Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Autograph manuscript quotation signed ('Maurice Ravel'), the opening of Boléro, n.d. [?c.1930]
A lavish quotation of the opening of Ravel's most famous work, and one of the most frequently performed works in the classical canon.

Title ('Bolero') and 7 bars scored for 2 flutes, 2 snare drums and strings on a single system of 7 staves. On 20-stave paper, one leaf, 348 x 268mm, the verso bearing an unidentified 8-bar sketch for an orchestral or vocal work.

Provenance:
(1) Alde, Paris, 17 June 2016, lot 297.

(2) Schøyen Collection, MS 5573.

The drums set the bolero rhythm, accompanied by pizzicato strings, before the solo flute enters with the famous theme. The tempo is given as 'Tempo di Bolero moderato assai', with a crochet = 66: this follows the autograph emendation to the printed crochet = 76 in Ravel's own copy of the first edition; later editions adopted a tempo of 72. The unidentified sketch on the verso comprises only a repeated figure in the bass, with the remaining five staves blank.

In spite of its fame, Boléro remains a strikingly experimental, almost subversive work, with musical development abandoned in favour of repetition over a continuous crescendo from pianissimo to fortissimo possibile in the course of 16 minutes. The ostinato rhythm which is established in the snare drums in the first two bars is repeated unchanged 169 times, and the only variation lies in the re-orchestration of the two alternating melodies – an effect the composer described as 'orchestral tissue without music'. The work was first performed as a ballet at the Paris Opéra on 22 November 1938, although it is now principally performed as a purely orchestral work.