Bolero

Jean-François Monnard’s new Urtext edition is the first to be based on a musicologically well-founded source comparison. Ravel’s first sketch of the score as well as his final handwritten score were laid down as the principal sources. In his preface, Monnard examines Ravel’s sound aesthetics against the background of concert reception and historical recordings. Moreover, he also provides insights into Ravel’s ideas concerning the tempo: „I must say that the Bolero is rarely conducted the way I think it should. Mengelberg speeds up and slows down excessively. Toscanini takes it twice as fast as it should be and broadens the tempo at the close, which is indicated nowhere. No: the Bolero should be played in one single tempo from the beginning to the end, in the plaintive and monotonous style of Spanish-Arabian melodies.“
The performance material to Ravel’s Bolero can now also be purchased in its entirety for the first time.