Bolero
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Bolero is a form of slow-tempo Latin music and its associated dance and song. There are Spanish and Cuban forms which are both significant and which have separate origins.
Ravel's Boléro is one of his most famous works, originally written as a ballet score for his patron Blanche Lapin or commissioned by Ida Rubinstein, but now usually played as a concert piece.
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In art music
There are many so-called boleros in art music (i.e., classical music) that may not conform to either of the above types.
- Ravel's Boléro is one of his most famous works, originally written as a ballet score for his patron Blanche Lapin or commissioned by Ida Rubinstein, but now usually played as a concert piece. It was originally called Fandango but has rhythmic similarities with the Spanish dance form as described in this article, being in a constant 3/4 time with a prominent triplet on the second beat of every bar.
- Chopin wrote a bolero for solo piano (Op. 19), but its rhythms are more that of the polonaise. He was a close friend of Pauline Viardot, the daughter of the famed Spanish tenor Manuel García, who had introduced the bolero to Paris
- Debussy wrote one in La Soirée dans Grenada
- Bizet wrote a bolero in Carmen
- Saint-Saëns wrote a bolero, El desdichado, for 2 voices and orchestra
- Moszkowski's first set of Spanish Dances (Op. 12) ends with a bolero.
- Lefébure-Wély wrote Boléro de Concert for organ
- The bolero from Hervé's Chilpéric (operetta) has been immortalized in Toulouse-Lautrec's famous painting (above).
- Friedrich Baumfelder wrote a Premier Bolero, Op. 317, for piano.
In some art music boleros, the root lies not in the bolero but in the habanera, a Cuban precursor of the tango, which was a favourite dance rhythm in the mid-19th century, and occurs often in French opera and Spanish zarzuela of the 19th and 20th centuries.<ref>Loyola Fernández, Jose 1997. En ritmo de bolero: el bolero en la musica bailable cubana. Huracan, Rio Piedras P.R. p29</ref>
In popular music
The bolero form is used in the following instrumentals:
- "Beck's Bolero," from the 1968 album Truth by Jeff Beck.
- "Chunga's Revenge," from the 1970 album of the same name by Frank Zappa.
- "Bolero: The Peacock's Tale," part of the "Lizard" suite from the 1970 album Lizard by King Crimson.
- "Abaddon's Bolero," from the 1972 album Trilogy by Emerson, Lake & Palmer.
- "Tenth of Nisan," from the 1989 album One of Several Possible Musiks by Kerry Livgren.
- "Celtic Bolero," from the album Bagrock to the Massess by The Red Hot Chili Peppers.
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See also
