Ravel's Bolero

In the original choreography, the Bolero plays in an inn in Andalusia, where a woman dances with a shawl and castanets on a table, surrounded by men lounging in a half-lit setting. The atmosphere is one of seduction and culminates in ecstasy. Since then, the music has emancipated itself, becoming an icon of popular culture and the main hallmark of the name Ravel — but he represents much more: he was a distinguished representative of the diffuse sound textures typical of French music of his time, exemplified by the music he composed for the ballet Daphnis et Chloé, Debussy's La mer, and Luís de Freitas Branco's Paraísos Artificiais. These four masterpieces of the symphonic repertoire impressively recreate fantastical imaginaries, with precision, fluidity, and apparent simplicity. Pre-concert talk by Rui Campos Leitão at 4:30 PM. El Corte Inglés supports the CCB's Classical Music Mediation Programme.