The Boléro is one of Maurice Ravel's (1875-1937) most famous pieces of music. Joseph-Maurice Ravel (March 7, 1875 – December 28, 1937) was a French composer and pianist, known especially for the subtlety, richness, and poignancy of his music and generally considered to be one of the major composers of the 20th century. ... Wikibooks Wikiversity has more about this subject: School of Music Look up Music in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Wikisource, as part of the 1911 Encyclopedia Wikiproject, has original text related to this article: Music Meta has a page about this at: Music markup MusicNovatory: the science of music encyclopedia The...

The work had its genesis in a commission from the dancer Ida Rubinstein, who asked Ravel to create a ballet score with a Spanish character. The original plan had been for him to orchestrate excerpts from Isaac Albéniz' set of piano pieces, Iberia, but he was unable to obtain the rights to do so, as Albéniz had given the rights of orchestration to his pupil Ferdinand Enrique Arbos. Later upon Arbos hearing of this, he happily said he would allow Ravel to orchestrate the pieces. However, Ravel instead wrote a brand new piece based on the Spanish dance and musical form called bolero. Portrait of Ida Rubenstein (Valentin Serov 1910) Ida Lvovna Rubinstein (b. ... Ballet as musical form is a musical composition intended for ballet performance. ... For the use of the term orchestration in computer science, see orchestration (computers) Orchestration or arrangement is the study and practice of arranging music for an orchestra or musical ensemble. ... Isaac Albéniz Isaac Manuel Francisco Albéniz (May 29, 1860 – May 18, 1909) was a Spanish pianist and composer, best known for his piano works that are based on Spanish folk music. ... This article is about the modern musical instrument. ... The bolero is a type of dance and musical form. ...

Boléro is written for a large orchestra consisting of two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, oboe d'amore, cor anglais, E-flat clarinet, two B-flat clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, piccolo trumpet in D, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, three saxophones (one sopranino, one soprano and one tenor), three timpani, two snare drums, cymbals, tam-tam, celesta, harp and strings (violins, violas, cellos and double basses). An average performance will last in the region of fifteen minutes, with some recordings extending up to 18 minutes. The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. ... A Yamaha piccolo. ... Modern Oboe The oboe is a musical instrument of the woodwind double reed family. ... Baroque oboe damore, Denner copy The oboe damore is a woodwind instrument. ... A cor anglais The cor anglais, or English horn, is a double reed woodwind musical instrument in the oboe family. ... A bass clarinet, which sounds an octave lower than the more common Bâ™­ soprano clarinet. ... A typical Bass clarinet The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. ... A Fox Instruments bassoon. ... Drawing of a Contrabassoon The contrabassoon or double bassoon is a larger version of the bassoon sounding an octave lower. ... The horn is a brass instrument that consists of tubing wrapped into a coiled form. ... The trumpet is the highest brass instrument in register, above the horn, trombone, euphonium, and tuba. ... A lip-reed aerophone with a predominantly cylindrical bore, the trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. ... The tuba is the largest of the low-brass instruments and is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the ophicleide. ... Saxophones of different sizes play in different registers. ... Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. ... The snare drum or side drum is a tubular drum made of wood or metal with skins, or heads, stretched over the top and bottom openings. ... It is also possible that you want to know about the Cymbalum instrument. ... A tam tam is also a kind of Gong A tam is also kind of Jamaican hat, probably from the Irish tam-o-shanter. ... The celesta is rarely seen outside the company of other percussion instruments, as it is depicted here. ... The harp is a chordophone which has its strings positioned perpendicular to the soundboard. ... A string instrument (or stringed instrument) is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. ... Violin The violin is a stringed musical instrument that has four strings tuned a perfect fifth apart. ... The viola (in French, alto; in German Bratsche) is a stringed musical instrument which serves as the middle voice of the violin family, between the upper lines played by the lighter violin (soprano register) and the lower lines played by the heavier cello (bass) and double bass. ... A cello The violoncello, or as it is more commonly to refered to as the cello or cello (pronounced Cheh-loh), is a stringed instrument and a member of the violin family. ... Side and front views of a modern double bass with a French bow. ...

The piece has a very simple structure—it consists almost entirely of one melody and one countermelody, repeated over and over again, orchestrated differently each time, but otherwise unchanging. It begins quietly, with the melody played in C major by a flute over an ostinato rhythm tapped out by a snare drum which continues throughout the piece (for the last few minutes of the work, it is played by two drums in unison): Look up melody in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... In music, counter-melody (often one word, countermelody) is a sequence of notes, perceived as a melody, written to be played simultaneously with a more prominent melody. ... In music theory, the major scale (or major mode) is one of the diatonic scales. ... Ostinato, an Italian word meaning stubborn (compare English obstinate), is to classical music what riffs are to popular music. ...

The snare drum ostinato from Maurice Ravels Bolero. ...

The melody is passed between different instruments, clarinet, bassoon, E-flat clarinet, oboe d'amore, trumpet, saxophone, horn and so on. The accompaniment becomes gradually thicker and louder until the whole orchestra is playing at the very end. This progression from soft to loud in volume is called a crescendo. 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, and the trombones play raucous glissandi while the whole orchestra beats out the rhythm that has been played on the snare drum from the very first bar. The work ends on a C major chord. In musical notation, crescendo means that the notes are gradually getting louder. ... Glissando (plural: glissandi) is a musical term that refers to either a continuous sliding from one pitch to another (a true glissando), or an incidental scale played while moving from one melodic note to another (an effective glissando). ...

The work was a great success when it was premiered at the Paris Opéra on November 22, 1928 with choreography by Nijinsky and designs by Benois. It has remained popular ever since, though is usually played as a purely orchestral work, only rarely being staged. Ravel purported to be somewhat embarrassed that a piece which was, in his words, "without music", should become so well known. Apparently, at the premiere, a woman declared that Ravel was mad. When told about this, Ravel remarked, "Aha! She understood the piece!" Exterior of the Palais Garnier. ... November 22 is the 326th day (327th on leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Leon Bakst - Nijinsky in the ballet Laprès-midi dun faune, 1912 Tombstone of Vaslav Nijinksy in Cimetiere du Montparnasse in Paris Vaslav Fomich Nijinsky (Вацлав Фомич Нижинский, |Polish language: WacÅ‚aw NiżyÅ„ski) (March... Alexandre Nikolayevich Benois (May 4, 1870, St Petersburg - February 9, 1960, Paris) was probably the most important member of the artistic Benois family. ...

The piece was first published by the Parisian firm Durand in 1929. Arrangements of the piece were made for piano solo and piano duet (two people playing at one piano), and Ravel himself made a version for two pianos, published in 1930. 1929 (MCMXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... This article is about the modern musical instrument. ... 1930 (MCMXXX) is a common year starting on Wednesday. ...

Boléro was one of the last pieces that Ravel composed before illness forced him into retirement. The only works he wrote after this were the Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, the Piano Concerto in G major and the song "Don Quichotte a Dulcinée". Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D major (Concerto pour la main gauche en ré majeur) was composed by Maurice Ravel between 1929 and 1930. ... fuck ravel he sucks munkey nutzConcerto in G is a piano concerto by Maurice Ravel composed in the period of 1929–1931. ...

Boléro in culture

• The Boléro was famously used in the movie 10. The character played by Bo Derek keeps restarting the piece while trying to seduce Dudley Moore.
• The Boléro accompanied ice skaters Torvill and Dean in their gold medal-winning performance at the 1984 Winter Olympics.
• The Boléro appears in Futurama season 4, episode 18, in which Fry proceeds to play the Holophoner.
• The Boléro was frequently played in the first season of the Anime series Digimon.
• The Boléro has been rearranged and performed by many artists, including quotations in the chorus of Rufus Wainwright's "Oh What A World."
• The Boléro was originally played during the opening of 'The Legend of Zelda' video game for the NES. Copyright however prevented its use.
• The Boléro was featured in the 1977 Italian animated movie Allegro Non Troppo, directed by Bruno Bozzetto.
• The Boléro is featured in "Stairway to Lenin," part of a music video called The Orchestra (1990), directed by Zbigniew Rybczyński, and produced for PBS's Great Performances, Canal+, and Japan Broadcasting Corporation. It is regularly shown on the Classic Arts Showcase channel.
• The sopranino saxophone called for in the orchestration, is a sopranino saxophone in 'F', the ones today are in 'Eb'. It is not known if an 'F' sopranino actually existed, or the player transposed the part. Today both the soprano saxophone and the sopranino saxophone parts are commonly played on the Bb soprano saxophone.
• Blue Man Group uses Boléro as the background music for their "Twinkie Feast" sketch, in which they invite a woman from the audience to eat Twinkies with them.
• FIFA 2006 World Cup Final Draw ceremony featured a video clip having the Boléro as its background music.

Video cover 10 is a 1979 film directed by Blake Edwards and starring Bo Derek, Dudley Moore and Julie Andrews. ... Bo Derek Bo Derek (born Mary Cathleen Collins on November 20, 1956, Long Beach, California) is an American film actress and model of Irish, German and Dutch descent. ... Dudley Moore Dudley Moore (April 19, 1935 – March 27, 2002), was a British musician, actor and comedian who was enormously popular in his home country for many years but relatively unknown in the USA until he made the film 10 with Bo Derek. ... Jayne Torvill (born 7 October 1957) was a British figure skater who won a gold medal in ice dancing at the 1984 Winter Olympics with her skating partner Christopher Dean. ... Christopher Colin Dean (born 22 July 1958 in Nottingham, Great Britain) was a British figure skater who won a gold medal in ice dancing at the 1984 Winter Olympics with his skating partner Jayne Torvill. ... The XIV Olympic Winter Games were held in 1984 in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. ... Futurama is an animated American cartoon series created by Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons) and David X. Cohen (also a writer for The Simpsons). ... A scene from Cowboy Bebop (1998) Anime (アニメ) is a style of animation originating in Japan. ... Digimon (short for Digital Monster) (Japanese: デジモン, Romaji dejimon) is a Japanese series of childrens merchandise, including toys, manga and anime, featuring monsters of various forms living in a Digital World. Digimon contains many of the typical themes associated with mon (monster). ... Rufus Wainwright (born 22 July 1973) is an American singer-songwriter. ... For the album by Ash, see 1977 (album). ... Animation is the illusion of motion created by the consecutive display of images of static elements. ... Films are produced by recording actual people and objects with cameras, or by creating them using animation techniques and/or special effects. ... Italian cartoon animator, creator of many short pieces, mainly of a political or satirical nature. ... Zbigniew Rybczyński is a filmmaker who has won numerous prestigious industry awards internationally. ... PBS re-directs here; for alternate uses see PBS (disambiguation) PBS logo The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is a non-profit public broadcasting television service with 349 member TV stations in the United States. ... Great Performances was a television series devoted to the performing arts which ran on the US television station PBS from 1972. ... NHK headquarters in Tokyo NHK (日本放送協会, Nihon Hōsō Kyōkai), or the Japan Broadcasting Corporation, is Japans public broadcaster. ... Classic Arts Showcase is a 24-hour noncommercial satellite channel broadcasting a mix of various classic arts including animation, architectural art, ballet, chamber and choral music, dance, folk art, museum art, musical theater, opera, orchestral, recital, solo instrumental, solo vocal, and theatrical performances, as well as classic film and archival... Blue Man Group Blue Man Group is a creative organization centered on a trio of mute performers that present themselves in blue paint, latex bald caps, and black clothing. ... Elevator music, also known as piped music or Muzak, refers to the gentle, bland arrangements of popular music designed for play in shopping malls, grocery stores, telephone systems (while the caller is on hold), and, of course, elevators. ... Twinkies A Twinkie is a Golden Sponge Cake with Creamy Filling created by Hostess, and baked by Continental Baking Co. ...

External links

• Boléro at maurice-ravel.net