Bô vélo

Programme notes

The title Bô vélo is a facetious name given to Robert Casteels’ arrangement of Maurice Ravel's Boléro, which itself is based on the arrangement by the band Pink Martini. A Bolero is a slow, stylized dance form originating in Spain and Cuba. Composers like Chopin, Bizet, Saint-Saëns, and Debussy have all written pieces in this genre. French composer Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) composed his famous one-movement orchestral piece, Boléro, in 1928 for the ballet company of dancer Ida Rubinstein. The premiere was a great success, though the work’s subsequent massive popularity as a concert piece often annoyed Ravel. The theory that the work's obsessive repetition of a single musical phrase was an early sign of Ravel's frontotemporal dementia is generally discredited. Ravel's subsequent semantic aphasia was, in fact, the consequence of a serious head injury sustained in a taxi accident in 1932, four years after composing the Boléro.

The Pink Martini Connection

Pink Martini is a chamber orchestra founded in 1994 by pianist Thomas Lauderdale in Oregon, USA, known for drawing inspiration from diverse global styles. Their independently released 1997 debut album, Sympathique, quickly became an international success and included their unique arrangement of Ravel’s Boléro.

Handwritten sketches and drafts

to be found on page 246 of the red cover, A4 size, 385 pages, sketchbook 

Completion of the composition 

3-X-2010