Boléro
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Boléro is a 1928 work for large orchestra by French composer Maurice Ravel. It is one of Ravel's most famous compositions. It was also one of his last completed works before illness diminished his abi
Ida Rubinstein, who commissioned Boléro, in 1922
Ravel's Boléro, Lamoureux Orchestra, directed by Ravel himself, 1930 12" shellac disc label
Ida Rubinstein
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Ida Lvovna Rubinstein was a Russian dancer, actress, art patron and Belle Époque figure. She performed with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes from 1909 to 1911 and later formed her own company. Boléro
Boléro
…his last completed works before illness diminished his ability to write music. The work's creation was set in motion by a commission from the dancer Ida Rubinstein, who asked Ravel for an orchestral transcription of six pieces from Isaac Albéniz's set of piano pieces, Iberia. While working on the transcription…
Rubinstein in 1912
Rubinstein in Scheherazade, 1910
Valentin Serov, portrait of Ida as Salomé, 1910.
Rubinstein as St. Sebastian in the play Le Martyre de saint Sébastien, 1911