Ravel

When I was a kid, I often played chess with a friend after school. At that time, my favorite classical music song was Boléro, composed by Maurice Ravel and first performed in 1928. At every chess game in my house, I put the record (it was vinyl) on the phonograph in the stereo system. The song starts softly and over the next quarter hour it gradually swells in volume and intensity until it reaches an emotional climax. Which is much like the intensity in many chess games.

The music is hypnotic with its repetitive melody and rhythm. Ravel used crescendo (a gradual increase from soft to loud) and texture (layering on of more and more instruments) to hold the audience’s attention. An abrupt key change (to E major) near the end jolts the audience from their hypnotic state.

In the 1979 film 10, the song was the central element in the lovemaking scene between Bo Derek and Dudley Moore. That helped to propel Boléro into the category of “sex music” in the minds of many Americans. A quarter hour is fairly long to hold the attention of many people, so I found a version that is only 7 minutes long. It begins louder and advances faster than the original version, which robs some of the intensity from the song’s climax. If you want to listen to the full movement, there are several orchestral versions online. Here is a longer version performed by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev.

I have many pop songs on my Song of the Day playlist. So I decided it was time to pass the baton to a modern classic. And so…

The song of the day is Ravel’s Boléro by the Johann Strauss Orchestra conducted by André Rieu.