Laideronnette, Impératrice des Pagodes, the third of five piano duets for children published by Durand as Ma Mère l’Oye in 1910, is a quintessential machine chinoise. Its sonority is vividly exotic: its style is simple and direct, its harmonic coloring lucidly pentatonic. Only in its contrasting “Trio” does a chromatic passage dwell on Western harmonic innovation. With its elegant, child-like voice, Ma Mère l'Oye joins a select group of pieces composed by Schumann (Kinderszenen), Mussorgsky (The Nursery), and Debussy (Children's Corner) noted for evoking the world of the young. But its well-deserved reputation in this vein should not draw attention away from the technical acumen with which its individual pieces are composed. Elegant proportions, well-integrated musical structure, and innovations in melody, texture, and harmony of Laideronnette reveal the characteristic sophistication of Ravel's musical personality.

Among the Parisian salons Ravel frequented during the productive years of his early maturity (1905-1914) was that of Ida and Cipa Godebski, whose Paris apartment became the meeting place of a group of avant-garde artists and thinkers, the Apaches. Introduced to the Godebski's by the pianist Ricardo Viñes, Ravel became close friends with the family and frequently spent time at their country home, “La Grangette” (The Little Barn”) near Fontainebleau, where Ravel composed Ma Mère l'Oye in 1908. Written for the Godebski daughters, Mimie and Jean, Ravel's immortal duet received its first public hearing, as performed by two young interpreters Jeanne Leleu (age 6) and Geneviève Durony (age 10), at the initial concert of the newly formed Société Musicale Indépendante at the Salle Gaveau on April 20, 1910.

Ravel's biographers tell of time spent playing with Mimie and Jean Godebski and the delight Ravel took in reading them fairy tales. Laideronnette, inspired by Comtesse d'Aulnoy's fairly tale Serpentin Vert, depicts a bath by a Chinese empress surrounded by pagodas playing theorbos and viols. Despite its forthright exotic musical imagery, Ravel's direct commentary on his suite stresses its juvenile nature: