Boléro

By Maurice Ravel

BORN : March 7, 1875, in Ciboure, Basses-Pyrénées, France

DIED: December 28, 1937, in Paris

Ω COMPOSED : 1928

Ω WORLD PREMIERE : November 22, 1928, at the Paris Opera in a performance by Ida Rubinstein’s dance company, with the founder in the main role, choreography by Bronislava Nijinska, and sets and costumes by Alexandre Benois.

Ω CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA PREMIERE : October 16, 1930, with Nikolai Sokoloff conducting

Ω ORCHESTRATION : 2 flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), piccolo, 2 oboes (2nd doubling oboe d’amore), english horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, E-flat clarinet, soprano saxophone (doubling tenor saxophone), 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass drum, cymbals, 2 snare drums, tam-tam), harp, celeste, and strings

Ω DURATION : 15 minutes

RAVEL DID NOT EXPECT Boléro to be a hit. He was simply fulfilling an obligation to write a piece of music. He’d been asked by the Russian ballerina Ida Rubinstein to write a new ballet with a Spanish theme. Her original request involved orchestrating some piano works by Isaac Albéniz, a relatively easier task than writing new music. But it turned out that the Albéniz pieces had already been arranged for orchestra — and copyright restrictions wouldn’t allow another version. So Ravel struck out on his own, looking for something interesting but not too time consuming. Eventu- ally, he settled on the idea of an orchestration exercise, applied to a strangely meandering melody of his own devising, set against a steady and unchanging Spanish rhythm.

The mastery of Ravel is not in conjuring this exercise, but in the extraordinarily consummate skill with which he infused a unique musical message into a simple formula and idea. Somehow, Ravel managed just the right combination of stasis and change, keeping the piece in a narrow region between monotony and wildfire. New instruments are added precisely when the music requires an infusion of energy or a modulation of tone and texture, but never in a predictable way or pace. In a good performance, the tension builds, ever climbing to a blazing climax, and at the moment this peak is scaled, it abruptly releases to extended applause. In a great performance, the result can be mesmerizing, tantalizing, and palpably bone tingling.

From the first beat, the snare drum taps out a driving rhythm that propels the entire piece. A wandering melody starts to snake its way through the orchestra, starting with solo flute, next clarinet, followed by the bassoon, up through the high-pitched E-flat clarinet, before descending to the oboe d’amore (a double reed pitched between an oboe and english horn). More instruments take their turns: trumpet with flute, the unusual addition of saxophones, twinkling celeste and mellow horn, a quartet of reeds emulating an organ, an inebriated-sounding trombone sliding from note to note, the highest-pitched woodwinds carrying the melody into the stratosphere, and finally the strings enter.

From here to the end, everything continues building, with entire sections jumping in, more trumpets, more strings, raucous trombones, and crashing cymbals. Then suddenly, almost unexpectedly, it ends.

Boléro was a sensation at its premiere in Paris in 1928 — the music overshadowing the choreography —and the piece quickly took on a life of its own in the concert hall (and radio and recordings and movies and more).

Ravel was astonished — and even perturbed — by its quick rise to popularity. In 1931, he stated that Boléro “constitutes an experiment in a very special and limited direction, and should not be suspected of aiming at achieving anything different from, or anything more than, it actually does achieve. Before its first performance, I issued a warning to the effect that what I had written was a piece lasting seventeen minutes and consisting wholly of ‘orchestration without music’ — of one very long, gradual crescendo. There are no contrasts, and practically no invention except the plan and the manner of execution.” Just so, and it works magnificently.

— Eric Sellen

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Klaus Mäkelä, Conductor

KLAUS MÄKELÄ IS CHIEF CONDUCTOR of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, music director of Orchestre de Paris, and, since autumn 2022, artistic partner of the Concertgebouworkest. An exclusive Decca Classics artist, he has recorded the complete Sibelius Symphony cycle with the Oslo Philharmonic as his first project for the label.

Mr. Mäkelä’s third season with the Oslo Philharmonic features 11 contrasting programs, with repertoire ranging from Jean-Baptiste Lully and Pietro

Locatelli to Alban Berg and Gustav Mahler to Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Julia Perry. In fall 2022, Mr. Mäkelä and the Oslo Philharmonic embarked on their second European tour with performances in Germany, Belgium, and Austria with soloist Sol Gabetta.

For his second season with the Orchestre de Paris, Mr. Mäkelä has chosen to spotlight living composers

Pascal Dusapin, Betsy Jolas, Jimmy

López Bellido, Magnus Lindberg, and Kaija Saariaho, the latter featured with three different works. There is also a focus on the Ballets Russes with two key Diaghilev scores by Stravinsky: The Firebird and The Rite of Spring. In spring 2023, Mr. Mäkelä and Orchestre de Paris tour throughout Europe with Janine Jansen as soloist.

With the Concertgebouworkest Klaus Mäkelä embarks on a long-term collaboration this season, joining the orchestra as its artistic partner with his eventual appointment to chief conductor in 2027. For their first season together, they perform six programs including Mahler’s Symphony No. 6, the Mozart Requiem, and Strauss’s Alpine Symphony, as well as premieres by López Bellido, Sauli Zinovjev, Alexander Raskatov, and Sally Beamish. On tour, they performed the opening concert of Musikfest Berlin and at the Cologne Philharmonie.

As a guest conductor in the 2022–23 season, Mr. Mäkelä makes his first appearances with the New York Philharmonic, Berliner Philharmoniker, Gewandhausorchester, and Wiener Symphoniker; and returns to The Cleveland Orchestra, where he’ll lead two consecutive programs, and Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Klaus Mäkelä studied conducting at the Sibelius Academy with Jorma Panula and cello with Marko Ylönen, Timo

Hanhinen, and Hannu Kiiski. As a soloist, he has performed with several Finnish orchestras and as a chamber musician at the Verbier Festival, among others.

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