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Well actually it changes a little bit with the modulation, for like 20 bars before the end..... So you are graced with like 40s of diversity after 13mins of playing the same 4 bars on repeat and the chance to fuck it up because you forgot!
Almost every musical tradition in the world features some kind of repetitive percussive rhythm most of the time (I'm including strumming), with Western Classical being a rare exception. Most drummers are playing a beat. Bolero is one of the exceptions to the exception. I suppose your point is that there aren't any fills. In any other musical tradition the drummer would play some fills, even if they weren't written. Again, Western Classical is a curious outlier.
@partituravid Not directly, no, but the idea of a sexy, enchanting Gypsy woman doing a seductive dance certainly calls to mind _Carmen_ to a moder listener.
@@jddrew1000 The Third Brandenurg Concerto belongs in Christmas , along with Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, Christmas Oratorio, Pastorale in F Major for Organ, Variation on Vom Himmel Hoch, Sheep May Safely Graze, Sleepers Wake, & Nun Komm der Heiden Heiland.
This is your second Ravel survey after his orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Ravel also did Mother Goose, Pavane for a Deceased Princess, Tombeu de Couperin, and La Valse. Ida Rubinstein performed the role of Zobeide in Fokine's version of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade.
Thanks for pointing out the horns - celeste - piccolo section. It's one of my favorite parts, too, with how eerie it sounds. That and the trumpets coming in fortissimo near the end are the sections I most anticipate when listening to the piece.
Excellent video as always! Boléro was one of the first classical music pieces I've listened to when I seriously started exploring the genre back in 2016, and it has been one of my favourties even since. Loved the parallel between the music and the precise machines; made me wonder about Franz Kafka for a minute there. Never knew about the Toscanini bit though; that was absolutely hilarious!
One of my favorite pieces! The simplicity of the theme being repeated for 15 minutes yet it is always interesting from it's build and you never get bored of it makes it truly a masterpiece. Also think Shostakovich has a symphony that does a similar thing, but cant remember which one.
You mentioned Toscanini. He was at the premiere of Puccini's Turandot (completed by Alfano) and conducted the American premiere of Respighi's Pines of Rome.
Let’s get you to 100k, your work is valuable and I’d show it to my kids if I had any, listened to Bolero the first time last month after I heard Bernstein say it’s an orchestrational masterclass, at first the piece pissed me off but now I replay it just for its experience I can just let go of the music a bit and let the thing ride higher 😎🙏🥇
This is kind of a weird fact. I live in Israel and like 99% of the popularion thinks about chocolate milk when they hear this piece because of a series of commercials back in the early 2000s of a man sleepwalking to a Kibbutz to get said chocolate milk.
I saw a video saying that this was the worst piece of classical music ever. I cannot understand how anyone could think that. This piece captivates me from start to finish and the ending always gives me shivers.. even just the snippet at 8:28 was enough to give me goosebumps!
Makes me wonder how Holst felt when he composed other suites (e.g. The Japanese Suite), but people only recognize him as the guy who wrote The Planets.
Thank you! Brilliant, as usual! Plase, find it in your heart to do Pärt's Cantus in memoriam of Benjamin Britten next. It's one of the saddest pieces of music ever imo, and I would love to see how your comic style would tackle it.
Oh, I wish I could've just watched Classics explained instead of being forced into a classroom to "learn"! Those lessons in frustration taught me classical music is boooooring. Turns out I love a lot of classical music. Cheers!
You mentioned Shostakovich. He wrtoe the Second Piano Concerto (whose first movement was set to an animated Adapation of Hans Christian Anderson's The Steadfast Tin Soldier), and the Seventh Symphony "Leningrad", among other works.
@@ClassicsExplained Is Bartered Bride, Barber of Seville, Pines of Rome, Finlandia, Bells across the Meadow, Rigoletto, Scottish Fantasy, Kinderszenen, Hungarian Rhapsody and Appalachian Spring coming soon?
In the commentary you keep referring to "the melody" as if there was only one. In fact there are two different melodic themes in Bolero. The first one opens the work and is repeated, then there is a second theme which is jazz-based, also repeated. The repeated pairs occur (I think) eight times in total, before the final dramatic outburst. There is also an underlying rhythmical 'bom bom, bom bom' which moves around the orchestra like the other themes, as well as the snare drum rhythm which stays the same throughout. There is a fantastic performance of the piece by the Polish film & television orchestra (AkademiaFilmuiTelewizji) on RU-vid, well worth watching.
I was lucky enough to see the episode on time. Just one question. Why is it unlisted? Is it because the music or something is copyrighted? Are you going to delete the video eventually?
For years I couldn't work out why this piece always bored and slightly depressed me; this video explained everything. For me, this is the only work by Ravel that I truly dislike.
Well I guess it's time to upset some apple carts, and explain the truth about Ravel's Bolero, and unravel this fictional account. It was inspired by and commissioned by Ida Rubenstein(ballet dancer, actress, and nude/non nude model in Europe around the early 20th century. Ravel created an erotica piece based on two similar melodies with solos with full crescendo(orgasmic crashes) for the finale . When it was first performed in 1928, Ravel went backstage to talk with the conductor because of a complaint of a woman said it was perverted garbage. Ravel said well, I guess she was the only one that understood the piece! Bolero has been done by many orchestras, and been wrote with many variations. It is on the top 10 of sexiest classical music pieces.
Hi thanks for the comment. we didn’t intend to use the word as a noun to describe the Romani people (which would, of course, constitute a slur) but are using the word in the small “g” sense to describe the sort of bohemian way of life which many of these early twentieth century composers looked to for inspiration - in the sense of “wayward”, “demimonde” or “nomadic”. Thanks for watching :)
No, my friend. No word is outdated, it's just the followers of the political correctness that want us to change our way to think or talk and the words we have been using for centuries to be replaced. Also Roma and Romani sound way too similar to "Romania", "Romanian", "Rome" and "Roman" and can create confusions. By that logic, why wouldnt we ban or cancel several operas and operettas like Carmen, Il Trovatore, The Gypsy Baron, La Traviata for using this "outdated" word? Or countless pieces of litetature?
No figure skating fan will ever be able to forgive Maurice Ravel lol. Every new season of competition there is someone doing a Bolero program, and some fans even choose social media names such as No.1 Bolero hater because of it. But in the end it is still a brilliant piece of music, just sadly it has become a bit overused in this nieche sport called figure skating.
The Horns, Celeste and Piccolo aren't playing in completely unrelated keys. The transpositions are derived from the overtone series .... similar to an organ mixture, as you mentioned.
@@XtTapelatakettle That's a little bit of a stretch tho, the "about a month" claim is assuming the International release date and Japanese copyright laws. The Japanese release was in February 1986, one and three quarters of a year before it would have become public domain in Japan (and Japan only).
