Ravel’s “Bolero”
Maurice Ravel
French composer Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) is famous for many works: the opera Daphnis Et Chloé; the poignant and beautiful Pavane Pour Une Infante Défunte; the virtuosic piano piece Gaspard De La Nuit; and the jazzy Piano Concerto In G Major for piano and orchestra. His most famous piece, though, arguably is Bolero. It is used to powerful effect in the seductive movie 10.
You may know that Maurice Ravel orchestrated Pictures at an Exhibition. Both he and Debussy, the two pre-eminent French impressionist composers, were fascinated with the music of Spain. A bolero is a Spanish dance, sometimes performed by a soloist and sometimes by a couple. While Ravel’s Bolero was originally composed to be a ballet, these days audiences frequently hear it performed as a part of an orchestra concert.
The form of the piece is exceedingly simple: two characteristic dance themes alternate repeatedly with no melodic or even harmonic variation a total of eighteen times! The bolero rhythm heard played very softly at the beginning on the snare drum, continues throughout the entire piece. The effect is hypnotic. Only the orchestration—and Ravel was a master orchestrator—changes during the entire 16-minute piece.
The performance here is by Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, directed by Herbert von Karajan (427 250-2 Deutsche Grammophon).
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