This publication presents a translation of a text that serves simultaneously as an author’s note to the orchestral piece of the same name by con­tempo­rary German composer Johannes Kreidler (“Minus­bolero,” 2015) and as part of its score. A narrator (in many per­formances, this role has been taken on by the com­poser himself) recites the text over an accom­pa­ni­ment of Ravel’s “Boléro.” In doing so, the conceptual commentary on “Minusbolero” occupies the structural position of the absent—but mentally present—melody of the famous composition; as the orchestral parts grow louder, the narrator’s voice is gradually drowned out by the orchestral sound. Through explicit and implicit references to modern philosophical thought (from Jean Paul Sartre to Slavoj Žižek), Kreidler positions his trouvaille as an innovative form of composition—one developed through prolonged Hörarbeit and reflection—based on erasing another composer’s music, rather than the conventional act of writing and recording one’s own musical ideas. On February 7, 2015, at the premiere, the piece was performed by the Stuttgart Radio Sym­pho­­ny Orchestra, which at the time was facing imminent dissolution and merger with the Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra. Thus, the concept behind “Minus­bolero” gained a new layer of meaning—the piece was perceived as the composer’s protest against the cost-cutting and cultural austerity measures in con­tem­porary Western society.