Le Petit Elfe Ferme-l'œil

What it contains

• Galop — Le cheval de Ferme-l'œil · Le cheval de Ferme-l'œil, the third movement of the suite/ballet — Explicitly titled as a galop, the fast duple-metre 19th-century chase dance, depicting the horse's pursuit of the stork. Source: "Le cheval de Ferme-l'œil: galop à la poursuite de la cigogne"
• Sarabande — La cigogne lasse · La cigogne lasse, the second movement of the suite/ballet — The movement is explicitly headed 'Sarabande', the slow triple-metre historic dance form, used to characterize the weary, weighted movement of the stork. Source: "La cigogne lasse: Sarabande"

What is danced

The article gives the work's shape only through the movement list of the derived concert suite: a prelude followed by seven pieces standing for the days of a dream-week experienced by the boy Hialmar. Two of these movements carry explicit historic dance-form titles rather than merely descriptive ones — 'La cigogne lasse' is headed 'Sarabande', and 'Le cheval de Ferme-l'œil' is headed as a 'galop à la poursuite de la cigogne' (a galop in pursuit of the stork). These give a choreographer concrete metrical and character cues: a slow, weighted triple-metre episode for the tired stork, followed immediately by a fast chase number for the horse.

Context

The other five movements (the mice's national festival dance, the doll Berthe's wedding with its bell-and-march alternation, a rondo built on a 'limping' rhythm, a lullaby promenade, and a Chinese umbrella built on pentatonic themes) are given only impressionistic musical descriptions in the article, not dance-form names, so nothing further can be said here about their vocabulary without guessing. A choreographer or dancer approaching this piece from the record alone would know the narrative frame (a week of a child's dreams) and two named dance forms, but not the ballet's actual steps, since the source describes the score, not the staging.

Staging history

This sits among the fairy-tale-derived orchestral ballets and suites of early-1920s Paris, alongside works drawing on Andersen and Perrault for children's-book source material recast as concert and stage pieces. Schmitt built the ballet by expanding an existing four-hands piano suite into full orchestral dress, a common route from salon or teaching music to the theatre in this period, and the two-stage premiere (concert suite first, staged ballet fourteen months later) reflects how such scores often reached audiences as music before they reached audiences as dance.

How to watch it

Listen for the shift from the stately triple-metre Sarabande of the weary stork directly into the driving duple-metre Galop of the horse's pursuit — the two named dance forms sit back to back and are the clearest choreographic handholds in the piece. Beyond that, treat the remaining movements as tone-painting (bells, a limping rhythm, a lullaby, pentatonic colour for the 'Chinese umbrella') rather than as named dance vocabulary, since the source does not specify steps for them.

Structure

1. Prelude
   Opens the suite before the week of Hialmar's dreams begins.
2. La fête nationale des souris
   Depicts a national festival dance of the mice, given as 'danse du peuple des souris'.
3. La cigogne lasse
   The tired stork's episode, headed as a Sarabande.
4. Le cheval de Ferme-l'œil
   The horse of Ferme-l'œil, in a galop chasing the stork.
5. Le mariage de la poupée Berthe
   The doll Berthe's wedding, alternating a bell motif and a march theme.
6. La ronde des lettres boiteuses
   A round built on a limping ('claudicant') rhythmic motif.
7. La promenade à travers le tableau
   A promenade through a picture, on a lullaby motif.
8. Parapluie chinois
   The Chinese umbrella, built on two pentatonic-scale themes.

Structure read from an encyclopaedia article, not from a libretto or score we hold. Confirm against a programme before treating the numbering as authoritative.

Credits

• composer: Florent Schmitt

Questions