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Decoding the music masterpieces: Ravel’s Bolero — a sinuous and sexy composition with ‘no music in it’
It seems safe to assume a musical “masterpiece” would show compositional magnificence and garner universal acclaim — yet Maurice Ravel’s Boléro (1928) is conspicuously lacking in the first.
Writing to a friend shortly after finishing the work, Ravel described it as having “no form in the true sense of the word, no development, and hardly any modulation”.
- Scott Davie
- The Conversation
And to the Swiss composer Arthur Honegger, he confided, “I’ve written …