Boléro

Boléro is a one-movement orchestral piece by the French composer Maurice Ravel (1875–1937). Originally composed as a ballet commissioned by Russian actress and dancer Ida Rubinstein, the piece, which premiered in 1928, is Ravel's most famous musical composition. Before Boléro, Ravel had composed large scale ballets (such as Daphnis et Chloé, composed for the Ballets Russes 1909–1912), suites for the ballet (such as the second orchestral version of Ma mère l'oye, 1912), and one-movement dance pieces (such as La valse, 1906–1920). Apart from such compositions intended for a staged dance performance, Ravel had demonstrated an interest in composing re-styled dances, from his earliest successes – the 1895 Menuet and the 1899 Pavane – to his more mature works like Le tombeau de Couperin, which takes the format of a dance suite.

Boléro epitomises Ravel's preoccupation with restyling and reinventing dance movements. It was also one of the last pieces he composed before illness forced him into retirement. The two piano concertos and the Don Quichotte à Dulcinée song cycle were the only compositions that followed Boléro.

Boléro (Chopin)

The Boléro, Op. 19, was written by Frédéric Chopin in 1833 and published the following year. It is one of his lesser-known piano pieces, although it has been recorded numerous times.

The overall key of the Boléro is difficult to establish. It was often listed as Boléro in C major - A minor, as the work opens with three unison octaves in G (dominant chords of C major) in fortissimo, then a lengthy Introduction in C major, moving to A minor for the Boléro proper. It is interrupted by sections in A major, A-flat major and B-flat minor before returning to A minor. It ends triumphantly in A major (parallel major).

The work was dedicated to the Scottish-born but half-French Mademoiselle la Comtesse Émilie de Flahaut, then aged only 14. She was later to become Countess of Shelburne.

The apparent inspiration for the Boléro was Chopin's friendship with the French soprano Pauline Viardot, whose father, the famed Spanish tenor Manuel García, had introduced boleros to Paris by the time of Chopin's arrival there. His biographer Frederick Niecks speculated that it was inspired by the Bolero in Daniel Auber's La muette de Portici (1828).

Bolero (disambiguation)

Bolero may refer to:

Classical music and ballet

Ballets choreographed to Boléro

Music and dance

Albums

Songs

Bol

Bol or BOL may refer to:

Places

People

Ships

Other

Henry Nicholas Bolander

Henry Nicholas Bolander (February 22, 1831 – August 28, 1897) was a German-American botanist and educator.

Bolander was born in Schlüchtern, Germany and emigrated to the United States in 1846. He joined his uncle in Columbus, Ohio and enrolled in the Columbus Lutheran Seminary. He graduated from the seminary and was ordained a minister but never served in a religious office. Instead, he began his career teaching at the local German-American schools in 1851. In 1857 he married Anna Marie Jenner, a widow who had three children from her previous marriage; together, they eventually added five more children to their family.

At the same time, Bolander became acquainted with a neighbor, Leo Lesquereux, a well-known botanist who had emigrated from Switzerland in 1847. Lesquereux inspired Bolander to develop a keen interest in botany. Bolander began to travel widely in Ohio and neighboring states to study the flora and collect specimens. In 1857 he teamed with John H. Klippart, the Ohio Secretary of Agriculture, to create a catalog of the plants of Ohio. However, in 1860 failing health caused Bolander to return to Germany and the catalog was never published.

Bol (soundtrack)

Bol is the soundtrack album of the 2011 Urdu-language Pakistani film Bol by Shoaib Mansoor. Prior to the movie's release, Atif Aslam (who plays one of the main roles in the film) in an interview stated, "I have done two songs for the soundtrack. It's been a great experience working with Shoaib Mansoor, he is an amazing person and very dedicated. My role isn't controversial and we discussed it beforehand. It’s a film that is being made for a good cause".

Overview and reception

All songs are mixed and mastered by Kashif Ejaz. The singers include Atif Aslam, Sajjad Ali, Hadiqa Kiyani, Ahmed Jahanzeb, Shabnam Majeed, Sahir Ali Bugga, Bina Jawad,Ali Javed. The soundtrack was successful and generally received positive reviews from critics. However, one critical review published in The Express Tribune called the movie's soundtrack "A surprising disappointment" and saying that "The film’s music sounds unoriginal and boring. In fact, people unfamiliar with Sajjad Ali and Ahmed Jehanzaib, might confuse it for Bollywood music."