Boléro
13 min
Recording
- BoléroBerlin Symphonic Orchestra, Ferenc Fricsay13:26
Ferenc Fricsay conducts Ravel’s Boléro, in which a snare drum repeats a two-bar rhythm throughout while a tune first played by the flute passes to more and more of the orchestra until the full orchestra plays it. Near the end the music modulates once, to E major.
Listening notes · joins
- Opening, snare drum and flute
The snare drum starts quietly over plucked strings. A flute plays the first tune, which moves around the notes of C major. Beneath it the bass alternates C and G, and these two notes continue through nearly the whole piece.
- First performance, Paris Opéra, 1928
Boléro was first performed at the Paris Opéra on 22 November 1928. Ida Rubinstein danced on a tavern table while men gathered around her, in choreography by Bronislava Nijinska.
- Second theme, bassoon
A bassoon plays the second theme first, high in its range. The theme spans two octaves and adds flattened notes over the same C and G in the bass. The E♭ clarinet plays it next.
- First theme, oboe d’amore
The first tune returns on oboe d’amore, a lower-pitched relative of the oboe. Its long phrases sit over the same clipped accompaniment. In the next statement a muted trumpet plays the tune with a flute an octave above.
- Horn, celesta and two piccolos
A horn plays the tune with celesta and two piccolos above it. The horn stays in C while the piccolos double the tune in E and G, on pitches that correspond to upper harmonics of the horn’s line.
- Trombone solo, second tune
A solo trombone plays the second tune in its high register, sliding between notes across the long phrase. Underneath, the drummer continues the same two-bar rhythm.
- First violins take the melody
The first violins join the woodwinds in the melody. Until this point the strings have played pizzicato or repeated the accompaniment. In the next statement the second violins also take up the tune.
- Interview, London Evening Standard, 1932
“It was a factory which inspired my Boléro,” Ravel told the London Evening Standard in 1932. “I would like it always to be played with a vast factory in the background.”
- Modulation to E major
After the long stretch in C major, the orchestra moves to E major at rehearsal 18, with a change in the bass. The drum continues. After eight bars the music returns to C.
- Final bars, return to C major
C major returns with trombone glissandos and full percussion. The bass drum, cymbals and tam-tam enter only in these last bars, and the whole orchestra plays at full strength as the dance is cut short.
Joins
- Horn, celesta and two piccolos
The snare rhythm and the C-and-G bass continue through the join. Horn, celesta and two piccolos play the first melody together. The horn plays it in C. The piccolos play it in E and in G, high above the horn. The celesta doubles the horn in octaves.
- The bass leaves C
The bass leaves C and the orchestra moves directly into E major, with E–G♯–B in place of C–E–G. The snare drum continues its two-bar rhythm and the metre stays in three. The new key lasts eight bars.
- Return to C major with trombone slides
The orchestra returns to C as the trombones slide across the repeated rhythm. Bass drum, cymbals and tam-tam enter for the final six bars. A dissonant stack of B♭ minor and F minor notes falls onto the last C major chord.
Other performances
Historical and comparison recordings, outside the concert’s running order.
- BoléroOrchestre des Concerts Lamoureux, Maurice Ravel · 193015:52
Ravel conducts the Lamoureux orchestra in Boléro, in a recording made in 1930. The snare drum plays the same rhythm throughout while a series of solo instruments take the melody in turn.
Listening notes
- Snare drum, pizzicato strings, flute
A snare drum plays a two-bar rhythm, pianissimo, that continues through the piece. Violas and cellos play pizzicato from the first bar, the cellos on C and G. The first flute enters in bar 5 with the first melody, in C major.
- Polydor recording, Bal Bullier, 1930
Ravel’s Polydor session took place at the Bal Bullier, a Paris dance hall. Albert Wolff had prepared the Lamoureux players, and Ravel conducted. Wolff conducted the other piece recorded that day, Ravel’s orchestration of his Menuet antique.
- Fandango, later Boléro, 1928
On 13 July 1928 Ravel hurried back to Paris after Joaquín Nin told him that Albéniz’s Iberia could not be orchestrated. He then worked on a piece of his own. Its working title was Fandango, and the definitive title became Boléro.
- Ravel and Samazeuilh, Saint-Jean-de-Luz
At Saint-Jean-de-Luz, Ravel played the theme with one finger for his friend Gustave Samazeuilh and asked whether it had “an insistent quality”. He meant to repeat it “a number of times without any development”, gradually increasing the orchestra.
- Coppola’s recording of Boléro
Ravel sat beside Piero Coppola at the conductor’s own recording of Boléro. Near the end Coppola increased the tempo by a fraction. Ravel jumped up and pulled at his jacket (“not so fast”), and the orchestra began again.
- Oboe d’amore solo
After flute, clarinet, bassoon and E♭ clarinet, an oboe d’amore takes the tune. It is a double reed pitched between the oboe and the cor anglais. A flute and a muted trumpet share the next statement.
- Flute and muted trumpet, rehearsal 5
At rehearsal 5 a flute and a muted trumpet play the tune an octave apart, the trumpet mp and the flute pp. It is the first time in the piece that two instruments share the melody. Jennifer Beavers described the pair as fused into one stream.
- Saxophones on Ravel’s Polydor recording
The tenor saxophone takes the tune first, then the higher saxophones. On Ravel’s Polydor record Priam plays the tenor part and Marcel Mule the soprano.
- Horn, celesta and two piccolos
Two piccolos, a celesta and a solo horn play the tune together. The horn is in C, the celesta two and three octaves above, and the piccolos in G and E. The four parts are spaced like the overtones of the horn’s note, and Jennifer Beavers likens their combined sound to an organ stop.
- Tenth statement, oboes and clarinets
Oboe, oboe d’amore, cor anglais and clarinets play the tenth statement of the melody together, each marked mf. The ninth statement is for horn, celesta and two piccolos. The eleventh is for a solo trombone.
- Death of Jacques Durand, 1928
On 23 August 1928 Ravel broke off the orchestration of Boléro to travel to Avon, where his publisher Jacques Durand had died the day before. He finished the piece on 15 October. The next day he signed a contract with Durand’s firm for its sale, for 20,000 francs.
- Ravel on Boléro, 1931
Ravel called Boléro “orchestral tissue without music”, a seventeen-minute piece built as one long crescendo. He told Joaquín Nin it had “no form, properly speaking, no development, no or almost no modulation”. In 1931 he added that it contained practically no invention except the plan.
- Violins in the melody
In the fourteenth statement both violin sections play the melody, each divided in two, with the woodwinds and tenor saxophone. The first violins had joined it in the thirteenth, with flutes, oboes and clarinets.
- Ballet première, Paris Opéra, 1928
The Paris Opéra gave Boléro as a ballet on 22 November 1928, with choreography by Bronislava Nijinska and sets by Alexandre Benois, and a woman dancing on a tavern table. Diaghilev, Stravinsky and the princesse de Polignac attended. Ravel was on tour in Spain.
- Interview, Evening Standard, 1932
In 1932 Ravel told the London Evening Standard: “It was a factory which inspired my Boléro. I would like it always to be played with a vast factory in the background.”
- Toscanini’s tempo, Paris Opéra, 1930
On 4 May 1930 Toscanini conducted Boléro at the Paris Opéra, faster than Ravel liked. In one report, Ravel said backstage “That’s not my tempo”, and Toscanini replied that at Ravel’s tempo it was not effective. Ravel answered, “Then do not play it.”
- E major at rehearsal 18
At rehearsal 18 the key moves from C to E major for eight bars. The first melody returns, fortissimo, and the bass plays E and B. The snare drum rhythm continues.
- The last six bars
Six bars from the end the bass drum, cymbals and tam-tam play for the first time, and the trombones and saxophones play glissandos. The harmony returns to C, and the final chord is C major.