Bolero - in Art Music

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.
• Charles-Auguste de Beriot wrote a Bolero in his famous concerto "Scene de Ballet" for violin and piano (or orchestra).

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.