BOLÉRO

Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances
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Ginastera Concert Variations
Ravel Boléro

One of the most controversial of all concert pieces, Ravel’s Boléro (1928) is both an incomparable feast for the ears – languid, modal melodies, crooning saxophones, Spanish dance rhythms – and a puzzle for the brain, as it is a work whose marvelous variety and sensational climax are built on mechanistic repetition. The composer himself once half-jokingly characterized it as “a crescendo without music.” This evening, the famous Boléro is matched with Rachmaninov’s riveting, perennially popular Symphonic Dances for orchestra, and the Variaciones concertantes of Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera, in which a lyrical theme for cello and harp is taken on a tour of the whole orchestra.