Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/11/06/bolero-ravel.html
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Please dont ruin Bolero for me.
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Wait Bolero is more than a softcore porn I watched as a preteen in the 80’s?
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This was my early lockdown jam. Nowadays I’m back to being able to tell when it’s the weekend again.
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Oh, you’re probably about to be rather unhappy with me, then.
I like this version from Legion, and it sums up how I’ve been feeling pretty accurately…
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I played that on snare way back in the day and I want to rant and rage at that video. Bolero is the most f-ing demanding piece for a percussionist and that video mostly focuses on the damn woodwinds. Those guys can adapt but it’s the percussion that are setting the entire piece. Bolero is probably the most difficult, not complex but rigorous, pieces I ever played. You have to be 100% perfect rhythm and 100% consistent. The flutist? Get bent. No other player in that orchestra is expected to carry as much as that one guy on snare.
So, I guess this is maybe the perfect metaphor for where we are today. Bunch of pretenders taking more credit than they’re due…
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Beat me to it. This is my favorite version after years of appreciating the classic renditions. Legion had some good music over all.
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I dunno, they are all co-operative and working hard towards a unified goal.
This one seems much more 2020:
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Frankly, it’s not the same without the lyrics:
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I have to disagree with the election metaphor. Boléro is art; even though the end can’t come soon enough for today’s typical ADHD audience members, it’s still a fun piece (and it always comes to an end, you heathens.)
This election, on the other hand, has been a global shit-show years in the making, with only the barest prospect of a timely finish, and including a non-zero probability of armed uprisings.
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Well so is Trump’s hair, according to some.
Beauty, eye, beholder, etc.
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Maurice Ravel - Bolero
The strings are too muted.
I once read that Bolero is “an exercise in orchestration without music.” I tend to agree.
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It feels closer to this:
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I was thinking Stravinsky or Zappa.
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May be on YT (I have it on DVD): Riccardo Chailly conducting the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and they’re performing Bolero. Best I’ve ever heard. At the end, Chailly motions orchestral sections to stand one after the other to accept raucous applause. Then Chailly enthusiastically motions just to the percussionist playing the snare drum; the audience went nuts! They understood.
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I’m more Prokoviev’s for the Dance of the Knights. Intense, ominous, and with slow, tranquil moments and the BANG, the dread starts again.
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Nice. The piece i first thought about, though, was Virðulegu Forsetar. Not only because the title translates as Eminent Presidents 
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Too late (or not). This was endlessly repeated.
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Despite efforts in many quarters to keep the Turmp Attention Gravy Train running
… at some point soon
… even if you have to wait for it …
(ETA: on reflection, you probably want to substitute “hail to the chief” at the appropriate point in the lyrics there)
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