Bolero For Band

Initially commissioned by Ida Rubenstein as a ballet work initially, Maurice Ravel's BOLERO has become his most popular and often-performed orchestra composition, which was a surprise to the composer who described it as “seventeen minutes of orchestra without any music.” With a structure that is simplicity itself, BOLERO uses two alternating melodies in what Ravel described as a “crescendo on commonplace melod[ies].” Mark Rogers' transcription of BOLERO is an entirely complete wind band version of the piece; omitting not a single note or exotic instrument, thereby transferring the brilliance of Ravel’s orchestral score to the symphonic wind band with as much fidelity to the original as possible. Ravel calls for a very large orchestra (triple woodwinds, saxophones, large brass section, harp, celesta and percussion). Consequently, this transcription of BOLERO contains a large amount of divisi writing. It goes without saying that this transcription will be most successfully performed by large symphonic wind band.