When Enrique Arbos offered to surrender his rights to Ravel, the composer had already moved on to other things. It was a simple project, described in his own words as "a theme lasting less than a minute, but which I'll repeat for up to 18 minutes". She wanted a ballet with a Spanish inspiration. The great conductor Arturo Toscanini learnt this to his expense in May after having conducted the work at twice the tempo intended by the composer, the latter refused to shake the conductor's hand.
Toscanini then said to Ravel, " You don't understand your music at all. It'll fall flat if I don't play it my way". To which Ravel reportedly replied, "Then don't play it at all".
However, a few years before his death, Albert Wolff stated that he himself had conducted the recording. However he omitted to mention that the orchestra had been rehearsed by Pedro de Freitas Branco. When, on the evening of the first performance, someone shouted that it was the work of a madman, the composer is said to have murmured "That person has understood".
More importantly, we have Ravel's actual words: "My masterpiece? What next! To which the composer replied, " Anyone can do it. All it takes is work and the skills of the trade. When told about this, Ravel is said to have remarked that she had understood the piece.
The piece was first published by the Parisian firm Durand in Arrangements of the piece were made for piano solo and piano duet two people playing at one piano , and Ravel himself arranged a version for two pianos, published in The recording session was attended by Ravel. Toscanini's tempo was significantly faster than Ravel preferred, and Ravel signaled his disapproval by refusing to respond to Toscanini's gesture during the audience ovation.
According to one account Ravel said "It's too fast", to which Toscanini responded "It's the only way to save the work". Toscanini replied "When I play it at your tempo, it is not effective", to which Ravel retorted "Then do not play it". The instrumentation calls for a sopranino saxophone in F; modern sopraninos are in E-flat.
Today, both the soprano saxophone and the sopranino saxophone parts are commonly played on the B-flat soprano saxophone. It is built over an unchanging ostinato rhythm played on one or more snare drums that remains constant throughout the piece:. On top of this rhythm two melodies are heard, each of 18 bars' duration, and each played twice alternately.
The first melody is diatonic, the second melody introduces more jazz-influenced elements, with syncopationand flattened notes technically it is in the Phrygian mode.
The first melody descends through one octave, the second melody descends through two octaves. The bass line and accompaniment are initially played onpizzicato strings, mainly using rudimentary tonic and dominant notes.
Tension is provided by the contrast between the steady percussive rhythm, and the "expressive vocal melody trying to break free".
Both themes are repeated a total of eight times. At the climax, the first theme is repeated a ninth time, then the second theme takes over and breaks briefly into a new tune in E major before finally returning to the tonic key of C major.
The melody is passed among different instruments: 1 flute 2 clarinet 3 bassoon 4 E-flat clarinet 5 oboe d'amore 6 trumpet with flute not heard clearly and in higher octave than the first part 7 tenor saxophone 8 soprano saxophone 9 horn, piccolos and celesta 10 oboe, English horn and clarinet 11 trombone 12 some of the wind instruments 13 first violins and some wind instruments 14 first and second violins together with some wind instruments 15 violins and some of the wind instruments 16 some instruments in the orchestra 17 and finally most but not all the instruments in the orchestra with bass drum, cymbals and tam-tam.
While the melody continues to be played in C throughout, from the middle onwards other instruments double it in different keys. The first such doubling involves a horn playing the melody in C, while a celeste doubles it 2 and 3 octaves above and two piccolos play the melody in the keys of G and E, respectively. This functions as a reinforcement of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th overtones of each note of the melody. The other significant "key doubling" involves sounding the melody a 5th above or a 4th below, in G major.
Other than these "key doublings", Ravel simply harmonizes the melody using diatonic chords. The accompaniment becomes gradually thicker and louder until the whole orchestra is playing at the very end.
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, the English horn returns, and the trombones and both saxophones 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 D-flat chord to a C major chord.
The tempo indication in the score is Tempo di Bolero, moderato assai "tempo of a bolero, very moderate". In Ravel's own copy of the score, the printed metronome mark of 76 per quarter is crossed out and 66 is substituted.
An average performance will last in the area of fifteen minutes, with the slowest recordings, such as that by Ravel's associate Pedro de Freitas Branco, extending well over 18 minutes [13] and the fastest, such asLeopold Stokowski's recording with the All American Youth Orchestra, approaching 12 minutes. At Coppola's first recording Ravel indicated strongly that he preferred a steady tempo, criticizing the conductor for getting faster at the end of the work.
According to Coppola's own report: [16]. Ravel's preference for a slower tempo is confirmed by his unhappiness with Toscanini's performance, as reported above. Ravel was a stringent critic of his own work. In , in his book Music Ho! Philosopher Allan Bloom commented in his bestseller The Closing of the American Mind , "Young people know that rock has the beat of sexual intercourse.
That is why Ravel's "Bolero" is the one piece of classical music that is commonly known and liked by them.
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