Bolero
A Spanish triple-time dance — fixed rhythm, melody thickening over repeats
Related
A bolero is a Spanish triple-time dance, with a fixed rhythmic pattern, moderate speed and castanets or guitar accompaniment. Ravel's Boléro turned it into an orchestral piece that thickens only through orchestration while the melody stays the same — a textbook of repetition.
It differs from the habanera: the habanera is a duple-time, syncopated Cuban-Spanish dance; the bolero is triple. The usual mistake is to think "bolero" means Ravel's piece — Ravel wrote an art-music bolero, not the dance itself.
Read deeper → habanera
Sources
- 波莱罗的西班牙来源与拉威尔的管弦乐用法，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "Bolero"；本文为原创表述
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.