alt Hacker News According to a possibly apocryphal story from the premiere performance, a woman was heard shouting that Ravel was mad. When told about this, Ravel is said to have remarked that she had understood the piece.
And, Ravel did eventually go mad. There's a lot of discussion about whether the recurring patterns in the song had something to do with his neurological condition.
https://bigthink.com/high-culture/bolero-ravel-dementia-2/