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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).
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
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.
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