this movement as embodying the "happily ever after" sentiment associated with the fairy tale. But in the stillness that follows that final chord, I picture the moment after succumbing to slumber — my chin tucked into my chest, glasses slowly sliding down my nose, a wondrous book lying gently across my chest.

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What was your experience listening to these works? I want to know! Your comments fuel me, so be sure to drop a note below or reply to this email. 👇

And let me know what you think of the format of this new series. Did you enjoy exploring how three composers approached a common theme with their unique style? I'd love to hear your input.