(Born ca. March l, 1810, Zelazowa Wola, Poland; died October 17, 1849, in Paris)

Chopin composed the little-known and rarely performed Bolero in 1833 in Paris. He dedicated it to Countess Émilie de Flahault, who was one of his piano students. He wrote it in the flashy Parisian style brillant, which mimics the popular Spanish dance rhythms of the era. When he composed Bolero, Chopin had not yet visited Spain. He could only have been familiar with Spanish music from opera, where it was fashionable, like everything exotic. Although we do not know what inspired Chopin and introduced Spanish music to him, the Spanish, or at least southern, character of this work has been noted and appreciated. In recommending Bolero to Clara Wieck, Schumann wrote: “This is a delicate composition, suffused with love, a picture full of southern ardour and modesty, devotion and coyness.” British musicologist Arthur Hedley wrote that he heard a good deal of original Spanish color in this work, and Zdzisław Jachimecki, an eminent Polish musicologist, historian of music, and composer, wrote, “It is utterly amazing how Chopin has acquired such a feel for the character of Spanish national music.”

Bolero takes the form of a concert dance with introduction and trio, although the sections are not very clearly distinguished. The theme is the dominant presence, and its reiterations, generally unaltered, seem to evoke the character of a rondo; the center of the work contains several seemingly out-of-place themes. A nocturne-like dolce makes a brief appearance. The lead-in to the recapitulation of the dance's main theme is quite characteristically Chopin.