Maurice ravel biography bolero dance

Orchestral composition by Maurice Ravel

This article is about Ravel's piece for orchestra. For Latin music, see Bolero. For other uses, see Bolero (disambiguation).

Boléro is a work for large orchestra by French composer Maurice Ravel. It is one of Ravel's most famous compositions. It was also one of his last completed works before illness diminished his ability to write music.

Composition

The work's creation was set in motion by a commission from the dancer Ida Rubinstein, who asked Ravel for an orchestral transcription of six pieces from Isaac Albéniz's set of piano pieces, Iberia. While working on the transcription, Ravel was informed that Spanish conductor Enrique Fernández Arbós had already orchestrated the movements, and that copyright law prevented any other arrangement from being made. When Arbós heard of this, he said he would happily waive his rights and allow Ravel to orchestrate the pieces. But Ravel decided to orchestrate one of his own works instead, then changed his mind and decided to compose a completely new piece based on the bolero, a Spanish dance musical form.

While on vacation at St Jean-de-Luz, Ravel went to the piano and played a melody with one finger to his friend Gustave Samazeuilh, saying, "Don't you think this theme has an insistent quality? I'm going to try and repeat it a number of times without any development, gradually increasing the orchestra as best I can."Idries Shah wrote that the main theme is adapted from a melody composed for and used in Sufi training.

Premiere and early performances

The composition was a sensational success when it premiered at the Paris Opéra on 22 November , with choreography by Bronislava Nijinska and designs and scenario by Alexandre Benois. The orchestra of the Opéra was conducted by Walther Straram. Originally, Ernest Ansermet had been engaged to conduct the entire ballet season, but the musicians refused to play under him. A scenario by Rubinstein and

French composer (–)

"Ravel" redirects here. For other uses, see Ravel (disambiguation).

Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March – 28 December ) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In the s and s Ravel was internationally regarded as France's greatest living composer.

Born to a music-loving family, Ravel attended France's premier music college, the Paris Conservatoire; he was not well regarded by its conservative establishment, whose biased treatment of him caused a scandal. After leaving the conservatoire, Ravel found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity and incorporating elements of modernism, baroque, neoclassicism and, in his later works, jazz. He liked to experiment with musical form, as in his best-known work, Boléro (), in which repetition takes the place of development. Renowned for his abilities in orchestration, Ravel made some orchestral arrangements of other composers' piano music, of which his version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition is the best known.

A slow and painstaking worker, Ravel composed fewer pieces than many of his contemporaries. Among his works to enter the repertoire are pieces for piano, chamber music, two piano concertos, ballet music, two operas and eight song cycles; he wrote no symphonies or church music. Many of his works exist in two versions: first, a piano score and later an orchestration. Some of his piano music, such as Gaspard de la nuit (), is exceptionally difficult to play, and his complex orchestral works such as Daphnis et Chloé () require skilful balance in performance.

Ravel was among the first composers to recognise the potential of recording to bring their music to a wider public. From the s, despite limited technique as a pianist or conductor, he took part in recordings of several of his works; ot

Boléro is a one-movement orchestral piece by Maurice Ravel. Originally composed as a ballet commissioned by Russian ballerina Ida Rubenstein, the piece, which premiered in , is Ravel's most famous musical composition. Before Boléro, Ravel had composed large scale ballets (such as Daphnis et Chloé, composed for the Ballets Russes –), suites for the ballet (such as the second orchestral version of Ma Mère l'Oye, ), and one-movement dance pieces (such as La Valse, ). 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 Menuet and the Pavane) to his more mature works like Le tombeau de Couperin (which takes the format of a dance suite).

Boléro epitomises Ravel's preoccupation with restyling and reinventing 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.

Composition

The work had its genesis in a commission from the dancer Ida Rubinstein, who asked Ravel to make an orchestral transcription of six pieces from Isaac Albéniz' set of piano pieces, Iberia. While working on the transcription, Ravel was informed that the movements had already been orchestrated by Spanish conductor Enrique Arbós, and that copyright law prevented any other arrangement from being made. When Arbós heard of this, he said he would happily waive his rights and allow Ravel to orchestrate the pieces. However Ravel changed his mind and decided initially to orchestrate one of his own previously-written works. He then changed his mind again and decided to write a completely new piece based on the musical form and Spanish dance called bolero. While on vacation

Before he left for a triumphant tour of North America in January , Maurice Ravel had agreed to write a Spanish-flavoured ballet score for his friend, the Russian dancer and actress Ida Rubinstein ().

The idea was to create an orchestral transcription of Albeniz’s piano suite Iberia. But on his return Ravel discovered that the orchestration rights had been granted to the Spanish conductor Enrique Arbós. Although Arbós generously gave up these rights, Ravel abandoned the idea and set about preparing an original score.

Ravel had long toyed with the idea of building a composition from a single theme which would grow simply through harmonic and instrumental ingenuity. Boléro’s famous theme came to him on holiday in Saint-Jean-de-Luz.

He was about to go for a swim when he called a friend over to the piano and, playing the melody with one finger, asked: “Don’t you think that has an insistent quality? I’m going to try to repeat it a number of times without any development, gradually increasing the orchestra as best I can.”

He began work in July. By Ravel’s standards the piece was completed quickly, in five months – it had to be ready for Rubinstein to choreograph.

“Once the idea of using only one theme was discovered,” he asserted, “any conservatory student could have done as well.”

The relentless snare-drum underpins the whole of the minute work as Ravel inexorably builds on the simple tune until, with a daring modulation from C major to E major, he finally releases the pent-up tension with a burst of fireworks.

Boléro was given its first performance at the Paris Opéra on November 20, The premiere was acclaimed by a shouting, stamping, cheering audience in the midst of which a woman was heard screaming: “Au fou, au fou!” (“The madman! The madman!”). When Ravel was told of this, he reportedly replied