← Back

Maurice Ravel

Bolero

Read

Sellemain reads this experience. Use the position slider to seek. Click a sentence to move the narration and song timeline there.

Narration sentence highlighting is idle.

0:00–1:25 The contract stated

Opens on silence; around 0:05 a single snare drum begins the bolero figure at a whisper. The flute enters near 0:14 with the long first theme, and the clarinet restates it from about 0:45 — same theme, same rhythm, new voice. That substitution is the piece's entire method, laid out before anything grows.

1:15–5:24 The solo relay

The bassoon brings the syncopated second theme around 1:15, and from here the two themes alternate in pairs, passed hand to hand: high clarinet (~1:45), oboe d'amore (~2:15), muted trumpet with flute (~2:45), tenor saxophone (~3:15), sopranino sax (~3:45). Near 4:15 a first blend — horn, celesta, and piccolos together — signals the relay is winding down. Nothing is varied except the instrument carrying the line.

5:24–8:49 Choirs replace soloists

The alternation continues, but single players give way to groups: a full woodwind section takes the first theme (~5:15), a solo trombone delivers the second with glissando slides (~6:15), and bowed violins assume the melody around 8:15. Escalation shifts from swapping voices to accumulating mass.

8:49–12:17 The orchestra loads

Strings lead while winds and then horns double underneath; the accompaniment thickens, the snare is doubled (~11:15), and by 11:45 the full orchestra is driving the theme in unison octaves. The same two melodies, now at ensemble scale, with the load rising on every restatement.

12:17–15:50 Climax run and the one key change

Trombones and trumpets take over (~12:15), brass fanfare figures crown the melody (~13:15), and the tutti plays near maximum from about 13:45 onward. Past 15:00 the harmony wrenches sideways — the single modulation of the whole recording — and the final bars gather over it.

15:50–16:09 Cutoff and decay

The last measures hammer through to roughly 16:03, where the sound is severed rather than allowed to settle; hall ring decays into silence by 16:09.

Sixteen minutes, two themes, one unchanged drum figure: nothing develops, everything enlarges, and the only ending left is a cut.

Last updated Aug 25, 2026 · Written with GLM 5.2 · Galdr 0.7.0.dev0 · Inner Ear gemini-3.7-flash

Example galdr signal analysis graph

galdr analysis

Click play to load galdr data.

Now playing

Bolero

Maurice Ravel

0:000:00

Click play to load galdr data.

Music signal

body
0.00steady
weight
0.00steady
density
0.00steady
surface
0.00steady
pressure
0.00steady

Surface evidence

balance
0.00steady
rough
0.00steady
noise
0.00steady
attack
0.00steady
sustain
0.00steady
band
0.00steady
motion
0.00steady
punch
0.00steady
bass
0.00steady
body band
0.00steady
presence
0.00steady
air
0.00steady
bright
0.00steady
perc
0.00steady

Harmony + melody

pull
0.00steady
coherence
0.00steady
chroma
0.00steady
anchor
0.00steady
key
0.00steady
mode
0.00steady
melody
0.00steady
range
0.00steady
pitch
0.00steady

galdr concepts

attention
0.00steady
pattern
0.00steady
release
0.00steady
debt
0.00steady
gravity
0.00steady

Derived motion

rms
0.00steady
peak
0.00steady
onset
0.00steady
low
0.00steady
mid
0.00steady
high
0.00steady
flux
0.00steady
← Back