Bolro

Just before departing on his American Tour in 1928, Ravel received a commission from
Ida Rubinstein for a ballet, to be called Fandango. His intention was to orchestrate some
pieces from Iberia by Albniz, but as he was beginning work on it in July, he discovered
that the rights to the music were already assigned to the Spanish composer Enrique
Arbs. Ravel was initially dismayed and at a loss how to fulfil his commission. However
while continuing his holiday in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, he developed a Spanish-sounding
theme which had about it "quelque chose d'insistant".

"L'homme de la rue se
donne la satisfaction de
siffler les premires
mesures du Bolro, mais
bien peu de musiciens
professionnels sont
capables de reproduire
de mmoire, sans une
faute de solfge, la
phrase entire qui obit
de sournoises et
savantes coquetteries."
( mile Vuillermoz,
[1938], p.88-89).

Bolro, as the work was renamed, lasts approximately

15 minutes, and repeats each of the theme's two parts
9 times in the same key, using different orchestrations
to vary the texture and to create a gradual crescendo.
(The pattern is AA BB repeated 4 times, and then a
single repeat of AB, leading to the modulation which
gives the piece its cataclysmic ending.)
Ravel was insistent that the work should be played at
a steady and unvarying tempo (as his own recording
demonstrates). "C'est une danse d'un mouvement trs
modr et constamment uniforme, tant par la mlodie
que par l'harmonie et le rythme, ce dernier marqu
sans cesse par le tambour. Le seul lment de
diversit y est apport par le crescendo orchestral."
(Ravel, [1938]). After a performance in 1930, he
reprimanded Toscanini for taking the work too fast and
for speeding up at the climax. (Coppola, [1944],
p.105)

At the first performance of her ballet production,

at the Opra in November 1928, Ida Rubinstein
danced the role of a flamenco dancer who is
trying out steps on a table in a bar, surrounded
by men whose admiration turns to lustful
obsession. Ravel did not entirely approve; his
own conception was an outdoor scene in front of
a factory whose machinery provides the

In concert performances,
Bolro became Ravel's most
popular work, and it is reputed
to be the world's most
frequently played piece of
classical music. The royalties
earned by the work up to 2001

inflexible rhythm; the factory workers would

emerge to dance together, while a story of a
bullfighter killed by a jealous rival was played
out. ( Chalupt, [1956], p.237). It was performed
in this way, with designs by Lon Leyritz, at the
Opra on one occasion after Ravel's death.

have been estimated at 40

million: an article outlining the
strange history of this money
appeared in The Guardian on
25 April 2001.

Much has been written about Bolro. One detailed analysis of its structure appears in
Deborah Mawer's chapter, "Ballet and the apotheosis of the dance", in The Cambridge
Companion to Ravel, [2000], pp. 155-161. The impact of its repetitive technique (e.g.
4037 drum beats) is considered by Serge Gut in "Le phnomne rptitif chez Maurice
Ravel: de l'obsession l'annihilation incantatoire", in International Review of the
Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, vol.21(1) [June 1990], pp.29-46. [For those with
access to JSTOR, an online version of this article is available.]
Claude Lvi-Strauss considers the semiotics of the work in "Bolro de Maurice Ravel", in
L'Homme, vol.11(2), [1971], pp. 5-14.
And from a performer's perspective, Jean Douay has written about the role of the
trombone - and how to play it - in "Thoughts to Ponder: What Would Ravel Think?--More
Thoughts on Ravel's 'Bolero'", in ITA Journal, vol.26(2), [Spring 1998], p. 23.
www.maurice-ravel.net