150 years of musical heritage with the legendary Bolero

“I start very small to finish huge,” notes Maurice Ravel as he completes the writing of Bolero . The formula could summarize his life. Born on March 7, 1875, in Ciboure, opposite Saint-Jean-de-Luz (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), he grew up in Paris, lulled, like his younger brother Edward, by maternal Basque songs and by the industrial sound universe of his father engineer.

Refinement, precision and inventiveness

From 5 years old, Maurice developed taste and talent for drawing and music. Encouraged by his parents, he begins the piano at 7 years old and quickly aroused the admiration of his teachers. Little inclined to work, however: his mother motivates him with a few coins. His first creations ( A big black sleep, ancient small, habanera ), written when he is twenty years old, testify to a refinement, precision and inventiveness which are still affirming with Pavana for a deceased infant (1899) or String quartet (1903).

At the beginning of the 20th century, his career seems to be launched. However, his daring music is little played. Ravel is struggling to live from it. Gabriel Fauré, his teacher, recommends him to try the Prix de Rome. He returns to it five times, in vain. The case makes a big splash and paradoxically feeds its popularity. He tried his hand at the opera ( Spanish time, 1907), then at the ballet ( Daphnis and Chloé, 1912). But, soon, the shadow of war hovers.

The Bolero, one of his latest creations

Measuring 1.61 m for 48 kg, the dandy is reformed. Others, he still won a place of ambulancers. Here he is in Verdun in the fall of 1916, but he was quickly demobilized for dysentery. Modest, he will rarely talk about the horrors seen. To his nightmares at the beginning of 1917 was added the death of his mother. Very affected, he isolates himself. He moved to Lyons-la-Forêt (Eure) for a time, from his war godmother, where he completed The tomb of Couperin, dedicated to his friends who fell on the field of honor, before giving in to a new darkness, perceptible from The waltz (1920).

The following year, fleeing Parisian madness, he moved to Montfort-l’amaury (Yvelines), in the middle of nature, in the company of his cats. It was there, in 1928, on the return from a triumphant tour of four months in the United States, that he designed the Bolero, Ballet mixing Arab-Spanish references, mechanical sounds and orchestral engineering … The success is immediate. And planetary.

This masterpiece is also one of his latest creations, simply followed by Concerto for the left hand (1930), Concerto in ground (1931) and Don Quixote to Dulcinée (1932). Ravel’s health deteriorates. He declares a degenerative neuro disease which prevents him from writing what he continues to imagine. “I have so much music in my head. Why did it come to me? For what ? He would have said little before dying, December 28, 1937.