Early 1930s
Graduation in 1934
An enigma shrouded in a mystery and wrapped in velvet is Jorge Bolet.
Tom Deacon
The Pennsylvania census taken on 23 April 1930 lists George (sic) and Marie Bolet as lodgers in the house of a French lady, Marie Roufineau (b.1866), at 611 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA.
In June 1931, the Bolet family in Cuba were listed as residing at 28 San Bernardino Street, Vibora, Havana. Jorge was staying at 1721, Spruce Street Philadelphia (just round the corner from Curtis), according to an ocean liner passenger manifest.
The Bolets seem to have moved around a lot.
Début
27 December 1931: two concertos with the Orquesta Filharmónica Havana in the Teatro Nacional and Amadeo Roldán. Roldán was born in Paris to a Cuban mulatta and a Spanish father; he came to Cuba in 1919 after studying music theory and violin at the Madrid Conservatory, graduating in 1916. In the mid-1920s he was appointed concertmaster of the Orquesta Filarmónica and would later assume the position of conductor in 1932. During this period, asone of the leaders of the Afrocubanismo movement, he wrote the first symphonic pieces to incorporate Afro-Cuban percussion instruments. Roldán's best-known composition is the 1928 ballet La Rebambaramba, described by a critic of the era as "a multicoloured musicorama ... depicting an Afro-Cuban fiesta in a gorgeous display of Caribbean melorhythms, with the participation of a multifarious fauna of native percussion effects, including a polydental glissando on the jawbone of an ass." He died in 1939.
29 December 1931, Hotel Nacional, Havana: a recital in four parts including Bach/Liszt, Organ Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, Schumann's Abegg Variations, Chopin's third sonata, Paul de Schloezer's notoriously difficult Etude in A flat and the"Valse Azul Danubio". Steinway provided by Casa Giralt. The Hotel Nacional de Cuba is a historic Spanish eclectic style hotel which opened in December 1930. Located on the sea front of Vedado district, it stands on Taganana Hill, offering commanding views of the sea and the city.
On 29 January 1932, at Carnegie Hall in New York City, a seventeen-year-old Jorge performed with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra under the fearsome martinet Fritz Reiner. Many eminent musicians were in the audience, including Sergei Rachmaninoff, Hofmann, Godowsky, violinist Nathan Milstein and pianist Vladimir Horowitz (b.1903). Jorge played the first movement of Tchaikovsky's B-flat minor concerto (the programme also included Weber's Oberon overture and Brahms's fourth symphony). A review in The New York Times declared: ‘He has a brilliant technique. From the thunderous succession of chords that open the pianist’s part...he was equal to the technical difficulties. More, he played with the fine abandon of youth.’
'At that performance, I also had the good fortune of meeting Rachmaninoff. During the second half, David Saperton took me up to Godowsky’s box to hear the remainder of the concert. When the concert was over, Godowsky grabbed me by the arm and said, ‘There’s somebody I want you to meet.’ Simultaneously Rachmaninoff was coming out of an adjoining box putting on his big overcoat with the sable collar, Godowsky spoke to Rachmaninoff in Russian, so I don’t know what was said. But we shook hands and passed a few pleasantries before he hurried off.'
Jorge met him again a few years later after Rachmaninoff’s concert at the Salle Pleyel. Bolet wass at the time taking French courses at the Alliance Francaise. (Elyse Mach p.36f.)
Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau had made his American debut at Carnegie Hall at the age of 20, on 20 October 1923, 2:30pm. His programme included Beethoven's Sonata No.18 in E-flat Major Op.31 No.3 and Liszt's Reminiscences of Don Juan S.418. [The New York Times, 21 Oct 1923]
As a seventeen year old, Jorge once travelled to Washington DC to hear the pianist Vladimir Horowitz. There was a terrible snowstorm, and Horowitz didn’t make it to Constitution Hall. The manager asked if anyone could play for a little while. Jorge gave a two and a half hour recital. This anecdote is told by Eleanor Sokoloff, a former Curtis classmate, who described him as ‘shy, very sweet, private’.
Godowsky
It is during these early years of the 1930s that Jorge had some sessions with Leopold Godowsky. He would go up to New York when he had mastered a few of the composer's compositions. Jorge's teacher at Curtis, David Saperton had arranged the connection. He would practise some of Godowsky’s fiendishly difficult works (few others of his contemporaries were up to the task) and then play them to the composer.
Leopold Godowsky with David Saperton (his son-in-law and Jorge's teacher at Curtis) on the corner of 57th Street & 7th Avenue in Manhattan, early 1930s. The soundtrack is from Godowsky's Java Suite composed 1924/1925 after a trip to Indonesia. 'To stroll in the Streets of Old Batavia is an exhilarating experience.'
‘Jorge’s scores of these pieces bore Godowsky’s markings in red crayon—the daunting “Passacaglia,” based on themes from Schubert’s “Unfinished” symphony; the “Fledermaus” and “Künstlerleben” symphonic metamorphoses (on famous waltzes by Johann Strauss II); the “Java Suite” (based upon Godowsky's trip to [modern] Indonesia.' Albert McGrigor
Jorge listed these lessons for 1932-3 in a submission to Grove's Dictionary of Music; but they do not seem to have been systematic lessons. Gregor Benko has said, 'I remember a party at Sidney Foster’s house when he, Bolet and Abbey Simon reminisced about Leopold Godowsky, who apparently used sarcasm and insults with students..., and it left an indelible impression on these great artists, who had all played for him and suffered abuse.' In a BBC film from 1989, Jorge seemed to have softened his view, saying he was 'a very wonderful man'.
Godowsky's biographer, Jeremy Nicholas, states: ‘Occasionally, Saperton and Bolet would go to New York and visit Godowsky, and Bolet would play Godowsky to Godowsky, as it were, and get advice from him. He said that in that sense, yes, he had studied with Godowsky. Of course he also, in the same way, had advice from (and played for) Hofmann as he was head of piano at Curtis. But his main teacher was Saperton, though Bolet told me the greatest purely musical influence was the French musician Marcel Tabuteau, first oboe with the Philadelphia Orchestra – the greatest musical mind I have ever known.’
Le Monde Diplomatique, August 1986 had a feature on Jorge at the Festival de La Roque-d’Anthéron, in which he states: 'I never heard Godowsky play; he had had a heart attack ("un infarctus"), and no longer played the piano. He was not a pianist for the big halls, he was - if you like - an artist of the salon. There are salons where the ladies are elegant and where hands are gently kissed. It is of such ladies that we must think when we play Godowsky, not of dancers wearing après-ski boots.'
Jorge's sessions with Godowsky came at a difficult time for the pianist/composer. He had suffered a debilitating stroke 17 June 1930 in London, while recording the E major scherzo of Chopin. His motor reflex system was irreparably impaired. After 5 weeks in a London hospital, he went to a sanatorium in Mont Pélérin, Switzerland. In August 1932 his son Gordon had slashed his wrists and on 27 December he was found dead in his New York address, having gassed himself.
Then Godowsky's wife Frieda died in the Ansonia Hotel; her funeral 6 December 1933 was attend by Kreisler, Heifetz, Bruno Walter; Josef Hofmann and Mischa Elman played. Godowsky was grief-stricken. After 42 years, the pillar of his life was gone. After the funeral he went to stay with Josef and Betty Hofmann. He then moved from the Ansonia and took an apartment with daughter Dagmar on Riverside Drive, overlooking the Hudson.
Even if he had been able to play in public, he would probably still have had to teach as well in order to supplement his income. Even Rachmaninoff, Hoffman and Horowitz were finding it difficult to earn substantial sums during the Depression. On 24 June 1934 (for six weeks), to earn money he set up a series of masterclasses in New York, as he had done the previous year in Los Angeles (August 1933). Students were to be charged $200, observers $100; private instruction was quoted as $50 an hour. But in the end he didn't make much money as the students were poor - financially as well as artistically - and he taught for free
In May 1935 he was in Moscow and Leningrad at invitation of Heinrich Neuhaus (1888-1964), his former pupil who had attended masterclasses in Berlin and then in Vienna (1909-1914); he would himself later teach Sviatoslav Richter, Emil Gilels and Radu Lupu, born in Galați, Romania (1945-2022). Only the most talented pupils would take part and all expenses would be paid. Godowsky was invited to visit the Kremlin - quite a distinction for foreigners in those days. But the situation in the country so upset him that he left as soon as possible declining an invitation to meet Stalin. Thence to Riga and then a pilgrimage to his past in Poland .
[Jeremy Nicholas, Godowsky (p.147ff.)]
A short video, explaining how Godowsky reworked
Chopin's original compositions,
with David Saperton
playing one of the études
1930s continued
Curtis sent students out 'into the wild', so to speak, to gain experience. On Thursday 27 October 1932, students played in Bomberger Hall, Ursinus College, a liberal arts college in Collegeville, Pennsylvania (25 miles from downtown Philadelphia). Jorge performed four Schumann pieces from Fantasiestücke Op.12 (Des Abends, Fabel, Aufschwung, Ende vom Lied). Two other artists were Celia Gomberg (violin) and Paceli Diamond (soprano). 'Very noticeable were [JB's] clarity and melody in the slow parts.' Jorge also included Paul de Schloezer’s notoriously difficult étude, the Albéniz-Godowsky Tango, and Andaluza by Manuel de Falla as reported by The Ursinus Weekly, 31 October, 1932.
Jorge spent his summers back in Havana. Diario de la Marina (4 September 1933) announces a recital in the Sala Espadero on Thursday 7th; this included Liszt Sonata, and the Liszt/Busoni "La Campanella" which had been repeatedly requested of him. We are told that on the following Sunday afternoon, another young pianist Pedro García Arango would play Beethoven 3 under Amadeo Roldán. Two orchestral works by María Emma de las Mercedes Adam de Aróstegui (1873-1957, Cuban but who emigrated to Spain) would also be performed: Waterloo and Two Cuban Dances. She had studied in Paris with Jules Massenet & Vincent d'Indy, and holds the distinction of being the first Cuban woman to compose an opera. Other symphonic works include: La peregrinación de Childe Harold. (1898-1899), Serenade Andalouse, Ballade Guerriere Ecossaise (based on Scottish author Sir Walter Scott).
(Further on pianist García Arango: in December 1936, a group of Cuban intellectuals and activists had founded the Sociedad de Estudios Afrocubanos (Society of Afrocuban Studies). In March 1937, the society held a seminar entitled “Los ‘Spirituals negro songs’ y su acción étnico-social.” Complete with demonstrations from the vocalist Zoila Gálvez de Andreu, a well-known intellectual and performer in Havana cultural circles, and accompanied by Pedro García Arango on the piano, the event was designed to educate the Cuban public on the “spiritual Negro song.” Gálvez and García performed such spiritual classics as “Weepin’ Mary” [No llores María], “Nobody Knows de Trouble I See” [Nadie sabe las cosas que yo veo], and “By(e) an’ By(e)” [¡Oh, un día de estos!]. The performance of the “Negro spirituals” in the headquarters of one of the island’s leading cultural institutions highlights the centrality of Cuban readings of African American experience in the formulation of their own understandings of racialized populations.
“Los ‘Spirituals negro songs’ y su acción étnico-social,” Estudios afrocubanos 1.1 (1937): 76–91, cited in an article by Frank A. Guridy)
The passenger manifest for the SS Virginia records his disembarkation from Cuba on 11 September 1933 at the Port of New York; he was 18 years old. His father’s address is given as Calle 6, #216, Vedado, Havana and his sister’s as 1016 [1816?], Spruce Street, Philadelphia.
Bordered in the east by Central Havana, and in the west by Miramar, Vedado was developed from 1859 in an area that had been kept wide open in colonial days to have full view of pirates approaching the city. The name Vedado means: 'reserved' or 'prohibited'. From the 1930s to the 1950s, it was a notorious gambling nightlife mecca for Americans. It was also the neighbourhood where doctors, lawyers and business people lived before the revolution. Down the wide tree-lined Avenida de los Presidentes (Calle 23 and G) many luxurious 19th century French-style mansions represent Cuba's architectural heritage.
In 1933 Jorge's sister Maria first went as a missionary to Spain, arriving firstly in Madrid. In the past she, along with a congregation, had a rented mission hall on Calle Villegas in the old part of Havana. Eventually it became the Church of the Nazarene in Havana (see below).
Saturday, 11 November 1933, Stony Brook School, Long Island. Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto with Headmaster Frank E. Gaebelein on second piano. The Patchogue Advance, 20 October 1933
Luigi Chiaffarelli ( Isérnia, 1856 – São Paulo, 1923 ) was an Italian-Brazilian pianist and the teacher of Guiomar Novaes, the First Lady of the Piano in South America. He also taught Francisco Mignone (São Paulo, 1897 – Rio de Janeiro, 1986 ), a distinguished Brazilian composer. MIgnone's opera O Contractador dos Diamantes was reconstructed and performed at the Festival Amazonas de Ópera, in Manaus, Brazil, 2023. Link here. His most famous piece is probably the Congada from the opera.
Graduation
In 1934 Jorge graduated from Curtis. The Institute conducted its first formal graduation ceremony in Casimir Hall (now Field Concert Hall) on 22 May, 1934. It was a large class—over 70 graduates—and included not only those who completed their studies in 1934, but 1933 as well. There was an address by Władysław Sokołowski, counsellor of the Polish embassy. Graduates included students who would go on to be very famous including Samuel Barber (Composition) and Gian Carlo Menotti (Composition).
In his graduation recital (16 April, Casimir Hall, Curtis), Jorge performed a colossal programme, including Brahms/ Handel variations, Chopin’s third sonata in B minor and Godowsky’s complex paraphrase of waltzes from Johann Strauss’ Fledermaus, which became one his specialities. (On Saturday, 3 April of the same year at the Teatro Principal de la Comedia, Havana, he had played a ‘warm-up’ concert with the same programme.)
The pianist Abbey Simon (b.1922) said that at Curtis he learned as much from listening to Jorge and to Sidney Foster as he did from his lessons with Saperton and Hofmann. ‘When I got out of Curtis in 1940 I was still pretty much a hick. At Curtis, it was almost exclusively 19th century music, very little Bach, Mozart, Schubert.’ (Interviewed at his home in Geneva for The New York Times in February 1988)
Havana
On Saturday, 25 March 1934. Jorge arrived by air from Miami on a Pan American flight, to be met by many friends and relatives at the Muelle del Arsenal". (Diario de la Marina). There will be a concert in the Teatro Principal de la Comedia on 3 April at 5:30pm
Encores: Rachmaninoff, Polka de W.R., and Strauss/Schulz-Evler, Blue Danube
3 July 1934 arrival in Havana on the steamship Morro Castle. On Saturday 1 September, Alberto and Jorge gave a piano and violin recital in the Lyceum: Beethoven Op.24 & Cesar Franck. On 30 August Jorge had given a recital in the Sala Espadero of the Conservatorio Nacional 'en obsequio a la Asociación de Antiguos Alumnos de Blanck'.
Time to leave
The passenger manifest for the SS California: JB arrives at the Port of New York from Havana on 17 September 1934 aged 19. His status is now described as DIPLOMAT. The word PIANIST is crossed out and GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL is written in by hand. His father’s address is listed as Calle K, 191 [?] Vedado, Havana. The Cuban government (through the Secretaria de Educación) was now giving him a grant.
On 7 November 1934 Sergei Rachmaninoff gave the first performance of his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini Op.43 with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski in the Lyric Theatre, Baltimore, Maryland. The following evening the same forces repeated it in Constitution Hall, Washington DC.
In December 1935, the same forces again performed the work in Philadelphia. Jorge had been in the Academy of Music, when the composer played the run-through with the orchestra.
Rachmaninoff had written the work at his summer home, the Villa Senar in Switzerland, in July/August 1934. He, Stokowski, and the Philadelphia Orchestra made the first recording, on 24 December 1934, at RCA Victor's Trinity Church Studio in Camden, New Jersey.
The Havana newspaper Diario de la Marina (20 November 1934) announces the scholarship (which had been awarded on 2 March) for Jorge to reside in Paris, Oscar Jaime Hernández also to go to Paris, and for René Benítez Valdéz to go to New York City.
How long do you practise?
Jorge offered a few ideas on how he approaches a piece, emphasizing slow practice and mental practice (Elise Mach 1988:28-29): 'I play very slowly at first; I practise very slowly, because I think it’s the only way of impressing myself. During practice, I have to make sure that every finger movement is well fixed; that’s impressing myself. It’s like feeding information carefully into a computer so as to guarantee accuracy of response. I don’t want to miss a letter! I must have that mechanical accuracy, and for mechanical accuracy the only way to practise is slowly, so as not to miss any of the nuances in the score; after all, the piece is written in many ways. 'Yet when it comes to memorizing the music, I do perhaps ninety-five to ninety-eight percent of it away from the piano. I look at the score, study it, go through it in my mind, and piece it all together. I wouldn’t say, though, that I have a photographic memory. I like to practise for a time at the keyboard, then go away from it for a spell because now I have that music spinning around in my head, and I want to play it mentally. Then, when I get to a point where I’m stuck and I’m not sure what comes next or how the phrase would be rendered, I go back through my memory and begin the section again, and most of the time when I arrive at the spot at which I was stuck before, I sail through it without a hitch. But I never solved a major mechanical or interpretive problem at the keyboard, only away from it. Even when I sometimes become so completely baffled that I am utterly stuck for a direction in which to go, I return to the music and piece it out. I don’t know about others but I do know that I have never solved a major mechanical or interpretive problem at the keyboard. I have always solved it in my mind. '
The Stony Brook School
Jorge also graduated from The Stony Brook (Preparatory) School, Long Island, New York at 2:30PM on Saturday, 9 June, 1934, in a ceremony presided over by Dr Hugh R. Monro, LL.D. He had gone there to do one year of study to broaden his education; he in fact graduated in the top 10% of his class academically and was inducted into the school’s chapter of the Cum Laude Society. He likely resided in John Rogers Hegeman Hall as a senior student. While, in his student record at Curtis, Jorge is listed in attendance until 1934, most of his coursework was complete by 1931. Some sort of arrangement was presumably made with Josef Hofmann that allowed Jorge to go to Stony Brook 1933-34.
The Class of 1934 consisted of 29 students, including the 'handsome athlete...performing spectacular tackles on the football field' (as his Year Book says) Charles Richman Bixler (Ponte Novo, Bahia, Brazil), Lewis Austin Smith (Rangoon, Burma) - who delivered the Salutatory - , William Warren Fellers (Kent, Ohio) and John G. Lewis Jr. (Honey Brook, Pennsylvania). The Commencement Address was delivered by the Rev. Stewart M. Robertson, D.D., and the prizes were awarded by the Headmaster and Master in Bible, Frank E. Gaebelein, Litt.D.
The football athlete mentioned above, who had been born in Sergipe, Brazil in 1913 (the son of missionary parents, his father being the Rev. Cassius Edwin Bixler), later became the Reverend Charles R. Bixler; he died suddenly on 8 February 1955 in Gaston County, North Carolina, at the age of 41. He had come to the United States at the age of 15.
......
In the autumn of 1922, The Stony Brook School had been inaugurated with 27 boys and 9 faculty. Founding headmaster Frank E. Gaebelein (1899-1983) called the new school an "experiment" in Christian education and set the mission for the school as being a rigorous college preparatory school thoroughly rooted in the Christian tradition.
In his youth, Gaebelein had hoped for a career as a pianist, though his life went in a different direction. 'But, of course, he never gave up music or playing the piano. Over his 41 years as Headmaster, students became his Tuesday evening audience for mini-recitals in the living room at Grosvenor House—followed by the reading of a detective story and Dorothy Medd Gaebelein’s desserts,' recalls a former student.
He goes on: 'The Headmaster took a special interest in students with musical gifts, the most prominent of whom was a Cuban prodigy named Jorge Bolet, Class of 1934. As Bolet rose to international fame, he repaid FEG by rehearsing his impending New York City programs in Carson Auditorium. Thus the Brookers of that era adapted a Big Band slogan, "Swing and sway with Sammy Kaye" into "Sit and sweat with Jorge Bolet".'
At the time, Jorge wrote of life at school. Here is an extract: 'In the spring, what happy times we have in the spring! Track, baseball and tennis enter the list. In the nearby Long Island Sound, there is swimming in early fall and late spring. Each evening after supper, we have the brief chapel service... After the bustle of the day, it is refreshing to the soul to sit in meditation during this time before the two hours of evening study. Christian Association meets after supper on Sundays. This is wholly conducted by students and it affords [the opportunity] of testifying to the saving and keeping power of the Lord Jesus Christ.'
Selection of recitals 1929-1940
Here is a selection of recital programmes which JB gave at this time. CASIMIR HALL, Sixth Season 1929-1930 Monday Evening, May 26, 1930 at 8:30 o'clock Students of Mr. Saperton Cesar Franck: Prelude, Choral and Fugue Johann Strauss/Schulz-Evler: Concert Arabesques on the Blue Danube Waltz CASIMIR HALL, Seventh Season 1930-31 Friday Evening, April 24, 1931 at 8:30 o'clock Organ Fantasy and Fugue Johann Sebastian Bach in G minor (in the Liszt adaptation); Franz Liszt, Waldesrauschen; Fantasia quasi Sonata : "Apres une Lecture du Dante" First movement from the Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op.18 Sergei Rachmaninoff Irene Peckham (orchestral part played on a second piano by Jorge Bolet) Saturday Evening, May 16, 1931 at 8:30 o’clock The Academy of Music, Philadelphia; Curtis Symphony Orchestra Overture — "A Roman Carnival" Hector Berlioz, cond. Sylvan Levin Concerto No. 1in B flat minor for Piano and Orchestra, TCHAIKOWSKY: First movement (Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso), Jorge Bolet CASIMIR HALL Eighth Season 1931-1932 Sunday Evening, December 13, 1931 at 8.15 o’clock Quintet in D major, Opus 51, ANTONY STEPANOVITCH ARENSKY for Piano and String Quartet Jorge Bolet, Piano, Jacob Brodsky / Leonard Mogill, Viola , Ladislaus Steinhardt / Howard Mitchell, Violoncello Friday Evening, April 15, 1932, at 8:30 o’clock Sonata in F minor, Opus 57 (Appassionata), BEETHOVEN, Menuett in A minor RAMEAU-GODOWSKY, Etude in A flat major, Opus 1, No. 2 PAUL DE SCHLOZER, Jorge Bolet Friday Evening, January 29, 1932 at 8:45 o’clock CARNEGIE HALL , NEW YORK The Curtis Symphony Orchestra, Fritz Reiner, Conductor Overture to "Oberon”, Carl Maria von Weber Symphony No. 4 in E Minor Johannes Brahms Concerto in B flat minor for Piano and Orchestra,TCHAIKOVSKY, First Movement (Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso), Soloist, Jorge Bolet CASIMIR HALL, Ninth Season— 1932-1933 Sixth Students' Concert, Tuesday Evening, March 14, 1933, at 8:30 o’clock, Students of MR. SALZEDO AND MISS LAWRENCE Introduction and Allegro Maurice Ravel (with piano accompaniment), Marjorie Call, harp, Jorge Bolet at the piano, LYON & HEALY HARPS CASIMIR HALL, Ninth Season 1932-1933 Wednesday Evening, April 5", 1933, at 8:30 o’clock Sonata in B minor FRANZ LISZT, Le Cygne (Saint-Saens-Godowsky), Polka de W. R (Sergei Rachmaninov), Rondo a capriccio, Op. 129 (Ludwig van Beethoven), La Campanella (Liszt/Busoni): Jorge Bolet CASIMIR HALL Tenth Season 1933-34 JORGE BOLET, Pianist (graduation program) Monday Evening, April 16, 1934, at 8:30 o'clock I Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel, Opus 24, Johannes Brahms Nocturne in E flat major, Opus 5 5, No. 2, Frederic Chopin Rondo from Sonata, No. 1 in C major, Opus 24, Carl Maria von Weber II Sonata in B minor. Opus 58, Frederic Chopin III Prelude in E flat major, Opus 23, No. 6, Sergei Rachmaninoff Prelude in G sharp minor. Opus 32, No. 12, Sergei Rachmaninoff Suggestion diabolique, Serge Prokofiev Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes from Fledermaus Waltzes of Johann Strauss Leopold Godowsky The Steinway is the official piano of The Curtis Institute of Music DIPLOMAS in PIANO 1934 went to: Lilian Lia Batkin, Jorge Leopoldo Bolet, Rosita Escalona, Florence Eraser, Martha Louise Halbwachs, William Henry Harms, Jr., Jean-Marie Robinault — in absentia CASIMIR HALL, Fourteenth Season — 1937-38 RECITAL by JORGE BOLET, Pianist, Graduate Student of Mr. Saperton Tuesday Evening, October 19, 1937, at 8:50 o'clock Organ Fantasia and Fugue in G minor (Bach-Liszt ) Rondo from the Sonata in D major, Opus 53 (Franz Schubert ) Fantasie in F minor, Opus 49( Frederic Chopin) also Etudes: E flat major, Opus 10, No. 11, C sharp minor. Opus 10, No. 4 C sharp minor, Opus 25, No. 7, A minor, Opus 25, No. 11 Sonata in B minor (Franz Liszt) Suggestion diabolique (Serge Prokofiev) Preludes: E flat major. Opus 23, No. 6 & G sharp minor, Opus 32 (Sergei Rachmaninoff) Waltzes from "Die Fledermaus" Strauss-Godowsky THE IRIS CLUB LANCASTER, PENNSYLVANIA Wednesday Afternoon, January 5. 1938, at 2:30 o’clock Jorge Bolet FRIDAY EVENING, MARCH 31, 1939 AT 8:30 O'CLOCK CASIMIR HALL - CLAUDE DEBUSSY 1862-1918 Masques, La Puerta del Vino, General Lavine — eccentric, La Terrasse des audiences du clair de lune, La Serenade interrompue, Mouvement Jorge Bolet, Piano ... CASIMIR HALL FACULTY RECITAL by [Bolet's teacher] DAVID SAPERTON Tuesday Evening, March 26, 1940, at 8:30 o'clock PROGRAMME OF COMPOSITIONS BY LEOPOLD GODOWSKY Passacalia Composed as a tribute to the memory of Franz Schubert on the eve of the hundredth anniversary of his death. The theme is based on the first eight bars of the Unfinished Symphony. Four selections from Phonoramas (Java Suite): Gamelan, The gardens of Buitenzorg , Chattering monkeys at the sacred Lake of Wendit , In the streets of old Batavia Ten studies on Chopin's Etudes: Opus 25. No. 1 in A flat major, third version Opus 10, No. 2 in A minor, second version — Ignis Fatuus Posthumous etude in E major, first version. Originally in A flat major Opus 2 5, No. 6 in G sharp minor Opus 25, No. 5 in E minor, first version Opus 10, No. 5 and Opus 25, No. 9 combined, in G flat major — Badinage Opus 10, No. 6 in E flat minor for the left hand alone Opus 10, No. 11 and Opus 2*. No. 3 combined, in F major Opus 10, No. 7 in G flat major, second version. Originally in C major — Nocturne Opus 10, No. 7 in C major, first version — Toccata Triana (transcribed from Albeniz) Symphonic metamorphosis on theme from the "Artist-Life" waltz of Johann Strauss
Shura Cherkassky, Far East 1935
Unlike Jorge, Shura Cherkassky (1909 - London, 27 December, 1995), born in Odessa, was actually a pupil of Josef Hofmann, and was 5 years ahead of him in his career as a pianist.
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Shura Cherkassky speaking on the BBC to John Amis in 1964
Cherkassky's debut in his native city in 1920 was sensational. In December 1922, the family moved to the United States, settling first in Baltimore, Maryland. At this time the family gave Cherkassky's birth date as 1911, believing that a prodigy of 12 would be regarded as more remarkable than an adolescent of 14. After consulting famous pianists of the day (Vladimir de Pachman, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Ignace Jan Paderewski, and Josef Hofmann), Cherkassky's parents enrolled him in the newly opened Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in autumn 1925.
'I can't quite say what Hofmann taught me. If I have to be quite honest, Hofmann didn't teach in the traditional understanding of the word. A lot was not said, and that's the best way. If one says too much, that is not good. He was a great, outstanding artist who didn't care too much about pedagogical details and he taught only those students who had technical mastery of the instrument. He didn't intervene in their interpretations. He didn't suggest how to play certain pieces. He paid big attention to the beauty of the sound, to exemplary finger technique and especially to the way of the pedal. I think the most important thing in his "lessons" was the fact of direct interaction with this most unusual individual.' (Shura Cherkassky: The Piano's Last Czar [2006], Elizabeth Carr) 'It is no accident that one pianist whose playing Mr. Cherkassky's distinctly resembles is Josef Hofmann, who died 21 years ago. After emigrating from Odessa in 1922 at the age of 10, Mr. Cherkassky studied with Hofmann at Philadelphia's Curtis institute for more than a decade and became his most famous pupil. Both were phenomenally precocious. “There has been no such wunderkind since Josef Hofmann,” wrote W. J. Henderson in The New York Sun when Mr. Cherkassky played the Liszt Sonata at Carnegie Hall in 1926.' Joseph Horowitz, The New York Times, 2 April 1978 He practised with great discipline but for no more than four hours a day. Apparently this meant not one minute less or one more! 'Hofmann said if you can’t do it in four hours, you can’t do it at all. And he was right,' he told an interviewer. (Ironically, no less a figure than Rachmaninoff himself told Ruth Slenczynska that he was at one stage practising 17 hours a day to try to get close to the technique of Hofmann.) Shura began his lifelong obsession with world travel early - with trips to Australia, New Zealand, the Far East, Russia and Europe. Here is Far East tour in 1935: 'In August Cherkassky crossed the continent and sailed from San Francisco for Yokohama by way of Honolulu . In Japan he appeared in Tokyo (in Hibiya Hall), in Osaka, and in Kyoto, and Kobe, vastly enjoying both the beauty of the "Flowery Empire" and the enthusiasm with which audiences and critics received him everywhere he played . He then went to China and played in Shanghai, where he had great success . Apparently Russia had fascinated the Russian - born youth , for he decided to return to New York by way of Siberia , Russia, the rest of Europe, and the Atlantic , rather than to make the Pacific voyage . He accordingly turned north upon leaving China, traveling by rail thru Manchuria.' Overtones 6/1 (May 1936) The Japan tour had been sponsored by Mrs Bok at the cost of $875.79. (Shura Cherkassky: The Piano's Last Czar [2006], Elizabeth Carr, 76ff.) In 1991, he performed his so-called "eightieth anniversary" concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City. In October 1992, he was selected by Wanda Toscanini-Horowitz to perform a memorial concert in honour of Vladimir Horowitz at the Steinway Hall in New York. Cherkassky's last appearance took place on 9 November, 1995 in Prague. He performed Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto with the Czech Philharmonic. I myself had been due to hear Cherkassy in St John's Smith Square, London in December. He'd had a heart attack/operation but had still hoped to be able to give the recital a week later! In the end, Stephen Kovacevich replaced him.
An encounter with Jorge's brother, Guillermo
In 1933 Jorge's sister Maria first went as a missionary to Spain, arriving firstly in Madrid. In the past she, along with a congregation, had a rented mission hall on Calle Villegas in the old part of Havana. Eventually it became the Church of the Nazarene in Havana. Lyle Prescott (writing in 1970): 'When we first moved from Trinidad, Cuba, to Havana in 1946 to open missionary work for the Church of the Nazarene in the capital, we felt like babes in the woods—helpless.' Looking to rent a house in Mariano, 'when I knocked at the door and expressed my interest in renting a house, I could not believe my ears. Yes, the pleasant cottage and yard at the rear of the house was empty, clean, furnished, and waiting for me! The landlady was pleased that I had come so soon. Would I care to see the place? 'It was too good to be true! And the rent was reasonable. I knew Grace would like the house, yard, and location—and the pleasant landlady, too. Before I could close the deal, there was a knock at the door and the landlady turned to greet a smiling young Cuban gentleman. His name was Guillermo Bolet. He was an evangelical; his sister was to leave soon as a missionary to Spain; and his older brother, Jorge, was a world-famous concert pianist. In good English, Sr. Bolet explained, “I’m sorry, but there has been an embarrassing mistake. I have already agreed to rent this house to an American missionary family of my church. This lady thought you were that missionary. Will you forgive us this error?” So close and yet so far! 'It was an exciting experience to meet such gracious and charming people. And my theory of how to do house hunting had appeared brilliant for a few minutes. This was the sort of clock-work perfection that could happen only in a storybook. No wonder it had not worked out in real life. But it did work out. “Let me buy a newspaper,” Sr. Bolet offered, “and help you look for a house. I have some free time.” We excused ourselves from the landlady and left for the nearest newsstand. Sr. Bolet foimd an advertisement for a house located about 15 minutes by bus from where we stood. We rode together to an area called Ampliacion de Almendares, where we found a new apartment available at a price I could pay. 'I rented it. It was not ideal, but it got us out of the hotel and offered us the assistance we needed at that stage of our missionary work. The story does not end here. Sr. Bolet took me to an evangelical Spanish teacher nearby, introduced me, and arranged for regular language lessons for my wife and myself. God was leading us. Nor was this the end. Before Sr. Bolet’s missionary sister left for Spain she turned over to me her rented mission hall on Villegas St. in Old Havana along with its congregation. Eventually it became our first organized Church of the Nazarene in Havana.'
In January 1929, exiled student leader Julio Antonio Mella, the founder of Cuba’s Communist Party, was assassinated in Mexico. He was out walking with Tina Modotti, the Italian photographer, and died in the house of Diego Rivera. (Mella’s mother was an Irish woman named Cecilia McPartland.) Mella had been a leading opponent of the President, Gerardo Machado y Morales (born 1871). The Cuban communists always blamed Machado. Along with the murder of Mella and the economic crisis that followed the extreme drop in sugar prices during the Wall Street Crash of 1929, opposition against Machado grew rapidly. In October 1929, the Wall Street Crash dragged Cuba into its worst economic crisis. From 1928 to 1932, the price of sugar dropped from 2.18 cents per pound to an all-time low of 0.57 cents. In January, 1930 the government announced a general reduction in the salaries of all public employees (except soldiers), and a new law forbade all public demonstrations by political parties or groups not legally registered. Student demonstrations lead on 1 October to Machado's government suspending constitutional guarantees and charging the students with "following orders from Moscow." Machado warns that he will act "without weakness or hesitation." By the end of November, all schools are closed in Cuba, and Diario de la Marina, the oldest newspaper on the island, is forced to suspend publication. And just as the opposition grew, Machado's retaliations became harsher and more violent than before. His secret police, known as the Porra went furiously after the opposition, and their brutality became another reason to oppose Machado. In 1931, the old leaders of the independence movement led a revolt against Machado that involved student groups, organised labour and secret societies of middle class professionals. Out of this volatile and chaotic situation, Dr. Ramón Grau San Martín emerged as a voice of reason, but Machado retaliated with the bloodiest campaign to date. On 14 February, eighty-five university professors were indicted on charges of sedition and conspiracy to overthrow the government. Among these was Dr. Ramón Grau San Martín. In July 1931, rumours circulate throughout Cuba about an imminent revolution. On 23 December 1931, as the political opposition all over the island called for fair elections, Machado announced that he would stay in office until 20 May 1935, "not a minute more or a minute less". "By the end of 1932," wrote Jules R. Benjamin in The Hispanic American Historical Review (Vol. 55, #1, February 1975), "the militant response of the Cuban proletariat to both the depression and the dictatorship had become one of the major threats to the regime. "United States attitudes during this period further complemented the disorientation of nationalist ideology. Washington began to take a stand in favour of political reform in Cuba and held forth the progressive goals of the early New Deal as indicative of its new policy toward the island."