Boléro, first theme

Maurice Ravel · Level 4 (Intermediate) · Impressionist · Piano

The first theme of Boléro (1928), as the flute presents it at the start, in C major, over the strings’ pizzicato ostinato. The film “10” (Blake Edwards, 1979) made it famous with the general public, and Bolero (Les Uns et les Autres, Claude Lelouch, 1981) ends with Boléro danced by Jorge Donn. The work has been in the public domain in Europe since 2016 and in the United States since 2025.

▶ Play this piece with the interactive score

How to practise it

• Listen first: the site plays it while the score scrolls.
• Wait mode: the score waits for you at every note, at your own pace.
• Tempo challenge: play in time, with a score and a map of the bars you got right.
• The whole secret is the tempo: unchanging, never rushing. Count the sixteenths before playing. Tied notes (start of bars 1, 2, 9, 10…) are held, not replayed: the melody moves in ripples around a long note. Left hand: the C bass and the chord, like the strings’ pizzicati, very soft and even.

Source : Arrangement Note after Note d’après la partition d’orchestre originale (Durand, Paris, 1929) · Public Domain