Bolero

This contradictory formula may come as a surprise, yet there is a dizzying gap between the dazzling success of this short orchestral piece and what we know of the circumstances of its composition or of the first months of its existence. According to Édouard Ravel, or to the circle of friends at the Belvédère, the composer of this “orchestral fabric without music”, in Vladimir Jankélévitch's words, was the first to be surprised by the immediate and triumphant spread of a work so thoroughly compromised in its historiography and its musical gesture. The print runs of the Durand scores, only a few months after their first edition, or the number of arrangements published and recorded in the very early 1930s, are still enough to make one's head spin. It should be remembered that at its premiere, at the Paris Opéra on 22 November 1928, Bolero was one of the short tableaux of a dance gala evening that showcased the fashionable composers of Paris. Amid the orchestral brilliance and din, it was quickly forgotten that these 340 repetitive bars were originally intended for a Ballet in one act — still listed under that name in the Ravel catalogue issued by Durand in 1931 — and that the stage visuals were to share the spotlight with the musical shock coming from the pit. Moreover, as Manuel Cornejo shows in his preface to the two versions of the score in our edition, Boléro, still called Fandango two months before its premiere, was merely a hastily composed substitute for a late commission from Ida Rubinstein, who had originally wanted orchestrations of piano pieces by Isaac Albéniz.

A close reading of the complete 1928 orchestral manuscript, held at the Morgan Library in New York, shows how quickly Ravel painted this Hispanic orchestral portrait: trivial mistakes in notes or rhythms, confusions in transferring his sketches (held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France) into ink, numerous hasty erasures, unfinished notation (missing stems, many repeat-bar signs to save time, etc.). The dating, “July–October 1928”, together with the composer's signature — only a month before the premiere — reinforces this visual impression of haste, confirmed by the composer's letters presented in this volume. Looking at the chronology of the ballet's revival from late 1928 to the following spring, and at the registration dates of the first editions as analysed by Nigel Simeone, it is surprising to realise that it was in fact the simultaneous proposals by Arturo Toscanini and Serge Koussevitzky to perform the work in concert — in New York in November 1929 under the Italian conductor for the concert premiere —, with the agreement of Ida Rubinstein, who held the performing rights, that triggered a very late editorial process at Durand.

It seems certain that the score and material used for the 1928 ballet remained in the incomplete state of manuscript copies. Apart from the Morgan Library manuscript and the preparatory piano versions (British Library and Archives of the Prince's Palace of Monaco), nothing remains of the thunderous premiere at the Paris Opéra, except Ravel's remark, in a letter of proof corrections sent in September 1929 to his faithful Lucien Garban, about a superfluous “Curtain” marking on a set of proofs. Likewise, the editorial process launched — once again in a rush — for the premiere of the concert version, and published in great haste by the publisher of the place de la Madeleine, reveals a certain fragility in the proofreading of the 1928 manuscript. A new wave of corrections or changes by the composer or his publisher, after the experience of the ballet, unfortunately spread significant philological problems. Errata soon proliferated among conductors to correct the defective material. One of the most striking examples is a handwritten note, held at the New York Public Library, written by Arturo Toscanini for his performances with the NBC Symphony Orchestra.

Alongside these misunderstandings and scribal errors, one must also mention the puzzling recording made under Ravel's direction a few weeks after the first edition of the score: a lower overall metronome marking than the printed one, and liberties taken by the players with Ravel's text through changes of phrasing. One clearly hears that only the soprano and tenor saxophones are present — a point confirmed by the moving interview with Marcel Mule, who played in the pit of the Opéra at the 1928 premiere and had politely told Ravel that he had gone astray in writing the saxophone part, calling for an almost imaginary sopranino in F… Just as the trombonist Léo Arnaud-Vauchant had dared to approach the Master to tell him that the slide positions indicated in the last bar were wrong. Errors the composer modestly acknowledged, but which his publisher never put on paper…

In view of this clinical assessment of the editorial shortcomings of the scores still in use, it was our duty, in the inaugural volume of the Ravel Edition — 90 years after the brilliant premiere of this unique experiment in the orchestral repertoire, and after an unprecedented gathering of sources —, to present an edition of the 1929 version cleared of all the flaws never corrected by the original publisher, nor even in recent editions. And, as an essential documentary corollary, we had to present the original, unpublished 1928 version of the work, in order to grasp the first purpose of this flamboyant instrumental kaleidoscope and to observe the changes made for its adaptation to the concert hall.

François Dru — 25 September 2018

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