Late 1970s
Head of Piano at Curtis 1977
"Mr Bolet is American, but for publicity purposes Cuban-American"
An Australian concert agent's instruction
1977 Central America
Puerto Rico, March 1977
On Monday 14 March 1977, Jorge gave a recital in the Teatro Tapia, San Juan, Puerto Rico: Haydn, Sonata No. 62 in E-flat major, Hob. XVI/52, Schumann's Carnaval Op.9 and Liszt (Petrarch Sonnets, Don Juan Fantasy). It looks as if his previous appearance on the island was way back in October 1958.
El Mundo reported that after the concert, member of the Pro Arte Musical (which had organised the recital) held a cocktail party at the residence of Antonio and Marta Fernández, in Garden Hills. Present were: Professor Odnoposoff, Tió and Mariann Montilla, Tommy Rice, the doctors Iván and Filina Márquez, Nilsa Tankersley, Sylvia Lamoutte... (Presumably guest of honour was Bolet himself)
Adolfo Odnoposoff (Buenos Aires,1917 – Denton, Texas,1992) was an Argentine-born-and-raised cellist of Russian ancestry. Trained in Berlin, in 1936 Odnoposoff, seeking refuge from the Third Reich because he was a Jew, moved to Tel Aviv, where he became a founding member of the Israel Philharmonic for its inaugural 1936–1937 season. From 1964 to 1974, Odnoposoff, at the invitation of Pablo Casals, taught at the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico. From 1944 to 1958, he had been principal cellist of the Orquesta Filarmónica de La Habana. He knew JB and had, for example, played chamber music in Havana, December 1956 during the Christmas season.
29/30 April 1977 Cincinnati Symphony/Thomas Schippers (Music Director); Music Hall, 1241 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio, . Paul Cooper, Homage (a Bicentennial commission), Hummel, Piano Concerto in A flat major op. 113, Chopin, Andante Spianato & Grande Polonaise (piano only), Frank Proto, Three Pieces for Percussion & Orchestra (world premiere), R.Strauss, Death and Transfiguration.
Tuesday, 3 May, 1977, Carnegie Hall: an all-Liszt recital which included the Sonata in B Minor, S.178 and Mozart/Liszt, Réminiscences de Don Juan, S.418. 'It is at this recital that Jorge played for the first time on the new Bechstein EN in New York.' (Mattheus Smits). Speight Jenkins writing in The New York Post ("Bolet's piano fails to inspire his recital") states that 'the overall impact of the recital was dull. He had all the notes - or at least many of them - in place and he seemed to have strong ideas about everything, but the total effect lacked the flamboyance and romantic fire that is necessary in Liszt, and has been Bolet's trademark.' There was beautiful tone in the Consolations but 'the singing quality seemed a bit too careful, not free and rhapsodic'. In the Sonata 'he seemed trying to kill any image of too much fire and brimstone, but there was great clarity, a marvelous balance of the hands, a good choice in emphasizing the melody and never a sense of banging. But the interstitial passages lacked any feeling, there was little eeriness and the whole thing was more sleep inducing than impressive.' Of the Don Juan, he went on: 'Full of humor and incredible pyrotechnics, Bolet found nothing the least bothersome. Some notes went awry, but it is hard to imagine any pianist more at home in this showy if empty music.'
Harold Schonberg: 'In recent years he has been paying ever-increasing attention to tone...he never makes an ugly sound... he has conquered the tone palette. Some of his tempos can be perilously slow. But such is the authority of his playing and so imbued is it with constant points of interest that he manages to sustain a phrase that would fall to earth under anybody else's fingers. His playing in the Don Juan had style and aristocracy as well as blazing technique, and it put Mr Bolet on a pretty exclusive pedestal as a Liszt pianist.'
(Nelly Walter is listed in the programme booklet as Personal Direction for Columbia Artists.)
Britain
Edinburgh, May 1977
Jorge was back in Britain in May 1977 - he'd alrready been in London in February - giving recitals in the Usher Hall, Edinburgh on the 11th (the same programme as the famous Carnegie Hall 1974 recital, as The Scotsman announced) and in City Hall, Newcastle-upon-Tyne on the 12th. The critic of The Newcastle Journal said that he imagined 'JB, reckoned to be one of the world's pianistic wonders, would be giving the newly-rebuilt Steinway something to think about. Well, I imagined wrong. Bolet will play a Bechstein he has just bought in Germany.' Conrad Wilson (1932-2017) in The Scotsman was delighted with the Chopin Preludes ('To hear them as he played them was a privilege'). In the Wagner/Liszt, 'perhaps he could not avoid letting the combination of pilgrims' chorus and violin decoration sound a bit lumpy, but he offered a glittering, enticing Venusberg in compensation'. The Bechstein had been brought up from London.
'The twenty-eight years which Conrad Wilson spent as The Scotsman's staff critic - from 1963 - coincided with a tectonic shift in Scotland’s musical ambitions. Sir Alexander Gibson’s regenerating influence on the Scottish National Orchestra, and his indefatigable drive to create Scottish Opera, lay at the heart of an explosive musical renaissance, which in turn spawned a whole new school of home-grown composers. As one of the chief chroniclers of the era – the other was his west coast sparring partner at the Glasgow Herald, Malcolm Rayment, followed by the rampantly populist Michael Tumelty – Wilson’s authoritative journalism remains a powerful instrument of record.' [Kenneth Walton]
This tour was under the management of de Koos, Hollandsche Concertdirectie who had represented Jorge on his début in Holland in 1935. Artists represented in the past include Igor Stravinsky, Arthur Rubinstein, Maurice Ravel, Bruno Walter and Yehudi Menhuin. By 1980 the agency being was run by Sylvio Samama.
On 29 May 1977 he was awarded Manitoba Order of the Buffalo Hunt for ‘artistic contribution to the Winnipeg Symphony’.
On 15 June 1977, Konserthuset, Stockholm, Jorge performed Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Sixten Ehrling. Also on the programme were Richard Strauss Don Juan and Sten Broman's Symphony No. 9 ( which was receiving its first performance). It seems this was Jorge's first appearance again in the Swedish capital since June 1964.
Sten Broman (b.1902 Uppsala, d.1983 Lund) composed - during the 1960s and 1970s - nine symphonies. His more accessible works include film music, including for the film Ett svarskött pastorat (1958), in which he also appeared.
Mexico, July 1977
There was a tour of Central (and possibly South) America in July 1977. On Saturday 2 July, Bolet had left for Mexico on AeroMéxico.
On Friday 8 July, he gave a recital in the Palacio de Bellas Artes, México City (he was staying in Hotel Ritz, Calle Francisco i. Madero 30, in the historic centre, near the Zócalo). Immense murals by world-famous Mexican artists dominate the top floors of the splendid white-marble Palacio – a concert hall and arts centre commissioned by President Porfirio Díaz (1830-1915). Construction on the iconic building began in 1905 under Italian architect Adamo Boari, who favoured neoclassical and art nouveau styles. Complications arose as the heavy marble shell sank into the spongy subsoil, and then the Mexican Revolution intervened.
Mexico, July 1977
On Friday 8 July, Jorge gave a recital in the Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico city, which included the familiar Haydn sonata in E flat major, Schumann’s Carnaval, Liszt’s Sonnetti di Petrarca and Don Juan fantasy. 'The Cuban-American pianist was presented by [Conciertos] Daniel. He has acquired a very particular style of execution that pleases some and repels others. Even in his piano technique he shows very personal traits.' (Heterofonía 56, México, Sept./Oct., 1977). Advance publicity in El Universal for this recital quoted praise in The Times and The Guardian newspapers.
Then on Tuesday 5th (but the concert seems to have been on the 11th according to El Informador) he followed this with a Guadalajara recital in the Teatro Degollado (replacing an indisposed fellow Cuban Horacio Gutierrez). Guadalajara, the capital of the state of Jalisco, has its Teatro Degollado (1866) - a neoclassical theatre located in the central plaza.
In a concert during this week (5-7th?), Jorge replaced Polish-British-Canadian violinist Ida Haendel (1928-2020) who had cancelled due to the death of her mother. 'In her place the Cuban pianist Jorge Bolet played Liszt's First Concerto. Since we last heard him in New York, many years ago, we hadn't heard anything further about him. Now we feel he is a little infected by the current desire for digital lightness and sounds that are more voluminous than noble.' (Ahora lo sentimos un poco contagiado del actual afán de ligereza digital y sonoridades más voluminosas que nobles.) The concert was with the Filarmónica de las Americas under Polish conductor Stanisław Skrowaczewski, and was completed with Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin [A csodálatos mandarin, Op. 19, Sz. 73 (BB 82)] and Tchaikovsky's fourth symphony in F minor. The reviewer for Hispano Americano (25.7.1977) labours under the misunderstanding that Bolet in 70; Jorge is said to have emphasised the poetic rather than the virtuosic and dramatic. 'The dull sound of the piano did not allow one to enjoy the cantabile and the tone.' El Universal (8.7.77) records that the Liszt was followed by the audience with great emotion, and at the end there was 'an uncontainable explosion of enthusiasm'. The President's wife, Carmen Romano de López Portillo, was among the audience.
After performing the Sibelius concerto in Helsinki in 1949, Ida Haendel had received a letter from the composer. "You played it masterfully in every respect," Jean Sibelius wrote, adding: "I congratulate myself that my concerto has found an interpreter of your rare standard."
Jorge flew back on Saturday 9th to San Francisco. Was this flight (noted in his date-book) changed to accommodate the recital on 11th in Guadalajara?
"La Pantera Rosa Ataca de Nuevo"/The Pink Panther Strikes Again, which had been released in the UK in December 1976, was hitting the Mexico City cinemas during Jorge's visit.
El Universal also carried reports on the remains of Francisco Pizarro (1478 – 26 June 1541). This controversial Spanish conquistador, in his third attempt to conquer Perú, had finally succeeded - but this including the capture and eventual murder of the last great Inca ruler, Atahualpa, in 1532-33. Men in Lima, working on the Cathedral's foundation discovered a lead box in a sealed niche, which bore the inscription: Here is the head of Marquess Don Francisco Pizarro who discovered and conquered the kingdoms of Peru and presented them to the crown of Castile. A team of forensic scientists from the United States, led by William R. Maples, was invited to examine the two bodies and they determined that the body which had been honoured in the glass case in the Cathedral of Lima for nearly a century had been incorrectly identified (results published in 1989). The skull within the lead box not only bore the marks of multiple sword blows, but the features bore a remarkable resemblance to portraits made of the man in life.
Australia, July - September 1977
On 16 July, Jorge arrived in the morning in Sydney on a Qantas flight from San Francisco via Honolulu, then continued immediately on to Adelaide, arriving at five o'clock in the evening. This was his second visit to Australia, the first being in 1965.
On 19 July there was a recital in Adelaide Town Hall. After Launceston, he went to Melbourne, for Rachmaninoff's second concerto with Willem van Otterloo.
Then Geelong, Broken Hill - an inland mining city in the far west of outback New South Wales, near the border with South Australia - thence to Sydney.
On Monday, 8 August there was a recital at Sydney Opera House. His 'one Sydney recital only, 8:15pm' included Chopin's third sonata and the Mozart/ Liszt Don Juan. This would have been rather special as it will have been the first time Jorge had seen the new Opera House (1973). 'The sun did not know how beautiful its rays were, until it saw them reflected upon the roof of Sydney Opera House.'
A rail journey then took him to Newcastle; he was back on an early train [6.55am] to Sydney, from where on 12 (Friday) he went by road to Wollongong, a journey of 2 hours, for an evening recital in the Town Hall. The Sydney Morning Herald next advertises him playing the Tchaikovsky concerto in Sydney Opera House on Saturday 13th with David Zinman.
On 17-24 August, he was back in Sydney Opera House with Willem van Otterloo for Brahms' Concerto No.2 in B flat and Rachmaninoff-Paganini, depending on Red/Blue series; Bruckner's third symphony [red] was also on the menu. 'Some very substantial music appeared in concerts last week,' recorded the Australian Jewish News.
25 August flies to Brisbane on Ansett Airlines where on 27th (Saturday), in Brisbane, City Hall Jorge performed with David Zinman.
29 August, departs for Toowoomba by road. Evening recital in City Hall
30 (Tuesday) by road to Brisbane, then flies to Melbourne
31 August flies to Adelaide. Evening concert with Elyakum Shapirra
5 September (Monday) depart Adelaide for Perth by air on Ansett flight 250 10.50am, arriving 12.50pm
6 Sept, Perth, recital, Perth Concert Hall
9/10 Sept. (Friday/Saturday) concert with West Australian SO & Elyakum Shapirra (Rachmaninoff 3)
11 Sept depart for Sydney by air, then 3pm Qantas flight QF373 to San Francisco.
*A bit tight getting back from Perth!
Jorge is said to be accompanied throughout by his personal business manager (actually his life partner) Houston [Tex] L. Compton. 'Mr Bolet has requested that twin-bedded room with bath in hotels comparable in comfort and amenities to the Hotel Menzies in Sydney be reserved.' He also asked for the Hilton for nights of 16 and 17 July. There is a curious promotional detail:
Mr Bolet is American but for publicity purposes Cuban-American
The Sydney Morning Herald 11 September reported of the Rachmaninoff Paganini Variations: 'Elegant, stylish, pointillist in precision - but always rather cool, as of a man playing a very long way within himself.'
Back in the northern hemisphere, on Sunday 2 October 1977 Jorge played at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, in an afternoon recital, which included Beethoven's Sonata No. 23 Op. 57, Schumann's Carnaval & Liszt's Dante Sonata. Three Chopin-Godowsky études and a waltz as encores will have acted as a warm-up for the next two days, which were devoted to recording material for his Chopin/Godowsky LP (see previous page for details). - the rarity value of which at the time cannot be underestimated.
Barry Humphries' poem about Melbourne
A clip from the state memorial service for world-renowned entertainer, author, actor and satirist Barry Humphries AC CBE. Live coverage from the Sydney Opera House on Friday, 15 December 2023 at 11am. (ABC News Australia)
"For the launching of the show At Least You Can Say You've Seen It in Melbourne [August 1974], Barry Humphries hired a tram and invited the press on a picnic to celebrate the bursting of the wattle, the Australian harbinger of spring. Each had to wear something as yellow as wattle, and as the tram weaved through Camberwell Junction yellow drinks were served - pernod, advocaat and sherry. At lunch in the Wattle Park chalet, the journalists were served creamed sweetcorn, curried egg and daffodil-yellow jellied trifle, after which Humphries recited his Betjemanesque 'Wattle Park Blues'."
(Peter Coleman)
The Prodigal Son returns...
Head of Piano at Curtis 1977
Jorge left Bloomington, Indiana having accepted the post of Head of Piano at Curtis in June 1977.
The minutes of the Board of Trustees of Indiana University, 17 June 1977, state under Resignations and Expirations of Appointments: ‘Jorge Bolet , Professor of Music in the School of Music, effective May 1977 to accept a position with the Curtis Institute of Music.’
He was appointed Head of Piano at Curtis by John de Lancie and was to remain in the post until 1986.
Bolet’s address while in Philadelphia was Apt. 15B, Wanamaker House, 20th and Walnut Streets. He also kept an apartment in New York City, at 1365, York Ave on the East Side, between E72 & E73 streets.
'If there was very little of the demonic intensity of a Horowitz or a Weissenberg, Mr. Bolet played with power and elegance to spare.' (A concert at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in October 1977)
'Jorge Bolet has a most beautiful tone. He seems incapable of making an ugly sound. Could anything be more exquisite than the Largo (of Beethoven's third concerto)? It was sheer poetry. It would seem that when Beethoven looked up he saw the light of heaven friend, but when Liszt did the same, he saw his own light reflected.' (November 1977, Winnipeg)
14 December 1977, 8.00pm, a recital in Curtis Hall, Philadelphia.
Chopin, Frédéric, 1810-1849. Barcarolle, piano, op. 60, F# major; Fantasie, piano, op. 49, F minor.
Schumann, Robert, 1810-1856. Carnaval.
Liszt, Franz, 1811-1886. Années de pèlerinage, 2e année. Selections.
January 1978, The Netherlands
“The daily food of keyboard lions”
'The American keyboard lion of Cuban descent, Jorge Bolet, is giving a whole series of concerts in our country these days. He will perform with the Utrecht Symphony Orchestra under Willem van Otterloo tonight 27th in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw in the series The Romantic Piano Concerto (César Franck's Symphonic Variations - almost sold out) - he had performed on Thursday 26 in Tivoli/Vredenburg, Utrecht. The recitals in Arnhem (January 30), Groningen (31) and De Bilt of all places on February 2 offer a better chance of getting a ticket. Bolet then plays Etudes by Godowsky. Beethoven's Appassionata, Rachmaninoff's Variations on a Theme by Chopin and Liszt's Dante Fantasy. The daily food of keyboard lions.'
De Volkskrant, 27 January 1978
Of the Franck, De Telegraaf said: 'The interaction between soloist and orchestra in their alternating domination of the musical discourse was fascinating in this interpretation.'
De Bilt is a municipality and town in the province of Utrecht, Netherlands. It had a population of 43,384 in 2021. The town houses the headquarters of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) and is the ancestral home and namesake for the prominent Vanderbilt family of the United States.
14 February, 1978: Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Jorge gave a private recital of some two hours to friends, sometimes playing just selected passages. Of great interest is that he played movements 1,3 and 4 of Chopin's Sonata No.2 in B flat minor Op.35, and also Godowsky's weird and wonderful transformation ('Concert Paraphrase', if you will) of Chopin's Grand Valse Brillante Op.18 in E flat (There exists a private taping)
20 & 21 March, 1978 with the Denver Symphony Orchestra, Jorge Bolet, pianist Gaetano Delogu, conducting in Boettcher Concert Hall in the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Rossini/Overture: Semiramide, Rachmaninoff/Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini Mendelssohn/Symphony No. 3 (“Scottish"). Sicilian Gaetano Delogu (1934-2019) was the Music Director of the orchestra 1979-1986; he was also the conductor on the very first Haydn record I owned in the early 1970s (The Hen and The Clock)!
In March 1978, Jorge performed Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini with Christof Prick conducting the Badische Staatskapelle (Karlsruhe, Germany). This is one of the finest performances of this work and - to my ears - the loveliest-voiced rendering of the famous 18th variation, fortuitously preserved on tape. Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss appeared as guests at the rostrum of the court orchestra (which was founded in 1662) on several occasions, and 20th century general directors have included Joseph Keilberth.
21/22 April 1978, Centennial Concert Hall, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada - Winnipeg SO and Piero Gamba: Liszt 1, Rachmaninoff 3, Tchaikovsky. Gamba (in photo with JB) was born in Rome in 1936 and enjoyed a long career; he died in 2022. From 1971 to 1980, he was the musical director of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. As a child, Piero became part of a fictionalised Italian drama film in 1946, titled La Grande Aurora, in which he played himself conducting an orchestra. Gamba programmed premieres of Russian-born Canadian Sophie Eckhardt-Gramatté's Symphony No. 2: Manitoba (1970, with subsequent performances on the orchestra's first eastern-Canadian tour).
Cellist Tom Watrous - 'We had a special relationship with Jorge Bolet.
I think he really enjoyed coming here. There was something special about how the orchestra felt about him. I remember that at the conclusion of the first Liszt Concerto, I was looking up at the loges, and the entire loge just exploded into a standing ovation. At one of his concerts, he sort of turned to the orchestra, put his hand over his heart, and played an encore, just for us.'
Jorge had first played there with Piero Gamba 10-12 December 1976 (Prokofiev 2 and Liszt's Hungarian Fantasy). See also below 3 March 1979.
Don Anderson, Tuning the forks: a celebration of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (2007)
Brazil & Argentina: Summer, 1978
Saturday, 3 June 1978, Usher Hall, Edinburgh with the Scottish National Orchestra under Sir Alexander Gibson (Rachmaninoff 2, an 'unusually inward' performance). 'A musician of stature who is little known in Britain', he had to cope with a piano slithering out of tune, and with a struggling and shambling orchestra.
(Raymond Monelle, The Scotsman)
7 June 1978
In July there was a trip to Brazil for concerts. He took an American Airlines flight on Monday 3rd at 8.30pm, arriving Tuesday morning in Rio de Janeiro.
He gave a recital on Thursday 6 July in the Sala Cecilia Meireles,
Largo do Lapa at 9pm. This was a concert dedicated to Liszt and included
Funerailles and the 12 Transcendental Etudes. Ronaldo Miranda entitled
his review in the Jornal do Brasil “Liszt Fulgurante” but Carlos Dantas
in the Tribuna da Imprensa described Bolet - surprisingly - as 'mediocre,
without the technique to match the composer...a pity'. [“Um intèrprete mediocre…sem técnica à altura do compositor. Uma lástima.”].
Miranda claims incorrectly (if I understand the Portuguese) that this is Bolet's debut on a "carioca"[=Rio] stage, but in fact he was there in late May/early June 1955. He was not too impressed with Funerailles: 'excessivamente apagado e com contornos nem siempre muito nitidos. O solista me parecia fleugmático e calculista; passava de etéreos pianissimos para fortissimos um tanto agressivos sem a necessária flexibilidade dinámico-agógica.' ("Excessively faded /faint/dull (?) and not always very sharp. The soloist seemed to me phlegmatic and calculating; he went from ethereal pianissimos to somewhat aggressive fortissimos without the necessary dynamic-agogical flexibility.)"
But with the Etudes, 'the recital changed course radically'. Bolet displayed a cold (not a Latin) temperament ["mostrava um temperamento frio (nada latino)"]. Technique was deslumbrante (dazzling), Mazeppa was a tour-de-force, and Miranda refers to 'the prodigious sound of Chasse-Neige [the final of the 12].
On Friday 7 July he left for Campos do Jordão and a recital there on Saturday 8th. ‘Jorge Bolet,"an orchestra at the piano", as one New York critic has described him, will perform Liszt’s Consolations 1and 2, the B minor Sonata, Petrarch Sonnets 47,104 and 123 and the Reminiscences of Don Juan in the Palacio Boa Vista, Campos do Jordão as part of the Winter Festival.' This happened to be the last time the Fesitval would be held in the Palacio Boa Vista; on 12 July, 1979, the new Auditorium was ready.
On Sunday 9 July he departed for São Paulo and on the 10th and 12th gave two recitals, the former in the Casa de Manchete, the latter in the Teatro Cultura Artistica. On Thursday 13 he flew on American Airlines flight 251 to Buenos Aires, Argentina, but does not appear to have played in that city in July.
(The World Cup football tournament had been played there in June. The English-language Buenos Aires Herald, under the courageous editorship of British journalist Robert Cox, had reported both on it as well as continuing to publish every case of a disappearance or murder - after the military took power on 24 March, 1976, - that was backed up with a complaint, such as a habeas corpus writ, lodged by relatives with the Judiciary. Cox expressed relief at the willingness shown by visiting foreign journalists there for the football to report on what was happening, on what was not being published in the local media. This forced the ruling military Junta to actively deny their own crimes. (Luciana Bertoia, BA Herald, 14 June 2018)
11 August 1978, with The Cleveland Orchestra under Jerzy Semkow in Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat, Op.83 in the Blossom Music Centre, an outdoor amphitheatre at Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio - the summer home of The Cleveland Orchestra. Bolet had not played with this orchestra in 19 years. Fortunately, there is a recording, especially welcome as this major concerto of Jorge's repertoire was never recorded commercially.
The Piano Files (Mark Ainley, Vancouver) says of it: 'This August 11, 1978 performance with the Cleveland... finds the pianist playing with high-octane intensity and passion, together with the finesse and elegance for which he is justly celebrated. It's well documented... that Bolet was in his later years more spacious in his choices of tempi and less fiery in his disposition, and the live recordings I'd heard of him in this work, while exceptionally beautiful, were more in that vein.
'Not this one. Always with that nth degree of refinement of nuance and masterful burnishing of melodic lines, we have here more of his innate searing passion and fiery temperament that seeps through, particularly in climactic chords that nevertheless retain their clarity of voicing (an art that seems largely but not completely lost today) and some of the soaring phrasing (the end of the first movement, for example). A rousing reading that captures both the exquisite beauty and vivacious spirit of the work.'
Early September 1979 at a Haydn Conference/Festival in Eisenstadt, Austria. 'The climax of was certainly the gala concert in Esterhazy Castle - after Mozart's Symphony No. 35 (Haffner) came the almost unknown Concerto for piano and orchestra in A flat major op. 113 by Johann Nepomuk Hummel in a delightful romantic interpretation by the American master pianist Jorge Bolet. And then after the break, a gripping performance of the Mass in C major op. 86 by Ludwig van Beethoven.' Burgenländische Freiheit 6.9.78
Piano crashes off the stage!
In Mexico City, on 12 November 1978, 'the Cuban-American pianist should have been a soloist in Rachmaninoff's Third Concerto with the Filarmónica and Polish conductor Andrzej Markowski (Lutoslawski's Livre pour orchestre [1968] and Shostakovich 1 were also on the programme). Jorge had performed with Markowski in Poland in 1961. He insisted on playing the Conservatory's new Baldwin piano, so the great instrument was removed from the campus despite the Director Armando Montiel Olvera's reluctance. Well, when the new Baldwin was placed in the middle of the stage, because of a certain slope towards the musicians' pit, the piano began to slide and ended up in the said pit, in pieces. The audience abandoned the hall without hearing the final work (Shostakovich). No one could agree on who was responsible, but the INBA will be forced to replace an instrument that cost close to one million pesos.'
*Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBA) - National Institute of Fine Arts - lis ocated in the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City.
Composer and conductor José Serebrier (1938 - ), born in Montevideo of Russian and Polish parents, recalls this event. 'Jorge performed with me several times in Australia, just after his musical accident in Mexico City. He had inaugurated a new concert hall with a solo recital and the stagehands had neglected to secure and lock the piano legs. The stage being raked, as soon as Bolet played a first chord with eyes closed, the piano rolled all the way down the stage, falling into the orchestra pit with a huge racket. The news went around the world, some with the picture of an incredulous Bolet standing onstage alone, staring at the remains of the grand.'
The Orquesta Filarmónica de la Ciudad de México had been founded in 1978 and had the obligation to include at least one work by a Mexican composer in each concert. In the first part of the season 22 October/17 December, the orchestra was conducted by the principal Fernando Lozano, and guests Eduardo Diazmuñoz, Theo Alcántara, Kurt Klip Statter, Andrzej Markowski, José Guadalupe Flores and Eduardo Mata. Soloists included pianists Cyprien Katsaris, Earl Wild, Jorge Bolet, Aurora Serratos and Guadalupe Parrondo. Cconcert were either in the Teatro de la Ciudad or in the Sala Nezahualcóyotl of the University.
Sources: Heterofonía 64, México, Jan/Feb,1979 + Hispano Americano (13 Nov & 11 Dec 1978)
Saturday 25 November 1978, Reichhold Center, St Thomas, US Virgin Islands. Stewart Gordon in The Virgin Islands Daily News (8 December 1978) wrote that Jorge played to a sizeable audience. Brahms's seven pieces of Op.116 were played 'more introspectively than one often hears' and the Handel Variation Op.24 came to a breathtaking conclusion; the 'highly esoteric' Godowsky arrangements of Chopin were 'played with consummate artistry'. This was the occasion to hear the hall's new Steinway for the first time. 'It promises to be one of the most beautiful concert instruments anywhere.'
On 7-9 December 1978, Jorge records Liszt: Three Concert Studies S144, Two Concert Studies S145 (Gnomenreigen, Waldesrauschen), and Liszt/Mozart, Réminiscences de Don Juan S418 in Kingsway Hall, London, for Decca/L'Oiseau-lyre, with Peter Wadland as producer. This was the second LP in his new contract for this major international recording company, the first being the Chopin/Godowsky études and waltzes selection (1977).
The Trout & The Juilliard Quartet
Tuesday 12 December 1978, QEH, London, with the Juilliard Quartet; Haydn, Bartok 2 and Schubert's Trout Quintet (with Donald Palma on double bass). The next day, The Times reported: 'The glory of this performance was the complete confidence to be found in the execution of each part and in the subtle dovetailing and give and take between all five players, in which the minutest changes of tempo and dynamic level were mirrored in each player's performance. Add to that the linear clarity of the inner strings and Mr Bolet's effortless, easy, yet always thoughtful and yielding account of the piano's role, and it is easy to judge that this was an outstanding interpretation even in this year when Schubert has been given his due on all sides. The performance rightly reached its profoundest revelations in the two slow movements. In the Andante the inwardness of the playing and the attention to shifts of harmony within phrases lent it an even greater originality than usual. In the fourth movement, after a properly artless announcement of the theme, each variation seemed like a deeper commentary on what had preceded it. There have been, more joyous performances of this work but few as searching or as tautly controlled.'
On 18 and 19 December 1978, in the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress, Washington DC, the Juilliard String Quartet's autumn season featured the works of Franz Schubert, in honour of the 150th anniversary of his death. For the Stradivari memorial concerts, the quartet was joined by Jorge and double-bassist Donald Palma for one of the best-known of all chamber works, Schubert's "Trout" Quintet (Forellenquintett), the Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667, composed in 1819. In July 1983 in Gramado (Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil), Jorge will again take on the piano part in this work.
Earl Carlyss, second violinist with the quartet for 21 years, said that 'Jorge is a fabulous chamber-music player, although it's a well-kept secret. He's a very flexible player and a delightful person to work with. But there was no way CBS was going to let us record the Trout with him. No way. They wanted us to do it with Murray Perahia, their big star. Now, what are we supposed to do? We've played concerts with Bolet, we admire him, we like his music making. Do we suddenly go to him and say "Sorry, CBS doesn't want to do this with you"? We've never played with Murray. We don't even know if he wants to play with us. We've never even discussed it with him. So we never did it. The Trout never got off the ground.'
The Connoisseur (January 1986)
Murray Perahia was in his early 30s at the time; Jorge Bolet was in his 60s, but all those years under his belt counted for little. At 26, Klaus Mäkelä from Helsinki was allowed in 2022 to record the seven symphonies of Sibelius. David Hurwitz: 'Mäkelä Makes Mincemeat Out Of Sibelius. This is a mess. Young Finnish budding superstar conductor Klaus Mäkelä, on evidence here, simply has no business making a complete Sibelius cycle at this stage in his career, and Decca was foolish to let him. The evidence is all over these hapless performances: the skewed balances, underwhelming climaxes, disastrous endings, italicized phrasing and shaping of larger sections--it's just plain bad.'
1979
21 January, 1979: Chrysler Hall, Norfolk, Virginia: Chopin: Piano Concerto No.1 in E minor, Op.11 – Russell Stanger / Norfolk Symphony Orchestra, repeated on 23rd. Encore: Schumann/Liszt: Widmung, Op.25 No.1 (S.566)
Friday, 16 February 1979, Carnegie Hall with the NDR Symphony Orchestra of Hamburg and Zdenek Mácal. Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18 (1900-1901), plus Mozart, Symphony No. 35 in D Major, K. 385, "Haffner" (1782) and Paul Hindemith (1895— 1963), Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber (1943)
'In 1979 a three-LP deal with Vox Records that called for Liszt Concertos with David Zinman in Rochester, Tchaikovsky with Jerzy Semkow in St. Louis and a Carnegie Hall recital, which would have been a sequel to the now legendary 1974 Carnegie recital issued by RCA. (At the time, Horowitz was the only pianist who had two full Carnegie Hall recitals published on commercial recordings.). The Liszt concertos were made in Rochester, but when Bolet arrived in St Louis for the Semkow recording, he was informed that Vox’s financing had fallen through.
'For the second time in Bolet’s rocky career, Gregor Benko, a co-founder of the International Piano Archives, stepped in to assist by enlisting friends of the pianist (including Ward Marston and me), to join in underwriting the cost of having the recital recorded.' (Francis Crociata)
1, 2, 3, 6 February 1979, Philadelphia Orchestra under William Smith
R.Strauss, Don Juan; Rodion Shchedrin, Suite from the Opera, ‘Not Love Alone’, Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 3
Saturday, 3 March, 1979: the Winnipeg SO and Piero Gamba played Carnegie Hall for the first time in an extravaganza - 'the glittering event will have on of the greatest arrays of talent ever to appear with a symphony orchestra' (Winnipeg Tribune). Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau was among the distinguished international audience and the great Peter Ustinov (1921-2004) was MC for the night.
Jorge was one of four pianists playing Vivaldi/Bach's Concerto in A Minor for 4 harpsichords BWV 1065. Unfortunately, we do not know how the concerto originated, although we can hazard a guess. If it was ‘born’ around 1730, Bach could have arranged the concerto for (or improvised it in) the Zimmermannsches Kaffeehaus, where he led the Leipziger Collegium Musicum. And with no fewer than five harpsichords at home, it could also have been a family affair, with father Bach sharing the stage with three of his children.
Gamba incurred $100,000 in losses from the Carnegie Hall show; he was still paying down the debt in 1986 when he returned to Winnipeg as a guest conductor. He dismissed his debt, saying it was only money.
“The glory was for everybody. The loss was only mine,” he said in a Free Press interview prior to a return 1986 concert. Gamba moved to Australia and conducted several orchestras there, and later did the same in Uruguay. He eventually used New York as his base in between guest-conducting appearances around the world.
(Alan Small, Winnipeg Free Press 15.2.2022)
Saturday 21 April 1979, University of California, Riverside
'A demon with a deft hand.' Recital of Brahms (Fantasies Op.116), Schubert (Fantasy in C major, D.760, Op.15Wanderer) and Leopold Godowsky. Phenomenal technique, fiery temperament. 'He has the shoulders and hands of an NFL line-backer. His handsome features remind one perhaps of a master chef, his poise a career diplomat. Off-stage, he is courtly, soft-spoken, rather shy. But at the piano he is a demon. The pianist did not appear to be is the best of health and backstage afterwards he was visibly tired. The University hall was only half full. (An audience recording exists)
Chopin/Godowsky: Six Etudes
o Op.10 No.5 in G-flat major (Study No.12 in G-flat major | inversion)
o Op.10 No.3 in E major (Study No.5 in D-flat major | for the left hand alone)
o Op.25 No.1 in A-flat major (Study No.25 in A-flat major)
o Op.10 No.6 in E-flat minor (Study No.13 in E-flat minor | for the left hand alone)
o Op.10 No.7 in C major (Study No.15 in G-flat major | Nocturne)
o Op.10 No.1 in C major (Study No.1 in C major)
Godowsky: Two Concert Arrangements of Waltzes by Frédéric Chopin
o Op.64 No.3 in A-flat major
o Op.70 No.3 in D-flat major
Godowsky: Concert Paraphrase on Chopin’s Waltz in E-flat major, Op.18 (a particularly exotic concoction, which I once thought Jorge never played - apart from his 1977 recording for L'Oiseau-lyre)
The Schubert often gets a polite, drawing-room interpretation, but his was exciting, hair-raising, bringing out an affinity with Beethoven's Hammerklavier Op.106. 'The second half of Bolet's program contained real fireworks of the type for which he is famous virtuoso arrangements and paraphrases by Godowsky of etudes and waltzes by Chopin. Godowsky actually recomposed these pieces, adding devilishly complex passages and new harmonies, coyly disguising some of Chopin's melodies then revealing them with a flourish. Bolet's mastery of this idiom is complete secure, sensitive (especially in the left-hand alone etudes), and most of all, entertaining.' But to his credit, Bolet never descended to a mere display of flashy technique. He brought 'out the musical substance of each piece, making each one satisfying as well as fun to hear. This is the true measure of Bolet's greatness.' (San Bernardino Sun)
The same newspaper in October 1980 reported: 'Seldom does a performing artist of the international stature of pianist Jorge Bolet bring his art to San Bernardino.'
10 May 1979 Queen Elizabeth Hall, London. Chopin, Chopin-Godowsky (6 études & 3 waltzes), Jorge Bolet being presented by de Koos, 'his only London recital this season'. BM [Bryce Morrison?] inThe Times (11.5.79) wrote that 'every bar of JB's wonderful Chopin recital bore the indelible imprint of his deeply serious yet romantic personality. Freewheeling, rhapsodic and low-keyed when not explosively impassioned, his reading of the 4 Ballades will have made us all think again, for this was in every sense Chopin reconsidered. After the interval it was fun and fancy free for both audience and pianist as Mr Bolet turned his attention to Chopin-Godowsky. Ingenious, spicy and teasingly decadent, such music needs a giant technique and, even more important, an artist capable of sophisticated elegance and wit. Jorge Bolet has all these qualities in abundance. One of the world's greatest virtuosi, he effortlessly juggled with an improbable number of glittering balls and clubs with aristocratic nonchalance and ease, and reminded us that recitals of this calibre are a rare event on the South Bank - or indeed anywhere else.'
25 May 1979 Kennedy Center, Washington DC. 'No man was more lionized in Paris in the first half of the 19th century than Franz Liszt. When he played the piano, beautiful women, always happy to be near him, tended to swoon, while strong men shouted their praises. Last night in the Kennedy Center, Jorge Bolet played a Liszt concert that served handsomely as a reminder of the emotions Liszt's playing aroused. There was the D Flat Consolation for ravishment, and the Funerailles and the B Minor Sonata, for thunder. For sheer delight in glittering cascades of notes, with frequent chromatic floods, there were three Liszt transcriptions of Schubert songs.
'And finally there was that epitome of the arrangement of a popular opera, Liszt's version of scenes from Mozart's "Don Giovanni," the kind of thing that led to broken piano strings in Parisian concert halls and broken hearts among the hearers.
'Bolet was truly in great form for the exhausting assignment. The Sonata, which is the crown of any program on which it appears, was ideally set out with rare delicacy of touch, exquisite singing tone, marvels of pedaling, and a feeling for the style that led to impeccable tempos throughout. The Consolation was a dream of serenity, and Funerailles, marvelously restrained, a somber funeral march. It was all as it could have been in Paris a century and a quarter ago. The audience stood at the end in appropriate tribute.' (Paul Hume, Washington Post 26.5.79)
At the Edinburgh Festival, Jorge gave masterclasses (advertised in The Times at the end of March as to be held during 24 August-2 September) on Liszt 1, Rachmaninoff Paganini and Brahms 2, all with orchestra.
A live recording of the twelfth Hungarian Rhapsody by Liszt on 7 August 1979 is available on VAI.
Hamburg, October 1979
30 October 1979, Hamburg, Germany (Jorge stayed at the Baseler Hospiz/Keinhuis Hotel Baseler Hof)
'How shameful for the Hanseatic city that loves to be advertised as a cultural metropolis: the world-class Cuban pianist Jorge Bolet had to play here in front of a half-empty hall! An organiser has finally made an effort to attract the artist, for whom Wolfgang Sawallisch made an important Hamburg debut with the Philharmoniker in 1968. The solo evening became an event.
'One was prepared for phenomenal virtuosity, since this piano titan (perhaps the only one) still has in his repertoire Leopold Godowsky's arrangements of Chopin, notorious for their diabolical technical finesse (die wegen ihrer diabolischen technischen Finessen berüchtigten). Bolet, a giant in stature, with the strength and tenderness of a magician in his ten fingers, also played Brahms magnificently. Liszt is his domain, and the audience understood at once that the [Liszt] Dante Fantasy offered them something perfect.'
Sabine Tomzig, Hamburger Abendblatt (31.10.1979)
'Despite the less-than-perfect sonority of the recording, the playing reveals Bolet's incredible tonal palette, mastery of the pedal and blending of tones, clear articulation, subtle nuancing amidst volcanic impassioned outbursts, and natural rubato.' (Mark Ainley)
Friday 9 November 1979, Elmwood Hall, Belfast, Northern Ireland
'Bolet takes the breath away. VIRTUOSO is a much abused term nowadays, but it can be applied without fear of contradiction to the piano playing of Jorge Bolet, who made his Belfast debut last night. However, it was disquieting to find so many empty seats in the Elmwood Hall.
'The performance was one in the Grand Manner, have less appeal, but it unerring in effect, with surely does not require the things like double octaves coming across with staggering accuracy and uncanny dexterity, and numbers like Mazeppa almost orchestral in their spaciousness.
'I would have liked more cantabile playing when the music allowed it but as a demonstration of full-blooded sonorities, ability to sustain tension, and an overall brilliance, this was a momentous performance.' Belfast Telegraph (10.11.79)
Sunday 11 November, 1979 Queen Elizabeth Hall, London at 3pm. Liszt, 6 Consolations, Transcendental Etudes.
Mozelle Moshansky in The Guardian 13.11.79. 'From the start, hucksters and promoters have had a vested interest in superlatives. One can imagine even that stately old entrepreneur Salomon banging the drum for Haydn's first visit to London - "Roll up, Gents, the little fellow from Esterhazy". Too often, alas, such encomiums prove sadly misplaced. Once in while, though, the publicists get it right. Jorge Bolet, for example, is clearly something very special. Savagely testing, the Liszt studies were the perfect vehicle for this curiously unpianistic figure's latest foray to the South Bank. Mazeppa, Feux Follets and Wilde Jagd were thrown off with the kind of glacial pearly brilliance that has (and had) even hardened critics out of their seats... Without exception, his playing now is stupendous.'
16-18 November 1979, Long Island Philharmonic, Christopher Keene. 'He will be returning to a setting where his youthful talent was recognised and nurtured.' The concers will be presented in three locations: Hempstead, Huntngton and Hauppauge. The Long Island Advance, 15 November 1979
21, 23, 24 November 1979, Chicago Symphony/ (Sir) Andrew Davis
Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1 and Dvořák: Symphony No. 6. The programme for this concert lists Gary Graffman as soloist, but he an injury to his hand in 1977 was causing him gradually to cease performing with his right hand altogether by around 1979, and he was replaced here by Jorge Bolet. A recording exists of the radio broadcast, which includes Norman Pellegrini speaking with JB. Listen here to Chopin.
The Chicago Tribune (23.11.79) stated that as miraculous luck would have it, Jorge Bolet was able to step into the breach and 'no-one could accuse him of lacking stature'.
The concert is repeated on 26 November, 1979, in Uihlein Hall, Milwaukee.
Piers Lane recalls August 1979
Piers Lane AO (born 8 January 1958), Australian classical pianist who grew up in Brisbane, Queensland, recalls working with Bolet.
'While I was in America, actually, I played to Jorge Bolet, and he invited me to come to his masterclasses at the Edinburgh Festival. So, when I moved to London in 1979, the first thing I’d do was go to the Edinburgh Festival and worked for a week with Bolet in a class he held there, and that was a magical time. His sound was just extraordinary and this small room was almost overwhelming the cantabile that he had. And we worked on the Liszt Sonata, on the Liszt E flat Concerto, on Petrushka of Stravinsky, Gaspard de la Nuit (Ravel) we’d worked on in America, and his way of thinking, and his way of peddling, of thinking of sound, of fingering, all of that has stood me in great stead. I didn’t have a lot of contact with him but it was very influential, actually.'
Buenos Aires 1979
Jorge Rafael Videla was at this time President of the Republic of Argentina (1976-81), and writer Jorge Luis Borges had his 80th birthday that year (1979).
Use of the term dirty war chimes with denialist thinking, which holds there was no genocide – only an internal battle between the dictatorship and terrorists. (Uki Goñi)
Buenos Aires, July 1979
Jorge gave a recital at the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires during the 1979 season (Saturday, 21 July at 5pm), his only recital - as the editor of this website has been informed by the Colón's archivist - in that famous theatre.
The programme consisted of Bach/Busoni Ciaccona, Liszt's Sonata and his Transcendental Études 7, 6, 12, 9 and 8.
Diario Crónica on 14 /7/1979 reported a banquet in a modern albergue on Avenida Córdoba for JB and organist-composer Lowell Simpson, who from 1965 until 1978 served as a sales rep for the Wurlitzer Company. The occasion was attended by, among others, Jorge Candia, Francis [Francisco] Brydon Smith [musician, he had been a member of the 1960s pop rock band Los "In"], Doña Marilú [Marini; actress?] and singer-actress Raquel Alvarez.
In the 1979 season of the Mozarteum, pianists Alicia de Larrocha, Nikita Magaloff and Roberto Szidon gave concerts (possibly all three at the Teatro Coliseo, in the Retiro district). The Arxiu Alicia de Larrocha website confirms that she played at the Coliseo (9pm) on 17 and 19 July 1979; she had come from concerts in Tel Aviv & Haifa, Israel (June), Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Campos do Jordâo, and would go on to New York.
The Colón was performing an early opera by Verdi, I due Foscari with Renato Bruson and conductor Miguel Angel Veltri (premiere Tuesday 17th - it had first been performed there in 1850). Napoleón Cabrera in Clarín, 20.7.79) wrote: 'Bruson ya surge como un nuevo ídolo de los melómanos porteños/ Bruson is already emerging as a new idol for Buenos Aires music lovers'. The Thirty Nine Steps, a British 1978 thriller based on the novel by John Buchan, was playing in cinemas. On the 19th, Nicholas Ridley arrived at Ezeiza airport, Buenos Aires, to be met by Carlos Cavándoli and Hugh Carless (chargé d'affaires at the British Embassy, where he monitored the disputed sovereignty of islands in the Beagle Channel, and the Falklands), before flying on the next day to the Falkland Islands (*see below).
In Clarín, 25 July, 1979, Jorge D'Urbano - who had reviewed Jorge's first appearance in Argentina in June 1955 - wrote: 'Jorge Bolet is a virtuoso pianist. This does not mean, in any way, that he lacks musicality. But his specific definition is that of a virtuoso, that is, capable of mastering the piano so completely that everything else fades into the background. He is capable of true pianistic feats, and has to his credit that these seem not to be a process at all, as if they were nothing more than the work of a good mechanism.
'The compositions he performed do not seem to be too profound, but at no time do they border on vulgarity or triteness (lo trillado). He approaches them seriously and extracts from them everything he is capable of obtaining.' The writer is unimpressed by Busoni's work: 'Everything that means Bach has been discarded...We have already protested every time a pianist resorts to this transcription. But the result [in Jorge's hands] was impressive. The B minor Sonata was approached by Bolet with a curious lack of exhibitionism and with a certain intimacy, if this can be said of that Sonata. In general, the line was maintained (and everyone knows how desperately difficult it is to maintain the line of this Sonata) and Bolet moved through it with good stylistic judgement, because if there is anything this pianist knows, it is the music of Liszt. Each of the Études had character, with a strong dose of temperament and vitality.
'It seems that Harold Schonberg, the critic for The New York Times, said that "Jorge Bolet's recitals were the highlight of the 1977-78 season". We do not doubt that the quote is correct. We are a little perplexed, however, that Schonberg, who sees the world's greatest piano players perform in New York, has clearly exaggerated his rating this time. Because Bolet is a good player, but we do not believe that he is by far the best.'
The first five years of horror
'Traveling to Argentina had been a moral dilemma for artists, not so much in the face of the Malvinas War [Falklands War, Britain & Argentina, April-June 1982] as for their unwillingness to be seen collaborating with a regime guilty of systematic violations of human rights, denounced by the international press, NGOs, and governments across the world. This was surely what [Air Force] Comodoro Gallacher [on the Colón's management side] had in mind when he spoke about foreign artists getting “exaggerated and distorted information about our reality.” Esteban Buch
On 24 March, 1976, General Jorge Rafael Videla sat before six microphones and a camera to read a 45-minute statement announcing the military coup against Isabel Perón’s government and the start of what he called a “national reorganization process”. “Our country is undergoing one of the hardest phases in its history, the intervention of the armed forces is the only alternative,” he said. He was proclaimed president by the military junta that led the coup, and stayed in charge for five years. Although Videla was considered part of the “soft” wing of the junta, reportedly pushing for a quick transition back to democracy, those five years were the cruelest of the military dictatorship. They were tainted by an orchestrated and silent annihilation system against those labeled “subversive”: of the 30,000 kidnapped, tortured, murdered and disappeared, most were abducted during the Videla years. A network of clandestine detention centers was set up across the country. There was a climate of terror that kept many from speaking out, while thousands fled the country in order to avoid being kidnapped. It was also in 1976 that the Operation Condor, a scheme hatched by the armies of eight South American countries to capture and kill leftist militants, had Argentina as its epicenter. During his years as de facto president, and those that came after, Videla insisted that the disappeareances, tortures, murders, rapes and abductions carried out by the armed forces during those years were the result of defending the interests of the country. In a Casa Rosada press conference in 1979, Videla made one of his most notorious public statements when asked about claims of human rights violations in Argentina. “We Argentines should not be ashamed, because what happened was a defense of human rights, threatened by terrorism,” he said. “The disappeared are an incognita (…) as long as they remain disappeared, they can’t have special treatment, for they are disappeared; they’ve no entity, they’re neither dead nor alive, they’re disappeared: we can’t do anything about it.” (Buenos Aires Herald, 17 May 2023) The journalist Jacobo Timerman was sent into exile that year. He is most noted for his confronting and reporting the atrocities of the Argentine military regime's so-called Dirty War (Guerra Sucia) during a period of widespread repression. Persecuted, tortured and imprisoned by the Argentine junta in the late 1970s, he was exiled in 1979 with his wife to Israel. Journalist Uki Goñi has emphasised how the controversial term Guerra Sucia covers up the genocide. Partly to stop such creeping denialism, Argentina’s supreme court ruled in 2009 that the dictatorship’s killings between 1976 and 1983 constituted 'crimes against humanity within the framework of [a] genocide'. Uki Goñi (2016) 'During the almost constant political turmoil of the 1970s up to Raúl Alfonsín’s election in 1983, classical music in Buenos Aires was arguably one of the most stable domains of cultural life in Argentina.' (Esteban Buch, 2021) 'A high point of the period was the visit, organised in 1979 by the Mozarteum, of famous Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera, who by then was living in Switzerland, and who attended a concert of his music at the Colón and met privately in the Casa Rosada with General Videla. All this confirmed the Colón’s traditional status as Argentina’s Gran Teatro—the title of a 1979 novel by Manuel Mujica Lainez dedicated to Jeannette Arata de Erize, Ginastera, and choreographer Oscar Araiz—where economic and political elites could perform together the fiction of a nation united by the worship of high culture.' (Esteban Buch, The Bomarzo Affair: Ópera, perversión y dictadura (2003). Controversies surrounding the Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich in 1978 and the Orchestre de Paris in 1980, both invited by the Mozarteum, were cases in point. The directors of the Swiss orchestra were severely criticised at home by the press and by Social-Democratic politicians for legitimising the régime through its presence in Buenos Aires. The visit of the French orchestra unleashed a serious diplomatic incident due to the solidarity of some French musicians with persecuted Argentinian artists and the Madres de Plaza de Mayo. The tour ended with a momentous performance of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony in the Teatro Colón, during which the audience gave a standing ovation to foreign artists that government officials had denounced as part of the 'anti-Argentine campaign.,' a major topic of the regime’s propaganda.' (Buch 2016).
Clarín, 4 May 1979 reports on PM Margaret Thatcher
Argentinian newspaper Clarín announces the election of the soon-to-be-called "Iron Lady" as the new British Prime Minister. (Jorge Bolet was performing in the UK during this month.) With hindsight, it is interesting to see that another piece of reported news concerned a territorial dispute between Argentina and Chile in the South Atlantic. The Beagle conflict was a border dispute between Chile and Argentina over the possession of Picton, Lennox and Nueva islands and the scope of the maritime jurisdiction associated with those islands that had brought the countries to the brink of war in 1978. The islands are strategically located off the south edge of Tierra del Fuego and at the east end of the Beagle Channel. The Beagle Channel, the Straits of Magellan and the Drake Passage are the only three waterways between the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean in the southern hemisphere. After refusing to abide by a binding international award giving the islands to Chile, the Argentine junta had advanced the nation to war in 1978 in order to produce a boundary consistent with Argentine claims. The conflict was resolved through papal mediation, and since 1984 Argentina has recognised the islands as Chilean territory. When the Conservatives were returned to office at the 1979 general election, Nicholas Ridley was appointed as Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In this position he was assigned responsibility for policy concerning the Falkland Islands, a position in which according to Patrick Cosgrave, [Obituary: Lord Ridley of Liddesdale. The Independent (6 March 1993)] he did not acquit himself well and "seriously misread the intentions of the Argentinian government". His first visit to the Islands was in July 1979, after which the Foreign Office considered the options, given that the idea of 'Fortress Falklands' was deemed unfeasible on the grounds of cost – Britain could not afford to maintain a sufficiently powerful military presence on the Islands to deter an invasion. Ridley held a secret, informal meeting with his Argentine opposite number Carlos Cavandoli in September 1980, and the two sides broadly agreed to a "leaseback" arrangement whereby nominal sovereignty would be given to Argentina but British administration would be maintained for a fixed number of years, likely 99, until the final handover, as well as co-operating on the Islands' economic development and exploitation of fish and potential oil resources. The meeting took place at a village hotel ten miles outside Geneva, Switzerland, under the pretext of a holiday for Ridley and his wife, so as to avoid Parliamentary and media accusations of a sell-out. [Lawrence Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign Vol. 1 (2005)] Ridley returned to the Islands in November to try to persuade the Islanders to accept the proposal but they were unconvinced, and as he left islanders shouted abuse at him while playing a recording of "Rule, Britannia!".
Digression: Teatro Colón
Survey up to the late 1950s. A theatre I've always wanted to visit, and failed to visit when in Buenos Aires in November 2022; Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet (ironically in the Royal Ballet's Kenneth Macmillan production) was sold-out.
The history of opera in Argentina began in the immediate post-independence period. The avowed policy of Bernardino Rivadavia, as President of the nation (1826-1827), was to encourage the introduction of European artistic influence. He had spent six years in London, Paris, and Madrid, where he witnessed the explosion of opera's popularity coinciding with the early career of the composer Gioachino Rossini. Thus, the first complete opera given in Argentina (by a visiting Italian group) was The Barber of Seville. Once opera had become a part of the musical life in Buenos Aires, it manifested a particular appeal for the urban elite of bankers, shippers, and merchants, who were outward-looking in their orientation. They encouraged the transformation of Argentina from a cattle-ranching frontier to a more modern society. These porteños (residents of the port, Buenos Aires) made opera a symbol of their own early identification of nationalism with European bourgeois culture. The first theatre to carry the name of America's discoverer was built on Buenos Aires's main square, the Plaza 25 de Mayo (as it was then called, before becoming simply Plaza de Mayo), and began its activities on the Argentine national holiday, 25 May, in 1857. During the following thirty years this Teatro Colón established a solid reputation as the "official" opera house of Buenos Aires (although a number of less opulent theatres served the mass audience composed of European immigrants). The municipal authorities decided to raze the old Colón (the site would be used as the headquarters of the Banco de la Nación) and to relocate the opera house to the theatre district on the Plaza Lavalle. The demolition of the original Colón was quickly accomplished in 1888, but the construction of the new auditorium would take twenty painful years. The envisaged completion date was appropriately 12 October, 1892, the four-hundredth anniversary of Columbus's landing in the New World. Famous families subscribed to boxes at 60,000 pesos each. The new Colón eventually opened its doors in 1908 during the economic boom years of the first decade of the twentieth century. However, Hipólito Yrigoyen, president of Argentina in 1916, not only scorned the cattle and banking barons, but also showed no love for their most respected cultural institution, the opera. Although the ceremony of his office and the prestige of the Colón compelled him to appear, Yrigoyen often came to the opera late and left early. A work by an Argentine composer (Aurora by Hector Panizza) had appeared during the year the Colón opened; other operas by Argentines followed, although the librettos often had old world locales. The presentation in 1926 of Constantino Gaito's Ollantai, with its ancient Andean setting, marked a significant emergence of an Argentine "school" of operatic composers (even though it was performed in Italian at the insistence of the European singers). The acknowledged masterpiece from a national's pen was produced in 1929: El Matrero by Felipe Boero, a moving tragedy based on gaucho life. Thereafter, Argentine themes at the Colón declined. [On Argentine operas see Maria Elena Kus, "Nativistic Strains in Argentine Operas Premiered at the Teatro Colón (1908-1972)," Ph. D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1976] The 1931 Colón season was proclaimed a musical triumph by the critics. The succeeding years, until the Second World War prevented the annual June through September residency of European singers, proved to be a “golden age”, with conductors Erich Kleiber and Fritz Busch coming every year. The Second World War further strained the capability of Argentina to import the singers it needed, although Central European exiles furnished the requirements for excellent German-language productions. It was during the postwar period that the image of the Colón as an elite institution finally changed, and the key factor was the assumption of power by Juan Domingo Peron and Eva Duarte de Peron. The Perón years completed the process started a decade earlier by wrenching the lore connected with the Colón out of the hands of the wealthy elite and then forging the new image of a theatre for the descamisados (shirtless ones, the Peronist working class). By 1954 the lamentations about the fall of one of the world's great opera houses had become widespread. Once again publications viewed the destiny of Argentina as symbolically related to the status of its opera theater. As Perón was destroying the Co1ón, he was simultaneously ruining the nation's cultural prestige. Unhappy times have ensued. Mismanagement led to the ultimate humiliation-the cancellation of the entire 1957 season. With the connection between opera and the elite leadership destroyed, the Colón's reputation was in serious jeopardy. Ronald H Dolkart, Journal of Latin American Lore 9:2 (1983), 231-250
Arrau in Argentina
Claudio Arrau had performed at the Colón many times from early 1930s onwards, including a complete cycle of Beethoven sonatas in 1939. Concerto and recital performance at the Teatro Colón on Saturday 15 November 1930 at 9:15 pm. The Teatro Colón Standing Orchestra was conducted by Juan José Castro for the concerto and symphonic works in the programme.
The music works included in the programme were:
I
Tchaikovsky: Concierto para piano y orquesta No.1 en Si bemol menor
II
Debussy: Reflets dans l'eau
Debussy: Minstrels
Stravinsky: Petrouchka (tres movimientos)-
Danza rusa. En casa de Petrouchka. Carnaval.
Debussy: Golliwog's Cakewalk
III
The programme also included Rimsky-Korsakoff's Overtura 'Gran Pascua Rusa' & segments from Falla's 'El Sombrero de Tres Picos'. [Source: arrauhouse.org]
Memories of Arrau in Argentina
'I first met Claudio Arrau in 1954 when I was 10 years old. I would not see him again for almost three decades, but during that time I became a devoted listener to his recordings.
'Growing up in Mendoza, a then-sleepy town at the foothills of the Argentine Andes, meant being 600 miles west of the country's musical center, Buenos Aires, which was a powerful magnet for most of the great performers at that time.
But Arrau, who loved to travel by train, came several times to perform in Mendoza, which is close to the border with his home country Chile, and resembles his native land in its landscape, culture and social mores.
Fighting stubbornly against my closing eyelids, I attended his concert at the small Teatro Independencia, encouraged by my German-born father, who had heard and always admired Arrau during his student days in Weimar Berlin.' (Rodolfo A. Windhausen)
'Thirty years and a journalistic career later, I was assigned to interview the pianist in New York (...) With almost no warning, [Arrau] turned the conversation to the subject of audiences, recalling that in 1946 he had played in Buenos Aires for a record-breaking audience of 25,000. "Argentine music lovers are among the most demanding in the world, you know?" he averred, as if trying to stir my national pride. He spoke at length about Argentina's musical life and stated, as Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti and so many others have over the years, that "there is no concert hall in the world with the acoustics of the Teatro Colón."' (Rodolfo A. Windhausen)
Martha Argerich, aged 11, had made her debut in the Teatro Colón on 26 November 1952 playing the Schumann concerto, in a performance with the Orquestra Sinfonica de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires conducted by Washington Castro (1909-2004) - a recording exists.
