The World's Most Popular Music

With all data compiled - including recordings in print, frequency of performance, duration and pervasiveness in the world repertoire, and the subjective yardstick of audience avidity - the award for "World's Most Popular Music" goes to: Boléro!

Yes. This Spanish-Arabic flavored, gradual crescendoing tour de force by France's dandified Maurice Ravel is rooted in the repertoire of nearly every orchestra in the world, large and small. It has sold more records than even the Beethoven Fifth. It has crossed all geographic and cultural lines. It is the World's Most Popular Music.

I'm aware of the sneering contempt often shown this (in Ravel's words) "orchestral tissue without music." But those who despise Boléro for its ubiquity strike me as having sampled a spoonful too much from the snob merchant, and perhaps nothing will dissuade them from their self-limiting opinion. Besides, the vehemence of their contempt only helps validate Boléro's claim to World's Most Popular, for only a work of such high profile could engender such high-pitched loathing.

Therefore, as a public service, I hereby issue "A Perfect Ten Facts of Boléro" so that we may better know our Most Popular Work.

Fact One: The dancer Ida Rubinstein commissioned Boléro, originally asking for Ravel to orchestra pieces from Albéniz's Iberia. Instead, Ravel composed an original piece, which received its premiere at the Paris Opéra, November 22, 1928 by Mme Rubinstein's troupe, Walther Straram conducting.

Fact Two: In an interview published in London's Evening Standard, February 24, 1932, Ravel said, "I love going over factories and seeing vast machinery at work. It is awe-inspiring and great. It was a factory which inspired my Boléro. I would like it always to be played with a vast factory in the background."

Fact Three: The first recording of Boléro, on four 78-rpm sides, was made in January 1930 at the Salle Pleyel, by a pick-up Paris orchestra under Piero Coppola, the Italian conductor and composer active in Paris in the 1920s and 30s, who lived to sing the praises of Boléro into the 1970s. Ravel supervised the recording session, and when the orchestra began to record the final side Ravel stopped Coppola and made them start again because he felt the tempo had sped up. Despite this, the tempo on the final side was sped up anyway. The next day, Ravel recorded his own version of Boléro, and his was the only early record of the work which holds tempo throughout.

Fact Four: Ravel had a substantial record collection at his home in Montfort l'Amaury, outside Paris, including dozens of classical music works, a handful of popular recordings (e.g. a Pathé 78-rpm record of the Kentucky Singers performing "Tiger Rag"), and a few folklore recordings, notably of Egyptian popular songs, but only eight records of his own music, two of which were Boléro, one was Coppola's record, the other was by an unnamed orchestra and a conductor unknown to me, H. Kemp.

Fact Five: Upon completing Boléro, Ravel received the degree of Doctor of Music, honoris causa from Oxford University, and appeared at the school in academic garb to accept the honor.

Fact Six: The American premiere of Boléro took place November 14, 1929, with Arturo Toscanini conducting the New York Philharmonic Symphony. The New York Times reported, "Boléro brought shouts and cheers from the audience and delayed the performance by prolonged applause. The craft, the virtuosity are really thrilling." The performance is said to have made Ravel "almost an American national hero," according to the liner notes to the first American recording of the work, "and caused such wild excitement and enthusiasm as had never been seen in American concert halls."

Fact Seven: Prior to the American premiere, Toscanini had already conducted the work several times in Europe, always with a faster tempo than Ravel's score indicates, including an accelerated tempo near the end. Ravel openly objected to this practice of Toscanini's. Then, following a performance at the Paris Opéra, Ravel refused to stand to accept the applause when Toscanini pointed him out in audience. This led to what newspapers called the "Toscanini-Ravel affaire." Typically, Ravel quickly sought to make amends with the Maestro. In a letter he explained, "I have always felt that if a composer does not participate in the performance of his work, he should avoid the applause, which should be directed only to the performer or the work, or both." With this letter, the friendship between Ravel and Toscanini was restored.

Fact Eight: Boléro has been used in eight commercial films. In 1934 George Raft danced to the work in Boléro, directed by Wesley Ruggles, and also staring Carol Lombard. In the 1941 French comedy Boléro, directed by Jean Boyer, an architect played by Arletty is driven batty by his neighbor continually playing Boléro on his phonograph. The 1950 Kurosawa film Rashomon includes an imitation of Boléro by Takashi Matsuyama. The 1973 William Fertik short film won an Academy Award by wander behind-the-scenes in L.A. to Boléro. The 1977 Italian animated film Allegro Non Troppo uses Boléro to illustrate the evolution of the human race, from primordial ooze to modern man. In the 1979 Blake Edwards film 10, Jenny, a woman who scores eleven on the scale of a perfect ten, played by the braided Bo Derek, requires that Boléro be played on her record player in order for her to get "in the mood." Much to the distress of the philandering George Webber, played by Dudley Moore, the record keeps sticking at all the wrong times. The 1981 French film Les Uns et les autres, directed by Claude Lelouche, includes a complete performance of Boléro, with chorus, conducted by Michel Legrand, who slows the tempo down to a languid sixteen minutes and twenty seconds. In 1984, a film was made of the ice dancing World Championships held in Ottawa, at which the first prize was awarded to Jane Torville and Christopher Dean, who skated Boléro all the way to Olympic Gold.

Fact Nine: Ravel, who was proud of the work, on Boléro: "Its theme and rhythm are repeated to the point of obsession without any picturesque intention. This theme…flows successively through the different instrumental groups in a continuous crescendo, and after being repeated, always in C major, breaks out towards the end in E major. Both the theme and the accompaniment were deliberately given a Spanish character. I have always had a predilection for Spanish things. You see, I was born near the Spanish border, and there is also another reason:" (he laughs) "my parents met in Madrid.

Fact Ten: At age 58, Ravel began suffering symptoms of cerebral anemia and aphasia, which included difficulty in speech and a partial loss of memory. He took several months off from work to rest. (Interestingly, six decades later a British study published in Psychiatric Bulletin claimed that Bolero may demonstrate that Ravel was succumbing to Alzheimer's disease. The famous melody is repeated eighteen times without change and could represent perseveration, an obsession with repeating words and gestures, which is one of the chief symptoms of the disease.) Ravel returned in November 1933 returned to the conductor's podium to lead the Pasdeloup Orchestra. It would be his final public performance. On the program was Boléro. Four years later he died of a brain tumor.