A flute and a clarinet, a bassoon then a new clarinet, small this time, followed by an oboe d’amore then a trumpet followed by two saxophones, tenor and soprano. At the base, a heady ostinato on the snare drum supported by winds, before the horns punctuate the rhythmic phrase. Little by little, the orchestra comes to life around the two themes presented, strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion, everything comes to life in a kaleidoscope of colors which culminates, in the very last measures, in a unique modulation.
We know some who are put off or even bristled by this long crescendo “empty of Music”, as Maurice Ravel joked. The fault is this harmonic stagnation with a hypnotic vocation which seems to want to lock us in, to bewitch us. You have to know how to let yourself be taken in.
Clearly, many have succumbed to the poisonous charm of Bolero (so much so that we come to doubt that there could be others), one of the rare pieces of “serious” music that has become a worldwide success cooked in all sauces, until relieving painful expectations on uninspired answering machines.
More the Bolero Would it not be much more than that, the composition which best synthesizes the art of Maurice Ravel whose harmonic refinements are nevertheless legion, of the solo piano of Gaspar of the night to the orchestral profusion of Daphnis and Chloe through the heady string quartet? This is the altogether daring question raised by the captivating exhibition devoted by the Philharmonie de Paris to this timeless piece, as a prelude to the festivities which will mark, in 2025, the 150th anniversary of its illustrious composer.
Ideal gateway to grasp the Ravel mystery
A way for the Philharmonie to penetrate the intimacy of Maurice Ravel, a character as whimsical as he is discreet, a perfectionist with the soul of a child attracted as much by popular cultures (read opposite) as by industrial modernity. The Bolero, “arrived by accident” in the words of curator Pierre Korzilius, is a mature work, composed in 1928, five before the first manifestation of the degenerative brain disorders which would finally take the life of the musician at the age of 62, in 1937.
As long as we let ourselves be guided by it, it becomes obvious that it somehow brings together all its influences and reveals itself to be the ideal gateway to grasping the Ravel mystery. The exhibition encourages us to do so by listing the different facets of the work in tables.
With, at the opening, the edifying conditions of its genesis. Commissioned by the dancer Ida Rubinstein, star of the Ballets Russes instructed by the theories on dance developed by Paul Valéry, and choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska, sister of the famous Vaslav Nijinsky, then created to ovations, on November 22, 1928, at the Opera Garnier, the work is based on a rudimentary argument: “In a Spanish tavern, people dance under the copper lamp on the ceiling. To the cheers of the audience, the dancer jumped onto the long table and her steps became more and more animated. »
Already Spain, to which the Basque remained faithful throughout his work (Pavane for a deceased infanta, Spanish Time, Spanish rhapsody…), borrowing from the peninsula its warm tones echoed by the Lola from Valencia by Manet, judiciously borrowed from the Musée d’Orsay.
An equal form
Then it’s childhood, always lurking at Ravel’s house, as evidenced by the many mechanical toys, figurines and puzzles that he methodically collects and lines up in his lair in Monfort-l’Amaury, a house – and now museum – maintained with a maniacal attention to detail. A playful mania which will govern the aesthetic challenge of Bolero, pure formal bet. 1928 was also the year in which Ravel made a triumphant tour of the United States, taking advantage of his stay to visit the Ford factories, fascinated by these steel ogres: “It’s splendid, how Metropolis… and also horrible »he wrote to his brother.
In fact, the Bolero exudes a motoric aspect through a rhythmic hammering which echoes what the American minimalists would attempt, fifty years later, signifying in some way the radical modernity of the score.
And “Swiss watchmaker”, mocked Igor Stravinsky who had perfectly understood the perfectionism of his contemporary. “A score without music, an orchestral factory without an object, a suicide whose weapon is the only expansion of sound”wrote about the Bolero Jean Echenoz in his Ravel (2006, editions of Minuit). In any case, the exhibition reinforces the feeling of musical perfection to which the incredible posterity of this indestructible work surely depends.
“Ravel Boléro”, at the Music Museum, Philharmonie de Paris, until June 15. Also worth seeing is the excellent film by Anne Fontaine, Bolero, with Raphaël Personnaz, impeccable in the role of Ravel.
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