by Richard Todd
There is a story that Maurice Ravel, attending
an early performance of his Boléro, noticed a respectable,
middle-aged woman get up from her seat after the music had been going on
for ten minutes or so. She proceeded up the aisle and out of the theatre
in a state of high dudgeon. Ravel is said to have turned to his companion
and whispered, "She understands!"
Two generations of program annotators misinterpreted
Ravel's comment, whether out of ignorance or expediency it's hard to tell.
They claimed that the good lady was disgruntled by the score's obstinate
use of the same tune over and over and the conviction that the composer
was assailing the audience with a musical shaggy dog tale. According to
that interpretation, Ravel's comment confirmed her poor impression.
But nowadays even musicologists have wakened
to the erotic dimension of life and a more plausible subtext can readily
be found in the story. Very likely Ravel made his remark with a satisfied
little leer. The worthy matron understood the music, all right, and it
was saying things to her that she did not come to the concert hall to hear.
One imagines that she was not much inclined to hear those things anywhere
else either, but let's be charitable and forego that line of speculation.
Boléro begins with a simple
rhythmic figure that persists throughout the piece except for the last
two or three measures. It is played pianissimo by two military drums
and pizzicato strings. After four measures establishing the pattern, a
solo flute introduces the work's only melody, built of two 16-bar phrases.
It is a slinky, insinuating and sensuous tune passed from one instrument
to another in a long, uninterrupted crescendo that eventually involves
the whole orchestra playing full blast. Suddenly, just a moment before
the end, the melody is subtly modified and not so subtly modulated into
a different key (C major to E-flat, but who's counting by now?), the rhythm
is pounded out triple-forte for four more measures and the music
comes to an end with a wickedly ejaculatory chord.
As easy as it is to analyze musically,
Boléro can be described still more succinctly in terms of
male arousal. There's nothing subtle about the strutting, deliciously arrogant
horniness of the tune nor about its inexorable saunter to salacious satisfaction.
Even the change of key corresponds exactly to passing that point of no
return of which we're all so fond. And the big bang at the end, well, I
leave it to you to interpret that one . . .
Is it music to fuck by? (Excuse me, I mean,
is it music to which one might profitably engage in sexual congress?) Definitely,
particularly if you're into choreographing your lovemaking and timing the
main events. A sense of humour helps too.
Allow me to illustrate. Although it is
contrary to the norms of musicological discourse to write of one's personal
life, Boléro is such an immodest hunk of sound that I am
prepared to waive my professional standards, this once, for the general
good.
Back in the mists of time when I was young,
I had a lover who liked to perform little sexual experiments, all in the
interest of science and philosophy, she assured me. This was when music
was on LP recordings and no one worried about safe sex. It was even before
Bo Derek appeared in a movie called Bolero or tried to seduce Dudley
Moore to the score's steamy strains in 10. (Weren't you so happy
when he went back to Julie Andrews?)
One evening she put a recording of Boléro
on the turntable and announced that we would make love to it. Well, no,
she announced that we would make love to each other -- on a schedule she
had contrived according to the events in the music. She had assigned herself
multiple orgasms at various instrumental entries in the score while I was
to defer mine until the last two measures. I might have questioned the
fairness of the arrangement had she left me any time, but before I knew
it, the flute was slinking its way through the opening phrase and we were
peeling off each other's clothes.
Our concert of concupiscence was played
without pause, but there was a lovely intromission timed precisely to match
the entry of the saxophone. You might call it saxual intercourse. Or you
might not. My lady seemed to come right on cue every time but, I'm ashamed
to admit, I didn't hold up my end of the bargain. Sometime around the change
of key I became so absorbed in watching her lovely face that I forgot the
task at hand and, though she pumped and squeezed me mightily with her virtuoso
vagina, I was still hard at it when the music died away. I must have gone
on for another 20 measures or so. Worse, she had an orgasm that hadn't
been part of her plan.
Our relationship didn't last much beyond
that night, but she was gracious in her disappointment. She gave me a little
kiss on the cheek saying, "Oh well, think of it like this: How many men
can outbang Boléro?"
A brief sample of Boléro (1.3 MB)
