「经济学人」Can't get you out of my head

It is also at the forefront of a new film and copyright dispute

Maurice Ravel’s “Boléro” is a strange piece of music, consisting of two melodies repeated nine times each. Originally the score to a ballet, it is catchy and keeps running in the listener’s head long after it ends. “Boléro”, a new French biopic about Ravel’s struggle to compose the work in 1928, also employs repetition. Anne Fontaine, the director and co-writer, returns to Ravel’s tortured sexuality, fascination with mechanical noise and slow mental deterioration. He died in 1937 of a brain disease; neurologists think it may have been frontotemporal dementia, which is associated with obsessive repetition.

“Boléro” is among the most famous tunes in classical music. The royalties it has generated from live performances, recordings and film soundtracks are estimated at more than $100m. The question of who got all that money is complicated. Ravel had no descendants. On his death the copyright passed to Ravel’s brother, who married his caretaker after a car accident. She then left the rights to her first husband, who married his manicurist. Ultimately the copyright wound up belonging to that manicurist’s daughter from a previous marriage, Evelyne Pen de Castel.

Under French law the piece entered the public domain in 2016. But much like the music, the copyright battle over “Boléro” just keeps going. In 2018 the heirs of Alexandre Benois, the original ballet’s set designer, sued sacem, France’s copyright agency; Ms Pen de Castel also got behind the lawsuit. They argue that the ballet was a collaborative work, and that because Bronislava Nijinska, the choreographer, did not die until 1972, they are entitled to receive royalties until 2051. In June a French court will decide whether they are right.

Ms Fontaine’s film is not about money; it is about the man and his music. In 1928 Ida Rubinstein, a Russian dancer in Paris, commissioned Ravel to write a ballet. But he puts it off, obsessed by an unconsummated emotional affair. He flees to the seaside, attends parties and visits brothels (where instead of sex, he asks a girl to put on gloves so he can listen to the sound). In flashbacks viewers learn of his struggle to be accepted by France’s stuffy musical academy and of his rivalry with Claude Debussy, another French composer.

With Rubinstein’s deadline approaching, Ravel plinks hopelessly at the piano. A vaguely Spanish pop song his housekeeper sings feeds in to his melody. Some films might have treated this as a eureka moment, but Ms Fontaine suggests various sources of inspiration. In another scene Ravel takes Rubinstein to a factory to listen to the machines: the ballet, he says, should be an ode to mechanical modernity.

The success of “Boléro” was immediate and enduring. Leonard Bernstein, the celebrated American conductor and composer, loved it. The credits of Ms Fontaine’s film claim it is played by an orchestra somewhere in the world every 15 minutes. It is hardly surprising that Ms Pen de Castel wishes those performances were still earning her money. Benois designed the ballet’s sets and costumes but never claimed to have had a hand in the music, says David El Sayegh, the deputy chief executive of sacem, which deems the lawsuit nonsense. Though unlikely, if this lawsuit by long-distant heirs were to be successful, it could embolden others to sue over expiring copyrights.

Ravel was ambivalent about “Boléro”, according to a protégé. He considered it his masterpiece but also said that “unfortunately there is no music in it.” Yet Ravel might find it fitting that its story goes on and on. In the film, he asks a friend: “Don’t you think there is something terribly insistent about this melody?”

This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline "Can’t get you out of my head"(May 2nd 2024)

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