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Trivia
about 10:
The Bolero was
famously used in the movie 10, and also
accompanied ice skaters Torvill and Dean
in their gold
medal-winning performance at the 1984
Winter Olympics.
Segal,
George (I) was originally cast in the
lead role but walked off the set shortly
after filming began.
The song being played while Dudley Moore
and Bo Derek are making love is Ravel's
"Bolero". Bo Derek later starred in a
movie called Bolero (1984).
Peter Sellers turned down numerous offers to play the lead role, but made
a cameo appearance as a jazz drummer in
a restaurant scene. The scene was cut
from the movie.
Although this movie's title was widely
understood to say that Bo Derek's looks
rated 10 out of 10, the rating actually
given to her character's looks in the
scene where the subject arises is 11 out
of 10.
Dudley Moore played
the title in this film. Saddly,
Dudley Moore passed away in 2002.

Bolero (Ravel)
The Bolero by Maurice
Ravel is one of his most famous pieces of music.
The work had its genesis in a commission from the dancer
Ida Rubinstein, who asked Ravel to create a ballet score
with a Spanish character. The original plan had been for
him to orchestrate excerpts from Isaac Albéniz' set of
piano pieces, Iberia, but he was unable to obtain the
rights to do so, as Albéniz had given the rights of
orchestration to his pupil Ferdinand Enrique Arbos.
Ravel instead wrote a brand new piece.
The piece has a very simple structure - it consists
almost entirely of a single melody, repeated over and
over again, orchestrated differently each time, but
otherwise unchanging. It begins quietly, with the melody
played in C major by a flute over an ostinato rhythm
tapped out by a snare drum which continues throughout
the piece (for the last few minutes of the work, it is
played by two drums in unison):
The melody is passed between different instruments,
clarinet, bassoon, E-flat clarinet, oboe d'amore,
trumpet, saxophone, horn and so on. The accompaniment
becomes gradually thicker and louder until the whole
orchestra is playing at the very end. Just before the
end (rehearsal number 18 in the score), there is a
sudden change of key to E major, though C major is
reestablished after just eight bars. Six bars from the
end, the bass drum, cymbals and tam-tam make their first
entry, and the trombones play raucous glissandi while
the whole orchestra beats out the rhythm that has been
played on the snare drum from the very first bar. The
work ends on a C major chord.
The work was a great success when it was premiered at
the Paris Opéra on November 22, 1928. It has remained
popular ever since, though is usually played as a purely
orchestral work, only rarely being staged. Ravel
purported to be somewhat embarrassed that a piece which
was, in his words, "without music", should become so
well known.
The piece was first published by the Parisian firm
Durand in 1929. Arrangements of the piece were made for
piano solo and piano duet (two people playing at one
piano), and Ravel himself made a version for two pianos,
published in 1930.
Bolero was one of the last pieces that Ravel composed
before illness forced him into retirement. The only
works he wrote after this were the Piano Concerto for
the Left Hand, the Piano Concerto in G major and the
song "Don Quichotte a Dulcinée".
Additional
Information:
Maurice Ravel
information provided by
AndreRieuFans.com
Shirley Kirk
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