Why I like Ravel's Boléro

I know, it's extremely repetitive, and has had its critics since it was first heard. Maurice Ravel should (and would rather) be remembered more for any other of his works: Daphnis et Chloé, Le tombeau de Couperin, La valse (my personal favorite), the difficult piano piece Gaspard de la nuit, any other. It could also be his beloved orchestration of Mussorgsky's Картинки с выставки, originally written for piano.

But he's stuck with Boléro, which was originally a ballet, but it's almost always presented as a straight-up symphonic poem.

Now why do I like this thing, with no changes in rhythm, little deviation from the key of C major, and that relentless snare drum?

First of all, it is one of the earliest examples of musical minimalism à la Reich, Riley and Glass, the way it was meant to be. A simple motif is repeated many times, but there are slight deviations as the piece progresses. In this case, it's mostly the dynamic, getting very gradually louder all the while. The two-part melody is reiterated using different instruments and instrument combinations. These timbre mixtures function like organ stops, and Ravel even has higher instruments play mutations, the quints and nazards a fifth higher.

Schoenberg and Webern used such timbral combinations in their work, and called this technique Klangfarbenmelodie. It effectively gives the composer more instruments than the individual woodwinds and brass allot.

Also, Ravel, along with the later Prokofiev, made the saxophones a legitimate part of the symphony orchestra. These are able to better be heard in a loud tutti section than oboes and bassoons, so I have double reeds double saxes, if they can competently play the latter instruments. I like to have altos and tenors double horn parts to cut through trumpets and trombones (e.g. "California", the finale of my Symphony No. 2), but they can make violas and cellos sound even more sensual ("Minnesota" from the same work).

Therefore, Boléro is a demonstration of the capabilities of the orchestra, which possibilities had not been explored before the modern era (beginning circa 1890).

By the way, it's cliché, but I've never... you know... to Boléro. I think Carmina Burana's better for a passionate tryst, because it's about an hour long, and the words themselves are erotic in nature.