It is one of the most popular pieces of classical music, yet the composer of Bolero didn't think too much of it, writes TARA WERNER.
Ravel's Bolero is so intrinsically linked with the famous ice-dancing duo Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean that it is difficult to separate the music from the skating rink.
In 1984, when the couple won two gold medals at the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, the crowd was swept off its feet by their choreography.
The pair won perfect marks for their sensuous routine which made the most of Bolero's repeated rhythms and slow build-up to a passionate conclusion.
Their performance was transmitted live by satellite and seen by millions of television viewers round the world.
On Thursday, audiences can hear how the Auckland Philharmonia handles the well-known piece.
But Ravel would have been bemused at the fuss and the music's longevity. The French composer once joked about the score to his friend Joaquin Nin, "Il est vide de musique [there's no music in it]."
He was taken aback by its enormous popularity on the concert platform, figuring that he had written it purely as a dance accompaniment.
The music was commissioned by Ira Rubenstein as a vehicle to show off her prowess as a dancer. The dance is set in an empty cafe. A single woman moves alone and is gradually joined by onlookers until the whole stage is a swirling mass of bodies.
The ballet premiered at the Paris Opera in November, 1928, with decor by Alexandre Benois and choreography by Bronislava Nijinska. Ravel was disappointed with its romantic overtones. He would have preferred an open-air setting with a factory in the background and a crowd of workmen and women emerging to take part in the dance.
The rhythm was very factory-like, he said, warning Rubenstein that he had written "a piece lasting 17 minutes and consisting wholly of 'orchestral tissue without music' - one very long, gradual crescendo."
He may have been right about the choreography, since the score has become far more established on the concert stage than in the ballet repertoire.
From its first public concert performance the music had quite an effect.
On hearing the crescendo with its repeated melody on different solo instruments, people clutched at each other and crumpled their programmes into lumps of perspiring pulp, wrote an eye-witness, Norman Demuth.
The conductor for the Auckland Philharmonia's performance, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, feels that Bolero requires a steady beat and split-second timing.
"It's very difficult in more ways than one - maintaining the pace is important. The tempo has to be just right and the pulse has to be the same throughout. It's a wonderful work."
Ravel himself conducted Bolero with metronome-like regularity, holding back the crescendo and avoiding any suspicion of speeding up at the end. Once he even told off the famous conductor Toscanini for taking it too fast and making an accelerando at the finish.
In response, the maestro sniffed: "You don't understand your own music. That is the only way to put it over."
Ravel was furious, but in the end could only agree.
* Ravel's Bolero, performed by the Auckland Philharmonia, Auckland Town Hall, Thursday May 25, 8 pm.
No music in it: Ravel
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