- Joined
- Jun 21, 2003
And so it is with real regret that I must say that I strongly dislike the Bolero LP.
It's just not possible to skate to Bolero. (Torvill and Dean did what little could be done with it. )
The work was purportedly inspired by a trip that Ravel took to a factory with his dad, an engineer. Noise repeated 18 times exactly the same, with no development or counterpoint, getting louder and louder. Ravel's own staging of the work was an open air scene with a factory in the background. Ravel himself described the piece as "orchestral tissue without music." Modern day psychiatric researchers point to the repetitive droning as evidence of the onset of Alzheimer's.
(But other than that, Mathman, how did you like the concert? )