Boléro
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Boléro is a one-movement orchestral piece by Maurice Ravel. Originally composed as a ballet, the piece, which premiered in 1928, is arguably Ravel's most famous musical composition.
Before Boléro, Ravel had composed large scale ballets (such as Daphnis et Chloé, composed for the Ballets Russes 1909–1912), suites for the ballet (such as the second orchestral version of Ma Mère l'Oye, 1912), and one-movement dance pieces (such as La Valse, 1906-1920). Apart from such compositions intended for a staged dance performance, Ravel had demonstrated an interest in composing re-styled dances, from his earliest successes (the 1895 Menuet and the 1899 Pavane) to his more mature works like the Tombeau de Couperin (which takes the format of a dance suite).
Boléro epitomises Ravel's preoccupation with restyling and re-inventing dance movements. It was also one of the last pieces he composed before illness forced him into retirement: the two piano concertos and the Don Quichotte à Dulcinée song cycle were the only compositions that followed Boléro.
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[edit] Background
The work had its genesis in a commission from the dancer Ida Rubinstein, who asked Ravel to create a ballet score with a Spanish character. The original plan had been for him to orchestrate excerpts from Isaac Albéniz' set of piano pieces, Iberia, but he was unable to obtain the rights to do so, since Albéniz had given the rights of orchestration to his pupil Ferdinand Enrique Arbos. Upon Arbos's hearing of this, he said he would happily allow Ravel to orchestrate the pieces. However, Ravel instead wrote a brand new piece based on the Spanish dance and musical form called bolero.
The composition was a great success when it was premiered at the Paris Opéra on November 22, 1928, with choreography by Bronislava Nijinska and designs by Benois. It has remained somewhat popular ever since, though is usually played as a purely orchestral work, only rarely being staged as a ballet. Ravel purported to be somewhat embarrassed that a composition which was, in his words, "without music", should become so well known and regarded this work as "trivial." Apparently, at the premiere, a woman declared that Ravel was mad. When told about this, Ravel remarked, "Aha! She understood the piece!"
The piece was first published by the Parisian firm Durand in 1929. Arrangements of the piece were made for piano solo and piano duet (two people playing at one piano), and Ravel himself composed a version for two pianos, published in 1930.
[edit] Music
Boléro is written for a large orchestra consisting of two flutes, piccolo, two oboes (oboe 2 doubles oboe d'amore), cor anglais, E-flat clarinet, two B-flat clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, piccolo trumpet in D, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, three saxophones (one sopranino, one soprano and one tenor — one of the first large ensemble pieces to employ the family), timpani, two snare drums, cymbals, tam-tam, celesta, harp and strings (violins, violas, cellos and double basses). An average performance will last in the area of fifteen minutes, with some recordings extending as long as 18 minutes. The original version by Ravel took 17 minutes 6 seconds.[citation needed]
The composition has a very simple structure—it consists almost entirely of one melody and one countermelody, repeated over and over again, orchestrated differently each time, but otherwise unchanging. It begins quietly, with the melody played in C major by a flute over an ostinato rhythm played on a snare drum that continues throughout the piece:
The melody is passed between different instruments, clarinet, bassoon, E-flat clarinet, oboe d'amore, trumpet, saxophone, horn, trombone and so on. While the melody continues to be played in C throughout, from the middle onwards other instruments double it in different, discordant keys, beginning with the piccolo, which accompanies the third statement of the melody in E. The accompaniment becomes gradually thicker and louder until the whole orchestra is playing at the very end. This progression from soft to loud in volume is called a crescendo. Just before the end (rehearsal number 18 in the score), there is a sudden change of key to E major, though C major is reestablished after just eight bars. Six bars from the end, the bass drum, cymbals and tam-tam make their first entry, and the trombones play raucous glissandi while the whole orchestra beats out the rhythm that has been played on the snare drum from the very first bar. Finally, the work descends from a dissonant B-flat chord to a C major chord.
[edit] Uses of Boléro
The melody of Boléro is well-known to many and it is often featured in different occasions in popular culture, including motion pictures, video games and popular music. For instance, it was used in the movie 10 to great acclaim, for the character played by Bo Derek keeps restarting the music on a phonograph, while trying to seduce Dudley Moore.
Italian animator Bruno Bozzetto used the greater part of Bolero for a sequence in his Fantasia-like 1977 film Allegro non troppo.
The rock band The James Gang included a section of Boléro in their song The Bomber on the initial pressing of their 1970 album James Gang Rides Again. However, Ravel's estate (which still owns copyright on the work) objected, and as a result the band edited that section out of the song on subsequent pressings of the album. The CD re-issue of Rides Again contains the full version of The Bomber, with the Boléro section restored.
Similarly, Ravel's estate has objected to Frank Zappa's treatment of Boléro on his 1991 live album The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life, and has forced omission of the song from the European release of the album.
Another famous example of using Boléro was when Ice dancers Torvill and Dean skated to Boléro in their gold medal-winning performance at the 1984 Winter Olympics, which is still the only ice dancing performance ever to have received a perfect score from every judge.
It has also been used as background music (BGM) in the Japanese anime series Digimon (seasons 1 and 2)
It has been used by Brian de Palma in the movie Femme Fatale's opening sequence.
Boléro is integrated with consideration skill into Rufus Wainwright's song 'What a World.'
[edit] Trivia
- The sopranino saxophone called for in the instrumentation is a sopranino saxophone in F; whilst the ones of today are in E-flat. It is not known if an F sopranino saxophone actually existed, or if the player transposed the part. Today, both the soprano saxophone and the sopranino saxophone parts are commonly played on the B-flat soprano saxophone.
- The piece is sometimes jokingly referred to as "the world's longest crescendo".
- It has also been used for the opening piece of the broadway production Blast!, a show originated from the drum corp group Star of Indiana Drum and Bugle Corps.
