Maurice Ravel - Bolero

Touch 2023
Bolero
Composed by: Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Performers:
Li Jingyi
Shen Congzhe
Programme notes:
Joseph Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) was a French composer, pianist, and conductor of the late 19th to early 20th century. Born to a Swiss engineer father and Basque mother, Ravel was encouraged by his music-loving family to pursue his musical passions at the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied composition under leading French composer Gabriel Fauré during his second enrolment there. Despite his modest progress as a student, Ravel eventually established himself as a master orchestrator, while his piano music stood out for its virtuosic edge, among them the infamously challenging Gaspard de la Nuit. However, Ravel is perhaps most renowned for his compositional precision, leading many to see him as the musical equivalent of a watchmaker. Several of his works also feature Spanish elements, possibly stemming from the French fascination with the exotic. A good example of such a piece is his Boléro, an unconventional, experimental single-movement work that boldly stands out from his compositional oeuvre.
Written in 1928 as music to accompany a ballet, and based on the Spanish dance form of the same name, Boléro is known for its unorthodox approach to melody, where a single theme is repeated throughout the piece with little to no variation. Originally scored for a large orchestra, Ravel later wrote an arrangement for two pianos, where the creative use of dynamics, register, and texture characterizes the music in the absence of different instrumental colours as in the original orchestral arrangement. Despite Ravel’s own humble opinions of the piece, Boléro has since become one of the composer’s most popular and memorable works.
The piece opens on a quiet note with its iconic ostinato (a repeated musical pattern), which is played detached and percussively in imitation of the snare drum in the original orchestral arrangement. A simple yet elegant main theme is then introduced, after which the music builds up in tension section by section over a long, continuous crescendo (an increase in dynamics), all while being grounded by the persistent rhythmic ostinato. Just as the music appears to reach its breaking point, this build-up of tension is released as the music makes an abrupt switch in tonality from C major to E Major, leading the piece towards a triumphant, grand close.
Find us on:
Instagram: / nus.pianoensemble
Facebook: / nuspianoensemble
Website: nuspianoensemb...