Jorge Bolet, Hong Kong (March 1987). Two clippings from the South China Morning Post.

Bolet Played the Piano—and Not Gently A tongue-in-cheek review from De Volk 9.5.1935. I include the Dutch below: though this ChatGPT translation flows well and idiomatically, it may miss things. Critics are lazy creatures. If you don’t keep them busy, they are quite capable of spending a quiet evening at home. And naturally: that’s not what critics are for. So we can do no less than congratulate Dr. De Koos on his brilliant idea to use the one evening that the Dutch Music Fe

Check the relevant page for more detail on the orchestral concert on Thursday 22nd. On Tuesday 27 October, Die Burger reported on Saturday evening's recital at Green Point, when Jorge played Beethoven's Sonata No.31 in A flat, Op.110 and the Liszt Transcendental Etudes. ​ 'Bolet's musical gifts command the highest respect. He has technical finger skills that are strongly reminiscent of Horowitz, and he has the appearance, muscular strength and endurance of a Springbok rugby

Jorge Bolet, September 1975, Teatro Coliseo, Buenos Aires. (Newly added to website) After Brazil, Jorge played in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Diario Crónica 26 September 1975 announces that at 9:30pm that evening, Friday, Sociedad de Conciertos de Buenos Aires 'presents the sensational pianist in a “marathon programme” of Bach/Busoni, Chopin, Strauss and Wagner-Liszt. The venue is the Teatro Coliseo (on Marcelo T. de Alvear 1125) in the Retiro neighbourhood. (The Coliseo

Red Rocks Festival of Music, August 1955

Did Jorge Bolet play Chopin as well as he did Liszt? A video uploaded to YouTube, hence the bit about "comments" at the end

I've taken advantage over the weekend of 15/16 March when The Times removed its paywall for its archive. Here are a few choice reviews...

I had occasion to look again at some reviews of one of my favourite Bolet discs. Volume 6 of the Decca Liszt series came out in August 1985. It had been recorded on 19-22 October 1983 in Kingsway Hall, London, when Jorge set down Liszt's Années de pèlerinage: Venezia e Napoli S162, Les Jeux d’eau à la Villa d’Este S163/4, Ballade No.2 in B minor S171 and Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude S173/3. Wolfgang Dömling in Die Welt (10 December) stated that in an expansive piece

A gem of a review, but from Bern not Lucerne (as advertised)

Early in the new year, Bolet had been on tour in Central America/Caribbean. A passenger manifest shows that he arrived in San Juan,...

Online Polish newspapers have revealed a few more of their secrets about Bolet's tour in May/June 1961. New cities and dates have been...

Jorge Bolet's recital in Windhoek, South West Africa was actually on 2 February, not 6th, so there is some mixup in his datebook. The Windhoek Advertiser (16.1.76) reported that there was a strong possibility theatre-goes would boycott the recital of the 'Cuban pianist' as they felt strongly about Cuban involvement in Angola 'and seem to resent the fact that a Cuban pianist is going to appear in the Windhoek Theatre. In an interview this morning Dr E Grobbelaar, Director o

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

Jorge Bolet's only appearance in the fabled opera house in Buenos Aires was on Saturday, 21 July 1979. The programme consisted of Bach/Busoni Ciaccona, Liszt's Sonata in B minor and his Transcendental Études 7, 6, 12, 9 and 8. The Colón was performing an early opera by Verdi, I due Foscari (premièred on Tuesday 17th - it had first been performed there in 1850). The Argentinian paper of record La Nación seems not to have carried a review of JB's recital (so far as I can s

I've been looking at The Rhodesia Herald in the British Library. Quite a hard-hitting, critical review. Having now to get used to reading microfilm, which I've only used a few times before. The Rhodesia Herald (13 February) had a short article expressing surprise that TWO visiting pianists should be giving recitals within 7 days of each other. 'Most promoters would try to avoid such near-clashes if possible.' (Israeli pianist Joseph Kalichstein was the other.) This i