Bolero

[navneeth]

You've heard the joke "What's Beethoven doing today?....DEcomposing."

This just came to mind.
"What's Ravel doing today?...unRAVELling."

I guess all these three go together. I got it from a thread in another forum...it was about some researchers suspecting the Ravel was suffering from Alzheimer's. All these lines were featured in the same post. Of course, instead of Beethoven, it was Ravel. And something about researchers unravelling Ravel. But I first came across this decomposing-one thanks to our resident poet, Mr.Shapley.

[treebeau]

Good. I didn't want to imply that I thought that joke up. I must have read it too, then forgot that I read it. So credit goes to the shapely one...shapley.

Regards,
Tim B.

[Shapley]

I just re-phrased it in the 'Rosemary Brown' thread. It's been around a long time. I think it was posted in the 'jokes' thread sometime before that, but I don't recall the author.

[navneeth]

I just re-phrased it in the 'Rosemary Brown' thread. It's been around a long time. I think it was posted in the 'jokes' thread sometime before that, but I don't recall the author.

I remember reading, either here or some place else on the web, that it was part of Monty Python.

EDIT: Google comes up with a song called Decomposing Composers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decomposing_Composers

Edit2: That article also revealed to me that Michael Palin was part of MP!

[navneeth]

I just re-phrased it in the 'Rosemary Brown' thread.

IIRC, you included it in one of your 30Q limmericks/poems, long before the Rosemary Brown thread. I believe the decomposed composer was Bizet, then.

EDIT: Here it is: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2939&p=89820&hilit=decomposing#p89820

[Shapley]

You're right. I had forgotten about that one.

I had also forgotten about the Monty Python skit. Beethoven.com used to play Decomposing Composers on the "Classical Comedy" segment quite often, way back in the days of Eric Michaels and Dan Maselli.

What fun, BTW! I had to go back and re-read that 30Q. I rather miss them. If things weren't so busy now, I'd have another go at one. Perhaps I'll give it a try in a month or so.

[Ghostman]

I hear that you either love Bolero, or you hate it.

Well, it don't love it, but certainly don't hate it.

the song reminds me of exercising. Sure, it's a long repeating process, but I somehow feel healthier afterwards for listening.

~Kevin

[Catmando]

Welcome to the bulletin board, Kevin!

[Ghostman]

Welcome to the bulletin board, Kevin!

Thank you.
I'll do my best to write meaningful posts.

[Trumpetmaster]

Welcome to the BBB!!!

TM

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

BTTP: for all y'all with Bolero issues.

I keep tellin' y'all that you'd enjoy Bolero if you'd only pay attention to the visuals, fer cryin' out loud. They rock! Particularly when there are snakey clarinets slinking around behind the tree where the mocking trumpets are perched. I wonder, do clarinets eat trumpet eggs?

[Pecos]

I like it.

[Trumpetmaster]

Pecos,

Welcome to the BBB Pecos!!!

[Pecos]

Thanks for the welcome.
Pecos

[Shapley]

Hello, Pecos. Welcome to the B.com BB!

[welcid]

I was just listening to Ravel's Bolero done by Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops. It was to my ears one of the worst performances of this iconoclastic piece. The tempo Kunzel used would have been better suited to a Rose Bowl marching band rather than a symphonic orchestra. Ravel must be spinning in his proverbial grave.

Just my humble 2 cents.

[Shapley]

I was just listening to Ravel's Bolero done by Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops. It was to my ears one of the worst performances of this iconoclastic piece. The tempo Kunzel used would have been better suited to a Rose Bowl marching band rather than a symphonic orchestra. Ravel must be spinning in his proverbial grave.

Just my humble 2 cents.

I think most of us, on hearing Bolero, would just as soon get it over with. Perhaps Herr Kunzel was just feeling the same way.

Or he could simply have needed to fill a shorter time slot than the piece would normally occupy, and the programme director would not allow him to substitute a shorter piece.

I think Ravel probably spins in his grave whenever that piece is played.... 'Pinwheel Ravel', they call him in the netherword. No doubt he has been severely punished in the afterlife for imposing that piece on us, having been banished to that part of the netherworld reserved for rap artists and the inventor of the accordian...

[welcid]

Aur contraire, mon ami. If the possibility for admission to an upperworld was available via arts creativity, Ravel certainly would have been accepted based on his incredibly evocative, equisitely slow moving performance of his Bolero. For me, my audio taste buds (sorry for the mixed metaphor) are greatly stimulated when Bolero is performed at the slowest possible (and reasonable) rate. Ah, where is Stokowski today when he is needed?

I have close to two dozen different versions of this wonderful piece of music. It was the very first long play record of serious music I ever remember purchasing as a lad. Fifty plus years later, it remains in certainly the top five of my most favorite musical preferences.

So, once again, just my personal and additional 2 cents. I surely hope that most out there in Beethoven.com listening land do not disike, no less despise this piece.

Welcid

[Shapley]

Seems to me we did a poll, of sorts, at one time. I think it came up about 50/50.

Actually, I can take it or leave it. I have a couple of recordings of Bolero on Vinyl, but I don't think I have one on CD, unless it's one of those 'Greatest Classical Hits' or something. If I have one, I've certainly forgotten it. I would not have bought a CD for piece alone.

[jamiebk]

There are several pieces that I could leave this world without hearing agian. Borlero is one of them. Another is Gershwin's Cuban. Carnival of the Animals comes to mind as does Peter and the Wolf (narrated).

But, that is what makes for an interesting world...we all see and hear from within our own perception of the world. So, I guess it's all good...