Radiolab: "Unraveling Bolero"
Date: May 22, 2018
Hosts: Jad Abumrad & Robert Krulwich
Guests: Robert Adams (Anne Adam’s husband), Dr. Bruce Miller (UCSF, neurologist), Arbie Orenstein (Ravel scholar)
Episode Overview
This episode of Radiolab, "Unraveling Bolero," explores the mysterious parallels between the lives of two artists—Canadian cell biologist-turned-painter Anne Adams and French composer Maurice Ravel. Both experienced a profound shift in creativity, culminating in obsessive, repetitive works tied to Ravel's iconic composition "Bolero." The story untangles how these creative bursts were, in fact, early symptoms of the same neurological disease, offering a gripping meditation on the connection between creativity and the brain.
Key Discussion Points and Insights
1. Anne Adams: From Scientist to Artist
- Career Change After Trauma [04:08–05:52]
- Anne Adams, a brilliant cell biologist, completely shifts her life's path to become a painter after her son’s severe car accident and subsequent recovery.
- Quote:
- Robert Adams (husband): "Ann made up her mind then and there that she was going to take up art full time." [05:30]
- Creative Obsession & Evolution in Art [05:52–08:42]
- Starts with simple, realistic paintings, then becomes increasingly prolific and abstract.
- Repeated motifs: For example, a series of 35+ “strawberry” paintings.
- Eventually becomes obsessed with translating Ravel’s "Bolero" into a meticulously detailed, color-coded, abstract painting—“Unraveling Bolero”.
- Quote:
- Robert Adams: “It’s an incredibly obsessive translation of the music into visual language. And just like the melody in Bolero, the symbols repeat and repeat and repeat obsessively, getting bigger and bigger…” [08:05]
2. Maurice Ravel and Bolero: Creativity and the Brains’ Rhymes
- Ravel’s Shift in Compositional Style [11:04–13:15]
- Ravel, famed for complex impressionistic music, writes "Bolero" at age 53—a repetitive, unchanging melody, contrary to his earlier style.
- Quote:
- Arbie Orenstein: “The theme never changes one note.” [13:01]
- On its reception: “Some woman screamed out, ‘He’s crazy.’” [13:36]
- Early Signs of Dementia [13:39–14:46]
- Six years after composing "Bolero," Ravel begins to lose memory and language, with early signs barely noticed.
- He forgets simple tasks, eventually losing the ability to write and speak.
- Quote:
- Arbie Orenstein: “There are documents where you can see Ravel desperately trying to relearn the Alphabet. A, A, A, A. Over and over again.” [14:26]
3. The Symmetry: Creativity and Disease
- Anne Adams Mirrors Ravel’s Trajectory [14:51–17:11]
- Six years after her Bolero painting, Anne also loses language and memory, a progression documented in clinical interviews.
- Neurological Diagnosis:
- Both Ravel and Anne suspected/confirmed to suffer from frontotemporal dementia on the left side of the brain—a region key to language.
- Quote:
- Dr. Bruce Miller: "We think he and Ann, down to the very molecular process, had the exact same disease." [17:11]
- This degeneration “unleashes” visual or repetitive creativity as language circuits fade.
- Disease Effects: Release of Creative Energy [17:56–20:13]
- As language fades, other circuits flood forward—resulting in compulsive creativity, often highly repetitive.
- Quote:
- Dr. Bruce Miller: “We see a number of patients who become visually obsessed…The repetition, the obsession, they get stuck in a kind of loop.” [19:25, 19:58]
4. Neuroscientific Theory: The Brain, Repetition, and Art
- Why Repetition? [20:13–22:03]
- Hypothesized that the basal ganglia, the “reptile brain,” governs repetitive, primal behaviors usually suppressed by the language cortex.
- With language gone, repetitive impulses rise to the surface—expressed as repetitive art or music.
- Quote:
- Dr. Bruce Miller: "We have this constant dance where one circuit or many circuits turn on and then they're obligatorily turning off other circuits." [18:51]
- Progression and Decline of Complexity [22:03–23:36]
- Early disease: obsession manifests as complex, beautiful repetitive art.
- Advanced stages: repetition becomes mechanical and primitive—pouring water, squishing ants.
- Anne’s art follows this arc—from simple, to abstractly complex, back to simple, until she could not paint.
- Quote:
- Robert Adams: “I would see her there in front of a blank canvas, and she wouldn't be doing anything…but she still sat there in her studio trying to paint.” [23:19, 23:54]
5. Final Reflections: The Ferocity of Creative Drive
- Creativity as Primal Force [25:24–25:56]
- Even as body and mind fail, the urge to create persists.
- Quote:
- Robert Krulwich: "...creativity comes from a kind of restlessness, and the restlessness may be one of the things that leaves last." [25:30]
- After Anne's death in 2007—almost 60 years after Ravel—her husband reflects on that persistence.
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
-
On the nature of obsession and creativity:
- Robert Adams: "It's entirely possible that something was happening to her even then, way below the surface." [06:55]
- Dr. Bruce Miller: “What can seem like a simple creative choice to repeat a melody may actually be driven by a condition that you won't even know you have for six years.” [20:18]
-
Personal loss and the end:
- Anne Adams (near the disease’s end):
- G: "Can you tell me what your job is, or are you still working?"
Anne: "I do art." [24:22]
- G: "Can you tell me what your job is, or are you still working?"
- Robert Adams (reflecting on her decline): "She had gone downhill so far by that time that she was hardly recognizable as herself." [23:54]
- Anne Adams (near the disease’s end):
-
Musical understanding and revelation:
- Jad Abumrad: "It's funny. I used to think of Bolero as, like, a happy, jaunty tune. Now I'm like, oh, it's kind of haunted." [25:25]
Important Segment Timestamps
| Timestamp | Segment Description | |------------|------------------------------------------------| | 04:08 | Anne Adams’ transition to painting | | 07:31 | Anne’s obsession with Bolero | | 11:04 | Ravel’s background & Bolero’s conception | | 13:39 | Ravel’s cognitive decline | | 15:00 | Anne’s cognitive decline documented | | 17:16 | Naming of “frontotemporal dementia” | | 19:25 | Artistic obsession following language loss | | 21:08 | The role of the basal ganglia (reptile brain) | | 23:00 | Anne Adams unable to make art, final decline | | 24:31 | Anne’s last self-description: “I do art.” | | 25:24 | Reflection on “the restlessness” of creativity |
Episode Tone and Style
The episode is delivered in Radiolab’s signature style: empathetic, curious, and layered with thoughtful sound design. The tone alternates between scientific wonder, bittersweet sadness, and awe at the mysteries of human creativity and the brain.
Summary Statement
"Unraveling Bolero" delves into the uncanny parallel descents into obsession and artistic output by Anne Adams and Maurice Ravel. Through interviews, scientific insight, and poignant personal stories, the episode traces how a devastating brain disease paradoxically unlocked a burst of creative energy, only to erode it in the end, leaving a haunting rhyme across time, music, and canvas.