"Carnaval is nostalgic, haunted, as if the whole glittering parade were being remembered from a great time away."
Tuesday, 29 January 1985
Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
A recital of Debussy/ Chopin Preludes
London, January 1985
'Bolet in Debussy is new to us here, and probably most guesses about what that would be like were wide of the mark. The wrongest would have been expectations of Lisztian bravura: though the 'West Wind' prelude and 'Feux d'artifice' had properly brilliant sweeps, the tone was consistently, eerily gentle. Dramatic breadth was carefully restrained in favour of transparent intimacy, and in impeccable style - Bolet seemed to have recreated everything from the score alone, without a thought of its being grist to a virtuoso mill. Countless passages came up virginally fresh, as if they had just been invented.
​
'Tiny patches of bright colour enlivened Puck's Dance and 'La puerta del Vino,' but 'Danseuses de Delphes' remained a cool ritual, and 'Bruyeres' melted elusively even before each cheerful, open-air phrase was completed. ' La fille aux cheveux de lin' was tremulous and simple, 'Ondine' an elevated play of whispered sounds. The comic pieces, 'Minstrels' and 'General Lavine' were pawky and neat, the latter set off with inspired springs-and-releases. Everywhere Bolet's touch was scrupulously clean, without a hint of gratuitous pedal-smudge.
​
'Jorge Bolet's recital on Tuesday consisted of 36 preludes, the statutory 24 of Chopin and a dozen drawn even-handedly from Debussy's two Livres. The two halves of the programme sounded as different as Chopin is from Debussy: that is to say, there was scarcely anything like a common Bolet factor - except the magnificent, concentrated, selfless playing. Hard to write about; one would rather just commiserate with any music-lover who was not there.
'No doubt Bolet has performed Chopin's 24 Preludes hundreds of times, but even by his standards this must have counted as a marvellously realised performance - in detail and as a whole, for he delivered them unambiguously as a continuous cycle. The technical wizardry can go without comment (and nothing was done to attract notice to it). It was the easy strength of the lyrical impulse, carried straight through every piece, that was so astonishing. Everything sang, and breathed; the slightest three-note comment in the left hand made a salient point, but as part of a seamless line. The most violent preludes flowed naturally - exciting, certainly, but never explosive, never admitting a harsh note.'
David Murray, Financial Times 31.1.86
​
Schedule
In an interview with Daniel Cariaga for the Los Angeles Times, 7 February 1985, Bolet gave a glimpse of his schedule. In the summer he was going to Fort Worth (the Cliburn Piano Competition) for his last appearance as a judge (a role which he had now come to hate – ‘Include me out’, he once quipped, borrowing a phrase from legendary Hollywood film producer Sam Goldwyn). The winner of the Cliburn that year was José Feghali (Brazil), who had been in the Rachmaninov 3 masterclasses in Edinburgh in 1984. Bolet will then fly from Texas to Paris for recitals in the Theatre de Ville: five one hour programmes. Then he will return to San Francisco for three or four days. Following this, he has a recital in Salt Lake City; then back to his home in Mountain View, California. Then to Australia for a 7 week tour with 25 concerts tour. Finally back to Atlanta, Georgia USA to begin their winter season.
Hamburg
'On January 13th and 14th Bolet will perform Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in the Musikhalle Hamburg, and on the 19th in Hamburg and again on January 22nd in the Musikhalle he will be making a guest appearance with a programme he presented on the occasion of his 70th birthday in November in New York: Some Debussy Preludes, and Chopin's complete set.' Hamburger Abendblatt (5.12.1984)
​
The Tchaikovsky was with the NDR Symphony Orchestra conducted by Günter Wand. Jorge Bolet's interpretation of Tchaikovsky's B flat minor Piano Concerto was elegant, powerful and controlled (Vornehm, kraftvoll und beherrscht war Jorge Bolets Interpretation von Tschaikowskijs b-moll-Klavierkonzert). On the brightly timbered Bechstein , the 70-year-old pianist relied on a musical seriousness that could become a problem with this work - if not for Günter Wand and the NDR Orchestra, also imaginatively and purposefully clarifying connections through coherence worked towards the details.
Schumann's 4th symphony and interludes from Wolfgang Fortner's opera "Bluthochzeit" (Blood Wedding) also.
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
Of the solo recital on 22 January, Sabine Tomzig wrote: 'It took decades - now finally Jorge Bolet, the 70-year-old American of Cuban origin, is a household name for the people of Hamburg, maybe even an idol. Yesterday at his piano recital in the sold-out Großen Musikhalle, they didn't want to let him off the podium, even after three encores. I have always admired this old-school master, for his strict, calm dignity and despite his pre-eminent virtuosity, for playing of thoughtful elegance. But with Debussy, for the first time,
I could not quite understand him. Admittedly, Michelangeli has set standards that are unbeatable for me. Bolet played twelve Preludes from Volumes I and II in often tension-free slowness, but also with other poetic ideas, it seemed to me (...nicht nur in oft spannungsloser Langsamkeit, mir schien, auch mit anderen poetischen Vorstellungen.) Every note that came out of the Bechstein was absolutely clear, and that is why the character pieces designed to be grotesque, caricatures or eccentric came to him more compellingly than the shimmering plays of colour and mood. Only once, in "Girl with the Flaxen Hair", did he demonstrate that peculiar tenderness of the wonderfully singing touch, which was then so enchanting in Chopin's 24 Preludes op. 28. The artist traced these miniatures with extreme expressive curves and the most magnificent sound, grandiose in their pathetic harshness and in the moments of lyrical happiness.
​
The audience was enraptured by so much melodic grace, meditative gentleness, devilry and drama. (Das Publlkum war von so viel melodiöser Grazie, meditativer Sanftheit, Dämonie und Dramatik hingerissen.)
On Friday, 8 February, Jorge was due to open the new Murphy Recital Hall at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles. 'As usual, the veteran pianist’s program offers a unique perspective of a specialized repertory. This time it is the heroic Schubert and Liszt: Three “Consolations,” followed by the “Wanderer” Fantasy, six song-transcriptions and two “Transcendental” Etudes.'
​
Saturday, 28 February 1985, Barbican Hall, London with the London Symphony Orchestra under Jeffrey Tate. Piano Concerto no.2 (Brahms); Symphony no.9 (Schubert).
​
Auf dem hell timbrierten Bechstein-Flügel setzte der 70 Jahre alte Pianist auf eine musikalische Ernsthaftigkeit, die bei diesem Werk zum Problem werden könnte - wenn nicht Günter Wand und das NDR- Orchester ebenfalls phantasievoll und zielbewußt aufs Verdeutlichen von Zusammenhängen durch Stimmigkeit der Einzelheiten hingearbeitet hätten.
Desert Island Discs
On Saturday, 2 March 1985, Jorge was the guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs (recorded 26 February). Among the music he chose, were Ottorino Respighi, Roman Festivals - 4th movement "La Befana" ("The Epiphany" takes place in the Piazza Navona), with the Philadelphia Orchestra, recorded on 19 November, 1941, Academy of Music in Philadelphia); William Walton, Violin Concerto in B Minor, Jascha Heifetz with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under Eugene Goossens and Rachmaninoff's arrangement of the scherzo from Felix Mendelssohn' A Midsummer Nights Dream played by Benno Moiseiwitsch. His books (The Bible, Shakespeare etc. are always given) was Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes), and his luxury - which must be of no practical value - a camera. The one record out of the eight, if he had to choose just one, was Josef Hofmann in Chopin's 2nd piano concerto: 'It still recalls to me the absolute great magic of his playing'.
​
12 March 1985, Academy of Music, Philadelphia. César Franck, Variations Symphoniques & Carl Maria von Weber's Konzerstück in F minor with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Rafael Frübeck de Burgos (1933-2014), the renowned Spanish conductor of German ancestry, who had made his American debut - with the Philadelphia Orchestra - in February 1969. He conducted the world premiere production of (Curtis alumnus) Gian Carlo Menotti's opera Goya in Washington, November 1986. 'The Washington Opera's lavish production, unveiled this evening, is said to have cost a million dollars, certainly not a guarantee of success but an indication that the usual shoestring approach to new music would not be a hindrance this time. The nation's capital, agog with anticipation, became a veritable Goya hotbed: exhibits of his paintings and etchings opened at the Corcoran and National galleries, for instance.' (Donal Henahan, who, however, was unimpressed with the work itself). *Frühbeck de Burgos's 1963 recording of de Falla's ba.let 'The Three Cornered Hat' with the Philharmonia is hors concours, as you can hear from the Danza Final (Jota). Jorge would have approved: speed is sometimes the enemy of excitement; it won't sound fast -
just rushed.
​
​
​
In 1984/5 Jorge cut his programme schedule down to 12/13 concertos and 2 recital programme, one of which was a selection of Debussy's and Chopin's complete preludes (Op.28).
​
A recital in May of Schubert/Liszt songs on Thursday 2 May 1985 at the Kennedy Centre, Washington DC was reviewed by Charles McCardell in The Post 6.5.85. 'Perhaps the greatest similarity between Schubert and Liszt is that both were instructed by Salieri, the villain of "Amadeus." Yet their music -- Schubert's with its tunefulness, Liszt's with its daring -- is most compatible, especially when the works are for piano and the pianist is Jorge Bolet. His recital Thursday night at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater was a consummate blend of the Ariel and Mephisto of music. Substance and subjectivity were equal partners, with Bolet's romantic temperament acting as the crucible. Yet his bravura playing contained no superfluous gestures.'
​
Providence, Rhode Island
Saturday, 4 May 1985: Rhode Island Philharmonic, Alvaro Cassuto, conducting, Providence Performing Arts Center
Alvaro Cassuto said his musical farewell Saturday. And it was one he can be proud of, due largely to a stunning Tchaikovsky Fifth that capped off the evening. The playing here demonstrated as graphically as any in recent months just how far this orchestra has come in the six years Cassuto has been at its helm.
​
At the same time, Cassuto managed until the end to avoid mainstream 20th-Century music, picking Ulysses Kay's placid 1963 Umbrian Scene for a program opener. It's a well-crafted piece, with a hint of Ives's Unanswered Question and strains of Shostakovich, but pretty tame.
'Bolet, curiously, was the soloist for Cassuto's audition concert in early 1979. So it seemed only appropriate that he was on hand at the end, to close out this chapter in the orchestra's history. For a pianist who has always allied himself with the great Romantics of the past, his Grieg was remarkably straightforward. Right from the start, the opening cascade of octaves was unbending - no racing, no big retards. Similarly, a lot of Grieg's own expressive indications were overlooked in favor of a more forward-moving approach.
​
'This is not to say that Bolet's playing was in any way pedestrian. On the contrary, it was quite elegant, with a melting middle movement, and lots of fire and rhythmic bite in the last.
The only shaky spot came just before the concerto's end when the tempo is pushed up a couple of notches. Something happened - or didn't happen - that seemed to rattle Bolet, and for a few moments his playing lost its edge. The final bars, though, were glorious.'
​
On 10-12 May 1985 in Jesus-Christus-Kirche, Dahlem, Berlin
Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly
GRIEG Piano Concerto in A minor Op.16
SCHUMANN Piano Concerto in A minor Op.54
It was issued in October 1986. The same orchestra and conductor had just recorded Bruckner, Symphony No.3 in D minor (1889 version) on 7-9 May in the same location.
In the recording studio
[ab] 25-26 Feb, [a-d] 1&4-5 Mar 1985 in St.Barnabas, Woodside Park
[a] LISZT Transcendental Studies S139
[b] LISZT Six Consolations S172
[c] CHOPIN Nocturne in E flat Op.9/2
[d] CHOPIN Nocturne in F sharp Op.15/2
“Vol.7” [a] was issued in September 1986
“Vol.8” [b] was released in December 1986
[cd] in April 1987
​
Producer: Peter Wadland, Engineer: John Pellowe
I have rarely heard a more beautiful performance of Ricordanza (No. 9) with its speaking melody, its exquisitely delicate decorative detail, its spacious climax - all infused with a deeper inner repose. Bolet's finely nuanced, floating cantabile and subtle keyboard, orchestration of separate melodic strands are an equal joy in Paysage (3) and Harmonies du Soir (11). Though I'm sure Eroica (7) needs tauter march rhythm, his searching approach is infinitely preferable to mere bravado.
​
​
For comparison all the way through, I unearthed an old, now unobtainable Lazar Berman Melodiya LP version, which though lacking in Bolet's poise, both emotional and technical, is much more dramatic. Bolet has a rock-like stability, but Liszt, whose life was larger than life, needs temperament, too.
​
Joan Chissell, Gramophone (October 1986), a review which in its thoughtful, balanced approach contrasts nicely with the thoughtless opprobrium which is generally heaped upon this particular disc.
"..As if the piano was foaming at the mouth"
The Lazar Berman (1930-2005) recording does need to be heard to be believed. But which one?
​
​
​
​
'Berman's 1959 version appeared in the long-deleted BMG/Melodiya Russian Piano School CD reissue series. The 1963 remake presented here was briefly available via Japanese Victor and as part of a three-disc set on the independent Venezia label, while Columbia Masterworks brought it out on LP in the mid-’70s to tie in with the pianist’s first American tour.
​
'As a budding teenage piano geek studying in New York, I managed to get a ticket to hear Berman play the Etudes at his 92nd Street “Y” local debut, and still remember the performance’s unrelenting, almost primal energy, as if the piano was foaming at the mouth. Granted, Berman banged the hell out of the music, but with overwhelming style and commitment.
​
'Certain pieces convince more in 1963 than 1959: compare the latter’s relatively fleet and perfunctory Wilde Jagd with the similarly-paced remake’s sharper rhetoric, or compare Berman I’s matter-of-fact Eroica introduction to Berman II’s more characterful contrasts of texture.'
​
-- Jed Distler
​
And lest this site seem to live too much in the golden past, here is the 2022 winner of the Cliburn Fort Worth Texs Competition, the 18-year old South Korean Yunchan Lim in the semi-final of 10 June.
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
The disappointments come in the more demonstrative numbers, for all of which he chooses a very cautious tempo, Mazeppa (4) and Wilde Jagd (8) being the most obvious examples. Not even for a moment in either did I feel my pulse quickening in the excitement of the ride – and not just because of tempo. Both need more vivid projection in terms of dynamic contrast and arresting keyboard colour. As for the untitled 2 and 10, I felt that Bolet was constantly playing for safety in the former at the cost of its caprice, and was all too prepared to sacrifice the urgency of the latter in the interests of finesse. Despite exquisite delicacy and control of detail in Feux Follets (5) and Chasse-neige (12), in both of these too, and especially in the climax of the latter, I was aware of a certain reluctance to throw a cap to the winds.
Australian tour, June/July 1985
JB departed San Francisco 9pm on Thursday 27 June on Qantas QF4, arriving via Honolulu in Sydney on Saturday 29 at 7.30am.
(The insides of the Qantas planes in those years had murals of Captain James Cook, British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and to New Zealand and Australia in particular. He intended to go not just 'farther than any man has been before me, but as far as I think it is possible for a man to go'.)
2 July (Brisbane, recital, Performing Arts Centre), 4 (Geelong, recital, Ford Theatre). Saturday, Monday and Tuesday (6, 8, 9 July) were orchestral concerts in Melbourne with David Atherton/Wilfred Lehmann (that of 6th broadcast live on radio). Thursday 11 July (Canberra, recital, Llewellyn Hall), 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23 in Sydney with Sir Charles Mackerras (actually, as it turns out, Georg Tintner and Patrick Thomas), 16 in Town Hall, the remainder at the Opera House.
​
Mackerras explained to Bruce Duffie: 'I suddenly got hepatitis and had to cancel 30 concerts in Sydney. Because it was my last year as Musical Director of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, I had chosen all my favourite works, and the works which I hoped would round off my very enjoyable period. I couldn’t do it; I lost the whole thing."
​
In Sydney on 20, 22 and 23 July, Patrick Thomas took over the Blue series, due to indisposition of Mackerras. The programme included Berg's Three Pieces (1914) "turbulent and fantastic in orchestral colour. Virtually everything in the storm-tossed palette of this gripping score remained in place".
There was momentary losses of contact between Bolet and the conductor in Beethoven's 4th concerto, 'Perhaps because the pianist stared fixedly at the keyboard as if his neck were in plaster. But apart from that it was a finely graded with great subtlety of piano touch'. Sydney Morning Herald, 23.7.87
​​​
24 July (Newcastle, New South Wales). On Thursday 25 July, Jorge flew Sydney to Perth on TAA2, 8.35am-12.10pm. Friday and Saturday 26/27 were orchestra concerts with Albert Rosen and the Western Australia Symphony Orchestra; Monday 29 was a recital, all in Perth Concert Hall.
The WA Symphony Orchestra had been founded in 1928, with a performance at The Queens Hall on William Street, Perth, under the leadership of charismatic conductor Harold Newton. 32 professional musicians presented a concert that included Perth’s first ever performance of DvoÅ™ák’s Symphony No.9 From the New World. Albert Rosen, Austrian-born and Czech/Irish-naturalised, was chief conductor 1982-1985.
Saturday 3 August: recital in Dallas Brooks Hall (now demolished), Melbourne 8.15pm.
​
Items on the Melbourne recital programme were charmingly translated into English in one newspaper: Consolations (Liszt), Wandered Fantasy in C (Schubert), To be Sung on the Water, Hark Hark the Lark, (The Fair Maid of the Mill), The Miller and the Brook, (Swan Song = Schwangesang): Abode (Schubert/trans. Liszt), Transcendental Studies, (i) Harmonies du soir, (ii) Wilde Jagd. ​
​
Eileen Joyce & Perth, WA
Eileen Alannah Joyce CMG (1907-1991) was born in Tasmania. She lived in England in her adult years, and was known for playing second movement of Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto for the famous film, Brief Encounter (1945).
​
The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Perth arranged for the young Eileen to be sent to Loreto Convent in Claremont, Perth. In May 1926, the Premier of Western Australia, Philip Collier, set up an "Eileen Joyce Fund" with the aim of collecting £1,000 to help Joyce's future career. In August 1926, Percy Grainger, on a concert tour, heard her play and then wrote an open letter to the people of Perth: "I have no hesitation in saying that she is in every way the most transcendentally gifted young piano student I have heard in the last twenty-five years. Her playing has that melt of tone, that elasticity of expression that is, I find, typical of young Australian talents, and is so rare elsewhere". He suggested she would have the same celebrity as Teresa Carreño and Guiomar Novaes.
​
Grainger recommended she study with an Australian master so that her playing would not become "Europeanised" or "Continentalised", and in his view Ernest Hutcheson [Australian, Melbourne], then teaching in New York, was the best choice. A short time after Grainger left, Wilhelm Backhaus arrived for a tour of Western Australia. He also heard her and suggested the Leipzig Conservatorium, then regarded as the mecca of piano teaching, would be more suitable (Hutcheson himself had studied there).
​
In 1960, during her tour of India (her Delhi recital was attended by the Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru), she announced she was retiring, and her final recital was at a festival in Stirling, Scotland, on 18 May 1960. In a 1969 interview she said the greatest conductor she had ever worked with was the Romanian Sergiu Celibidache. She said "he was the only one who got inside my soul".
Llewellyn Hall, Canberra, 11 July 1985
​​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​("W.L.Hoffmann - Bill - was, for a long time, Australia’s most senior music critic, travelling all over the country for The Canberra Times and filing reviews for nearly half a century.")
'It was also appropriate that this recital was played on the new Viennese-made Bosendorfer piano at the School of Music which has a much warmer expressive tonal quality than the American-made Steinway pianos which are generally used.'
The Busoni transcription for piano of the 'Chaconne' from Bach's 'Partita No.2 in D minor' for solo violin 'was given a performance that made light of its technical difficulties and captured the sweep and majesty of the music'.
'The 24 'Preludes, Op.28' of Chopin received the necessary sympathetic, poetic approach in playing which conveyed the unity as well as diversity of this collection of piano miniatures. Rachmaninov's 'Variations on a theme of Chopin' was an excellent choice to follow the 'Preludes', being based on the 'C minor Prelude' and also being a magnificent work for the piano in its own right. This is an inventive, virtuosic work, and it was good to have the opportunity to hear it played with the romantic ardour and breadth of expression it demands. And the momentary memory lapse in one of the early variations, unexpected and surprising as it was, did not disturb the overall effectiveness of the performance, but merely showed that even the best of pianists is still human.'
The charming Liszt 'Valse impromptu in A flat' was delicate and sparkling, while the 'Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12', one of the most characteristic of these gipsy fantasias by Liszt made a brilliant and exciting conclusion to a brilliant and rewarding recital.
​​
The Canberra TImes (Saturday 13.7.85) offers a review by W.L.Hoffmann.
'Sparkling virtuosity matched by warm, romantic expression
in the music of Chopin, Rachmaninov and Liszt were the ingredients in a notable ABC recital given by pianist Jorge Bolet in Llewellyn Hall on Thursday night. It was playing
which brought back memories of such legendary pianists as Paderewski, [Ignaz] Friedman and [Mischa] Levitzki whom
I was fortunate to hear in my youth.
Nowadays this romantic style is frowned upon by many critics; but for me it was a pleasure to hear playing which so joyously wore its heart on its sleeve after the more clinical, non-romantic approach which has become fashionable among so many younger pianists over the past forty years or so.
This video has sound
Tasmania​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
On 8 August 1985, Bolet played a recital in the Concert Hall of Sydney Opera House for the ABC Recital Series. The programme consisted of:
Liszt, Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12 in C-Sharp Minor, Bach/Busoni, Partita No. 2 for Solo Violin in D Minor, BWV 1004, Chopin, Preludes, Op. 28, Liszt Valse Impromptu, S. 213, Rachmaninov, Variations on a theme of Chopin, Op. 2. This was broadcast live on the radio ABC-FM.
​
Saturday/Tuesday 10/13 August in Brisbane for orchestral concert. JB then went to Adelaide, leaving Mac Finley in Sydney at the Regent for finance meetings.
They both departed Sydney on Sunday 18 August for Hong Kong on QF27 at 11.00am. All flights were economy class. JB specifically request the Regent Hotels in Sydney and Melbourne. The Regent was the first of the modern luxury hotels built in Sydney, opening in 1982. 'Everything worth doing in Sydney seems to be a stone's throw from the hotel. Leave the lobby and you are on George Street, the major thoroughfare. Turn left, and you are in The Rocks, the city's oldest district.'
​Bolet then flew to Tasmania for an orchestral concert in Hobart in the ABC Odeon on Tuesday 6 August.
When the Strand — later known as the Odeon — opened on 22 May, 1916, then-Hobart lord mayor LH MacLeod said "this is undoubtedly the finest building in Tasmania". Stefan Petrow from the University of Tasmania said the story of the Strand remained as impressive now as it was back then. 'It had the best of everything that money could procure.' To put the project in context, the owner — a Tasmanian merchant named EJ Miller — spent seven months touring the United States, visiting every major city and studying the latest cinema designs.
Dame Edna Everage thrilled to be playing the Wrest Point Casino, Hobart (1979). An old "pro" from way back - notice how she is shamelessly aware of where the camera lens is!
1985 continued
Friday, 6 September 1985: Brahms 2 with the Milwaukee Symphony under Lukas Foss.
This was a concert in the Uihlein Hall of The Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Lukas Foss (1922-2009, German-American composer and conductor) had studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, with Isabelle Vengerova (piano), Rosario Scalero (composition) and Fritz Reiner (conducting). Later he studied with Paul Hindemith at Yale University from 1939 to 1940. Foss went on to conduct the premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.
Aaron Copland once called Foss’ works 'among the most original and stimulating compositions in American music.' His best-known compositions include “Baroque Variations” for orchestra (deconstruction of Bach, Handel and D. Scarlatti) and the opera, “The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” (after Mark Twain).
From 1981 to 1986, Foss was conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.
​
​
​
​
12 September in San Rafael, a city is located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area:
'Jorge Bolet will perform a benefit concert at the Marin Veterans Auditorium in the Civic Center in San Rafael
on Thursday, September 12 at 8 p.m. Proceeds from the concert will establish the Robert Hagopian Music Scholarship at Dominican College. Immediately following the concert there will be a gala reception onstage.' Sausalito Marin Scope, 10 September 1985
​
19-21 September 1985 (Thursday to Saturday) in Symphony Hall, Atlanta, Georgia: JB performs Liszt's Totentanz and Rachmaninov's Paganini Variations with the Atlanta SO under William Fred Scott. The programme also included Walton's Hindemith Variations and Bach's third Orchestral Suite. Jorge had last appeared with the ASO in 1959, before Symphony Hall had been built. Derrick Henry, in his review, notes that both works performed by Bolet use the Dies Irae, the mediaeval chant from the Requiem Mass., concerning the Day of Judgement. 'Bolet] can whisper and he can thunder. Fans of variations - and of phenomenal pianism - should not miss this program.'
After graduating from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, William Fred Scott had joined the Opera Company of Boston; he made an unexpected conducting debut at age 22 when he stepped in on short notice for Sarah Caldwell to conduct Beverly Sills and Tatiana Troyanos in I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Bellini). Selected by Robert Shaw, Scott served as Assistant and Associate Conductor of the Atlanta Symphony from 1981 to 1988.​
​
3 November: Chopin, Sonata No. 3 in B minor, op. 58 recorded at a live concert in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Francis Crociata writes: 'A recording of [this] magisterial live performance of Bolet's interpretation of the Third Sonata is available on Vol. 1 (all-Chopin) of Marston Records Jorge Bolet in Concert series. It is from a concert at Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis in 1985 -when he substituted at the last minute for an indisposed Maurizio Pollini.
It has all the Bolet hallmarks - amazing colors, astonishing coordination of dynamics & tempi - as if he had an organist's crescendo and swell pedals at his disposal. Some on internet message boards have criticized the leisurely tempi--parroting the canard that late in his career he slowed down considerably...but that is nonsense- -discerning critics observed his slower basic tempi as as early as the mid-1960s.'
​
​
Sunday, 1 December, London.
‘Schumann's Carnaval was a marvel. Bolet’s way with it is nostalgic, haunted, as if the whole glittering parade were being remembered from a great time away.’
He also played Liszt & Chopin. (David Murray, Financial Times 3.12.85)
​
On 9-11 December 1985 in St.Barnabas, Woodside Park, London, Jorge recorded most of the material for his charming "Encores" disc, which was released in April 1987 (the two Chopin Nocturnes had been recorded earlier in the year).
​
4 December 1985 (Wednesday) recital in the Philharmonie, Berlin at 8pm.