[2banana]

How does Disney keep its copyrights going?

[Yo-Yo]

[Oratam]

[Larry Lucido]

How about Beck’s Bolero?

[mountn man]

[Buttons12]

I believe it was composed in the late 1920’s. Way too sensual. If porn has music, I bet the porn world is rejoicing at this news.

[Sybeck1]

I see many had Cinemax in there youth

[chajin]

Interesting backstory: Bolero was written in response to a copyright issue. Ravel was going to write a short ballet score to a melody by Albeniz, but the rights to the melody had been legally given to someone else, and Ravel decided to use his own melody instead in an experiment to see if orchestration alone could propel a composition. (more on the story here)

On a personal note, my composition professor was Romeo Cascarino, best known for his opera William Penn and his bassoon sonata. He was a disciple of Ravel, and would make me write page after page after page of Ravellian harmonies. I learned two things from him: the wonders of harmony, and that I was not cut out to make my living as a composer, and for both lessons I have been grateful.

[Paisan]

One of the most boring pieces written.

[Political Junkie Too]

Torville and Dean perform Bolero for gold, Sarajevo, 1988.

-PJ

[Sans-Culotte]

I’ve never been a big fan of the piece. I think even Ravel was rather dismissive of it. It’s way too repetitious for me. My former sister-in-law was a choreographer, and she imagined a staging of the piece as an Arab caravan setting up at an oasis. It would start with one person, and keep growing and becoming more spectacular visually as all the animals are on stage with tents and banners, etc. That would have worked.

[Sans-Culotte]

Comedian Albert Brooks did a funny take on Bolero on his album A Star is Bought. It was a comedy album in which Albert had made record tracks that allegedly could played on any radio station format. For classical radio, he discussed the history of Bolero, and alleged that at its premiere, members of the horn section were caught masturbating; it was that sensual. He then goes on to say he has discovered hitherto unknown lyrics to Bolero, which he then performs. For the recording, they had to rope off the horn section, just to be safe. It was pretty funny.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Maybe not. Remember that after years out of copyright, Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” (1927) was recently put back in copyright by treaty.

“The film’s U.S. copyright was restored in 1996 by the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, but the constitutionality of this copyright extension was challenged in Golan v. Gonzales and, as Golan v. Holder, it was ruled that “In the United States, that body of law includes the bedrock principle that works in the public domain remain in the public domain. Removing works from the public domain violated Plaintiffs’ vested First Amendment interests.”

“This only applied to the rights of so-called reliance parties, i.e. parties who had previously relied on the public domain status of restored works. The case was overturned on appeal to the Tenth Circuit, and that decision was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court on 18 January 2012. This had the effect of restoring the copyright in the work as of 1 January 1996.

“Though it will remain copyrighted in Germany until 2046, 70 years after Fritz Lang’s death, under current U.S. copyright law it will be copyrighted there only through 31 December 2022 due to the rule of the shorter term as implemented in the Uruguay Round Agreements Act; the U.S. copyright limit for films of its age is 95 years from publication per the Copyright Term Extension Act.”

[fella]

JamesGang: Closet Queen/Bolero/Cast Your Fate to the Wind about 3:30 into it.

[TexasRepublic]

I think the neatest presentation of Bolero ever was as a soundtrack for a segment of an animated Italian feature length film, “Allegro Non Troppo” by cartoonist Bruno Bozzetto in 1976. The music accompanies a comic look at evolution. The animators must have been on drugs, the visuals are great! The movie was a tongue-in-cheek parody of Disney’s Fantasia, and I highly recommend it.