![]() Toscanini replied, "When I play it at your tempo, it is not effective", to which Ravel retorted, "Then do not play it". According to another report, Ravel said, "That's not my tempo". ![]() According to one account, Ravel said, "It's too fast", to which Toscanini responded, "You don't know anything about your own music. An exchange took place between the two men backstage after the concert. Toscanini's tempo was significantly faster than Ravel preferred, and Ravel signaled his disapproval by refusing to respond to Toscanini's gesture during the audience ovation. On, Toscanini performed the work with the New York Philharmonic at the Paris Opéra as part of that orchestra's European tour. The performance was a great success, bringing "shouts and cheers from the audience" according to a New York Times review, leading one critic to declare that "it was Toscanini who launched the career of the Boléro", and another to claim that Toscanini had made Ravel into "almost an American national hero". Toscanini Ĭonductor Arturo Toscanini gave the American premiere of Boléro with the New York Philharmonic on 14 November 1929. That same year, further recordings were made by Serge Koussevitzky with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Willem Mengelberg with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. The next day, he conducted the Lamoureux Orchestra in his own recording for Polydor. The first recording was made by Piero Coppola for the Gramophone Company on 13 January 1930. Arrangements were made for piano solo and piano duet (two people playing at one piano), and later, Ravel arranged a version for two pianos, published in 1930. The piece was first published by the Parisian firm Durand in 1929. When told about this, Ravel is said to have remarked that she had understood the piece. According to a possibly apocryphal story from the premiere performance, a woman was heard shouting that Ravel was mad. It is usually played as a purely orchestral work, only rarely staged as a ballet. īoléro became Ravel's most famous composition, much to the surprise of the composer, who had predicted that most orchestras would refuse to play it. to the cheers to join in, the female dancer has leapt onto the long table and her steps become more and more animated.īut Ravel had a different conception of the work: his preferred stage design was of an open-air setting with a factory in the background, reflecting the mechanical nature of the music. Inside a tavern in Spain, people dance beneath the brass lamp hung from the ceiling. A scenario by Rubinstein and Nijinska was printed in the program for the premiere: Originally, Ernest Ansermet had been engaged to conduct the entire ballet season, but the musicians refused to play under him. The orchestra of the Opéra was conducted by Walther Straram. The composition was a sensational success when it premiered at the Paris Opéra on 22 November 1928, with choreography by Bronislava Nijinska and designs and scenario by Alexandre Benois. 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. 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. When Arbós heard of this, he said he would happily waive his rights and allow Ravel to orchestrate the pieces. 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. 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. It was also one of his last completed works before illness forced him into retirement. At least one observer has called it Ravel's most famous composition. ![]() Ravel's Boléro, Lamoureux Orchestra, directed by Ravel himself, first part Ravel's Boléro, Lamoureux Orchestra, directed by Ravel himself, 1930 12" shellac disc label īoléro is a 1928 work for large orchestra by French composer Maurice Ravel. Ida Rubinstein, who commissioned Boléro, in 1922
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