Bolero
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Bolero grew out of a commission from the Russian ballet dancer Ida Rubinstein. She asked Maurice Ravel to orchestrate six items from a set of piano pieces by Isaac Albéniz, but copyright difficulties led Ravel to look for other starting points. Eventually he settled on what we know today. He called it Fandango, but the familiar title Bolero soon asserted itself and stuck.
First performed in 1928 to a rapturous reception, it quickly spread around the world and became the most popular piece written by Ravel, more often as a concert item than as a ballet. An existing recording, conducted by Ravel, reveals his preference for a slow tempo throughout. If this recording and his metronome mark are adhered to faithfully, the music should last for about 17 minutes, but modern performances are inclined to be faster and therefore shorter.
In a way, the work is remarkably simple. It offers no musical form or development in the traditional sense; it is built on two melodies which repeat and alternate from beginning to end, and is dependent on an insistent rhythmic figure played on a side drum (eventually two side drums) also from beginning to end. But in another way it is complex. The orchestra is enormous, using rare instruments such as oboe d’amore, three differently-sized saxophones and an expanded percussion section. Although the harmony is straightforward and repetitive, the use of polytonality and the superimposition of chords, especially toward the end, lend the piece an exoticism and modernity that cause each new hearing to seem fresh and exciting.
Ravel was alert to the danger of reading too much into this piece. He wrote:
It constitutes an experiment in a very special and limited direction, and should not be suspected of aiming at achieving anything different from, or anything more than, it actually does achieve. Before its first performance, I issued a warning to the effect that what I had written was a piece lasting seventeen minutes and consisting wholly of ‘orchestral tissue without music’ — of one very long, gradual crescendo. There are no contrasts, and practically no invention except the plan and the manner of execution.
Such modesty! Maybe Ravel’s low estimate of Bolero accounts for the absence of an opus number. On the other hand, such a firm favourite doesn’t need a number.
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Bolero grew out of a commission from the Russian ballet dancer Ida Rubinstein. She asked Maurice Ravel to orchestrate six items from a set of piano pieces by Isaac Albéniz, but copyright difficulties led Ravel to look for other starting points. Eventually he settled on what we know today. He called it Fandango, but the familiar title Bolero soon asserted itself and stuck.
First performed in 1928 to a rapturous reception, it quickly spread around the world and became the most popular piece written by Ravel, more often as a concert item than as a ballet. An existing recording, conducted by Ravel, reveals his preference for a slow tempo throughout. If this recording and his metronome mark are adhered to faithfully, the music should last for about 17 minutes, but modern performances are inclined to be faster and therefore shorter.
In a way, the work is remarkably simple. It offers no musical form or development in the traditional sense; it is built on two melodies which repeat and alternate from beginning to end, and is dependent on an insistent rhythmic figure played on a side drum (eventually two side drums) also from beginning to end. But in another way it is complex. The orchestra is enormous, using rare instruments such as oboe d’amore, three differently-sized saxophones and an expanded percussion section. Although the harmony is straightforward and repetitive, the use of polytonality and the superimposition of chords, especially toward the end, lend the piece an exoticism and modernity that cause each new hearing to seem fresh and exciting.
Ravel was alert to the danger of reading too much into this piece. He wrote:
It constitutes an experiment in a very special and limited direction, and should not be suspected of aiming at achieving anything different from, or anything more than, it actually does achieve. Before its first performance, I issued a warning to the effect that what I had written was a piece lasting seventeen minutes and consisting wholly of ‘orchestral tissue without music’ — of one very long, gradual crescendo. There are no contrasts, and practically no invention except the plan and the manner of execution.
Such modesty! Maybe Ravel’s low estimate of Bolero accounts for the absence of an opus number. On the other hand, such a firm favourite doesn’t need a number.