1926-1927
27 April 1926 (age 11)
Sala Falcón, Havana (9pm)
Chopin, Études Op.10/3 in E major, Op.10/5 in G flat, Op.10/12 in C minor, Op.25/2 in F minor, Waltzes in A flat Op.43/1 and D flat [Op.64/1 "Minute"?], Polonaise in A major Op.40/1.
Rita Montaner de Fernández, Josie Pujol, Maria J. Bolet, Armando Molina and Alberto Marquéz also took part.
13 August 1926
Teatro Principal de la Comedia, Havana
Waltz in A major Op.2 (1921) by Mischa Levitzki, Waltz No. 2 [A-flat major 1835) Op. 34/1] by Chopin and Mariposa/Le Papillon (Etude de Concert Op. 18) by Calixa Lavallée.
Mozart,Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor K.466 with Mercedita Soler on second piano.
4 December 1926
Teatro Payret, Havana (charity concert organised by Ernesto Lecuona)
Jorge plays a solo
25 December 1926
Christmas concert. Waltz by Levitzki, a study by Chopin, and Mariposa by Lavallé.
1926/27?
Teatro Nacional, Havana
Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor K466, with Havana Sinfonica under Gonzalo Roig.
22 February 1927
Teatro Principal, Havana
Emma Piñeyro (actress?)
Solo by Jorge, "which did him great credit" (a su mayor lucimiento contribuyó el precoz pianista)
16 August 1927
The young Jorge performed at a gathering in the house of newly weds Silvio Sandino and Basilia Granda.
Sr. Sandino was secretary to the Conde [2nd Count] Nicolás de Rivero Alonso, Honorary Consul General of Hungary in Havana. It was an improvised concert in which conductor Gonzalo Roig and Dr Ricardo Eguilior, Secretary of Justice. also played the piano. Dalia Iñiguez recited poems. (Diario de la Marina, 18 August 1927)
18 August 1927
Japanese room, Plaza Hotel (1909), Havana, Cuba
Chopin, Waltz in A flat Op.43/1 or D flat [Op.64/1 "Minute"?], Polonaise in A major Op.40/1
'Salvador Miret, the eternal Assistant Secretary and Treasurer of the Rotary Club of Havana, informed us in his weekly letter of the programme for the session held on Thursday, as always during these summer months, in the airy "Japanese" room of the Plaza Hotel. The letter stated that, in order to distance ourselves, even if only for brief moments, from the intense, harsh, and constant struggle of life, he wished us to enter through the august door of Art, where one breathes airs of peace, joy, happiness, and ineffable serenity—joys that so expand the heart and strengthen the spirit.
'Well-known local artists were present at the luncheon session: the young Bolet, already more than just a promising talent in the art that made Paderewski famous; the admired singer from Cienfuegos, Eusebio Delfín; and the no less remarkable guitarist and distinguished concert performer, Ezequiel Cuevas.
'Young Bolet went to the piano and played two pieces by Chopin, music that the artist's precise technique masters to perfection. He performed with true mastery a "Waltz" and a "Polonaise" by the incomparable Polish master. With that marvellous musical instinct that the young pianist possesses, with true expression and emotion, with great brilliance and confidence, he delighted the audience for several minutes, who listened in awe, receiving a resounding round of applause each time he finished one of those compositions.'
Diario de la Marina, 20 August 1927
4 September 1927 (age 12)
Gran Teatro Nacional, Havana (Sunday at 10am) - to raise funds for travel to Philadelphia
Prelude (Bach/de Blanck), a study by Henselt, Impromptus by Chopin, a Waltz by Levitzki, "Nocturno" (which is probably Liszt's Liebestraum 3), the Allegro Appassionato by Saint-Saens, then the Konzertstück by Carl Maria von Weber with the Havana Symphony under Gonzalo Roig.
Musical America (22 October 1927) also mentions a recital by Jorge in the Teatro Oriente, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba. Beethoven, Henselt, Chopin, Liszt, Saint-Saëns.
An article in Diario de la Marina, 5 April 1934 may conceivably refer to this occasion. 'A few years ago, we happened upon Jorge Bolet in Santiago de Cuba. He was dressed in shorts; he was very young and very shy. That night, Jorge offered his precocious talent to the Santiago audience. Afterward, we didn't see him again until he performed with the Havana Philharmonic, already an eminent student at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. The boy of that time had transformed into a strapping young man who today stands over six feet tall, with a quantity of seriousness and talent that exceeds the limits of belief.'
Santiago de Cuba is the vibrant, culturally rich second-largest city in Cuba. Nestled between the Caribbean Sea and the Sierra Maestra mountains, it serves as the nation's cultural capital. It is situated in the southeastern part of the island, approximately 546 miles (870 km) southeast of Havana.
On 16 September Jorge and his sister Maria embarked on the SSGovernor Cobb for the USA.
1928-29
21 May 1929 (age 14)
Curtis Institute, radio broadcast
Chopin’s F minor Fantasy and Leo Délibes, Naila waltz (arranged by the Hungarian pianist/ composer Ernő Dohnanyi).
4 July 1929
Auditorium, Havana
Pro Arte Musicale Society; recital
César Franck, Beethoven Appassionata, Chopin, Manuel de Falla and the Leo Delibes Naila waltz.
Diario de la Marina (4.8.1929) reports that Jorge is being aided by the Cuban consuls (in Philadelphia) José Antonio Ramos and (in New York) Augusto Merchan and Mario del PIno. It seems that the consuls in conjunction with the Curtis Institute arranged for this July recital adn the orchestral one on 21 July to take place. (It is also reported that Jorge was recently seriously ill and that Josef Hofmann arranged for medical support.)
Another Curtis Institute representative in Cuba was Eugene Helmer who, on 26 June 1929, played the Rimsky-Korsakoff Concerto with the Havana Philharmonic Orchestra, Pedro San Juan conducting, in the National Theatre. Helmer (1910–1980) was a Russian-born American concert pianist, teacher, and composer.
On 14 July, in the Auditorium, Havana at 10am, José Echániz was piano soloist with the orchestra of the Conservatorio Falcón; he would later work as conductor with Jorge.
21 July 1929
Teatro Nacional, Havana
Concerto
Orquesta Sinfónica de la Habana
11 September 1929
Auditorium, Havana
César Franck, Prelude; Hubert de Blanck, Toccata; Chopin, Prelude, Étude & Ballade; Abram Chasins, 2 Preludes; Leo Délibes, Naila Waltz.
Liszt, Concerto [most likely No. 1 in E flat]
Orquesta Sinfónica, Gonzalo Roig
21 November 1929
University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware
Arthur Holmgren, baritone, Judith Poska, violin, and Jorge Bolet, piano.
20 December 1929 (age 15)
Curtis radio broadcast
Leo Délibes, Naila Waltz.
1929
Jorge first learns Rachamninoff's Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op.30 (at Curtis)
1930-32
26 May 1930 (age 15)
Casimir Hall, Curtis Institute
César Franck: Prelude, Choral and Fugue
Johann Strauss/Schulz-Evler: Concert Arabesques on the Blue Danube Waltz
[Two other students of Saperton also played, Jeannette Weinstein and Lillian Batkin]
19 November 1930
The Wednesday Club, Fahnestock Hall, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Curtis students' recital: Jorge Bolet, Pianist; Agnes Davis, Soprano; Judith Poska, Violinist; and Theodore Saidenberg, Accompanist.
28 December 1930
Jorge played at the home of Mrs. Oscar Mertz in Germantown, a residential neighbourhood in northwest Philadelphia.
1931
16 April 1931 (age 16)
Mitchell Hall, University of Delaware (Newark Music Society)
Curtis students
24 April 1931
Organ Fantasy and Fugue, Johann Sebastian Bach in G minor (in the Liszt adaptation);
Franz Liszt, Waldesrauschen;
Fantasia quasi Sonata : "Apres une Lecture du Dante"
First movement from the Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op.18 Sergei Rachmaninoff
Irene Peckham (orchestral part played on a second piano by Jorge Bolet)
Jean-Marie Robinault, Liszt-Busoni, Rhapsodie espagnol (orchestral part played on a second piano by Jorge Bolet)
16 May 1931
Academy of Music, Philadelphia.
Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto No. 1 in B♭ minor, Op. 23: first movement
Curtis Orchestra, Sylvan Levin
The Philadelphia Inquirer notes that JB brought impetuous temperament to his performance. In Musical America, W.R Murphy said that Jorge, the 17 year old pupil of David Saperton, played 'with a seasoned quality beyond his years and displayed much musicianly feeling'.
Sylvan Levin (1903-1996) served as the assistant conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York City Symphony under Leopold Stokowski for many years. He appeared several times as a pianist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, notably playing the American premiere of Ravel's Piano Concerto in G with the orchestra in 1932 under the baton of Stokowski. He died in 1996 at his home in Great Neck, New York at the age of 93.
10 October 1931
Westtown School, Westtown, Pennsylvania
Margaret Codd, Soprano Iso Briselli, Violinist
Jorge Bolet, Pianist, Earl Fox, Accompanist
6 November 1931
Western Maryland College, Westminster, Maryland
Irene Singer, Soprano, Jorge Bolet, Pianist
Benjamin de Loache, Baritone, Joseph Rubanoff, Accompanist
13 December 1931 (age 17)
Pennsylvania Museum of Art/ also listed as Casimir Hall, Curtis
Arensky, Piano Quintet in D major Op.51
'Curtis Institute of Music brought a couple of thousand auditors despite a bad night. [...] Another rarely heard quintet was that of Arensky in D Major, Op. 51, for piano and string quartet. The efficient players were Jorge Bolet, Jacob Brodsky, Ladislaus Steinhardt, Leonard Mogill and Howard Mitchell.' (Musical America 25.12.1931)
27 December 1931
Teatro Nacional, Havana
Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto No. 1 in B♭ minor, Op. 23 [+ another concerto]
Orquesta Filharmónica Havana, Amadeo Roldán
Jorge Bolet is set to amaze on Sunday on the 27th at the National Theatre. Bolet is not a sensational or showy pianist; he is simply a true artist, and those who understand and know how the piano should be played to truly bear the title of artist on that instrument will, we have no doubt, agree with us that this young Cuban pianist is destined to shine in the near future among the young constellation of the artistic firmament.
The programme also includes "Decoration Day" by Charles Ives, an American composer - this is the first time his music has been played here - Wolf-Ferrari's overture to Il Segreto di Susanna and Ravel's Bolero which is receiving its first performance in Havana. Diario de la Marina (26.12.1931)
"A glory for Cuban musical art! Thus this young pianist has confirmed his positive artistic worth . . . showing a technique which makes him complete master of his instrument." — El Pais.
29 December 1931
Hotel Nacional, Havana: a recital including
Bach/Liszt, Organ Fantasia and Fugue in G minor
Schumann's Abegg Variations,
Chopin's third sonata
Paul de Schloezer's Etude in A flat
J. Staruss II/Schulz-Evler, Blue Danube
1932
29 January 1932 (age 17)
Carnegie Hall, New York City
Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto No. 1 in B♭ minor, Op. 23: first movement
Curtis Orchestra, Fritz Reiner
4 February 1932
Public Ledger Club Rooms, 600 Chestnut St, Philadelphia
Recital for the Foreign Consuls of Philadelphia,
Agnes Davis, Soprano; Jorge Bolet, Pianist; Jacob Brodsky, Violinist; Sarah Lewis and Vladimir Sokoloff, Accompanists.
5 February 1932
Radio concert by artist-students of the Curtis Institute is being broadcast this season over forty-seven stations of the Columbia Broadcasting System on Friday afternoons from 4:45 to 5:30 o'clock, Eastern Standard Time.
Arensky's Piano Quintet in D major, Opus 51, played by Jorge Bolet, Pianist; Jacob Brodsky and Ladislaus Steinhardt, Violins; Leonard Mogill, Viola, and Howard Mitchell, Violoncellist, brought the concert to a close.
Howard Mitchell (Nebraska,1911-Florida, 1988) would conduct JB with the National Symphony in 1950s Washington DC; he was principal conductor of the Orchestra from 1949 to 1969. 'Praised for his enthusiasm, deeply involved in the community, a skilled fund-raiser and respected by musicians as one who had risen from the ranks, Mitchell embodied the optimism and “can-do” spirit of the time.'
18 February 1932
Jorge Bolet, Pianist, will give a recital preceding a Tea to be given by Miss Bertha Benson, at her home in Philadelphia, on the afternoon of February 18.
15 April, 1932
Sonata in F minor, Opus 57 (Appassionata), BEETHOVEN,
Menuett in A minor RAMEAU-GODOWSKY,
Etude in A flat major, Opus 1, No. 2 PAUL DE SCHLOZER
This concert was given by three piano students of Mr. Saperton. Jean-Marie Robinault played Prelude, Aria et Finale by Cesar Franck and Islamey by Mily Balakirev. Richard Goodman was heard in the following: Brahms' Intermezzo, Opus 118, No. 2 and Capriccio, Opus 76, No. 1, Debussy's Poissons d'or, Reflets dans I'eau, and L'isle joyeuse, and the first movement from Rachmaninov's Concerto, No. 2, in C minor. Jorge Bolet played the orchestral part of the Concerto on a second piano.
14 May 1932
The Stony Brook School, Long Island, NY
Recital
27 October 1932
Bomberger Hall, Ursinus College, Collegeville, Pennsylvania
Schumann, Fantasiestücke Op.12 (Des Abends, Fabel, Aufschwung, Ende vom Lied)
Paul de Schloezer, Étude in A flat major Op.1/2
Albéniz-Godowsky Tango
Manuel de Falla, Andaluza
1933-34
14 March 1933 (age 18)
Casimir Hall, Curtis
Introduction and Allegro Maurice Ravel (with piano accompaniment), Marjorie Call, harp, Jorge Bolet at the piano
5 April 1933
Casimir Hall, Curtis Institute
Sonata in B minor FRANZ LISZT
Le Cygne (Saint-Saens-Godowsky)
Polka de W. R (Sergei Rachmaninov)
Rondo a capriccio, Op. 129 (Ludwig van Beethoven)
La Campanella (Liszt/Busoni)
22 April 1933
Recital at The Stony Brook School, Long Island
7 September 1933
Sala Espadero, Havana
Liszt Sonata, and the Liszt/Busoni "La Campanella"
11 November 1933 (age 19)
Stony Brook School, Long Island, NY
Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto with Headmaster Frank E. Gaebelein on second piano.
3 April 1934
Teatro Principal de la Comedia, Havana (at 5pm)
A ‘warm-up’ concert with the same programme as Graduation recital
16 April 1934 (age 19)
Casimir Hall, Curtis Institute
Graduation recital
Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel, Opus 24, Johannes Brahms
Nocturne in E flat major, Opus 5 5, No. 2, Frederic Chopin
Rondo from Sonata, No. 1 in C major, Opus 24, Carl Maria von Weber
Sonata in B minor. Opus 58, Frederic Chopin
Prelude in E flat major, Opus 23, No. 6, Sergei Rachmaninoff
Prelude in G sharp minor. Opus 32, No. 12, Sergei Rachmaninoff
Suggestion diabolique, Serge Prokofiev
Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes from Fledermaus Waltzes of Johann Strauss Leopold Godowsky
The Evening Public Ledger (Philadelphia),17 April mentioned 'amazing technical skill, well-developed musicianship'. The Brahms/Handel was a tour-de-force, bringing out the many contrasts of mood admirably and achieving great volume of tome without, however, becoming noisy. The three fast movements of the Chopin gave the recitalist opportunity for some of the best work of the evening. In the Largo, however, there seemed to be an absence of the poetic qualities which one looks for, due to Mr Bolet's rather objective treatment of the music and a lack of nuances in the interpretation. (W.E.Smith)
W. R. M. (likely W. R. Macdonald), in Musical America (25.5.1934) reported that Jorge 'was undeterred by the manifest and taxing difficulties of the program. He absolved himself of the virtuoso pieces with great skill and aplomb, and works in which interpretative musicianship was required likewise had interpretations of technical efficiency and a considerable amount of feeling'.
8 August 1934
Teatro Principal de la Comedia, Havana; recital to include-
Mendelssohn, Prelude & Fugue (E minor?), Beethoven's Sonata No.26 Les Adieux Op.81a and "La Campanella by Liszt/Busoni.
18 August 1934
Havana
Fauré (Violin Sonata No. 1 in A major, Op. 13), Franck and Richard Strauss with Alberto, violin
30 August 1934
Sala Espadero, of the Conservatorio Nacional (on calle Galiano)
Recital 'en obsequio a la Asociación de Antiguos Alumnos de Blanck'. Same programme as 8 August.
1 September 1934
Lyceum, Matanzas (63 miles east of Havana)
Beethoven Op.24 & Cesar Franck with brother Alberto, violin
[Sponsored by the Minister for Education, Dr Russinyol]
The annual Boston Symphony series of five Friday evening concerts [1934/35], the dates of which are Nov. 16, Jan. 4 and 31, March 1 and April 5, include appearances in recitals and concerts of Carmen La Calle, Milo Miloradovich, Yoske Saito, Beal Hober, Jorge Bolet, the Tollefsen Trio, William Bowers, Ruth Slenczynski... (Musical America 10.10.1934)
1935-36, Europe
Musical America, on 10 January 1935, notes that 'the young Cuban pianist is the recipient of a fellowship and stipend from the Cuban Government to aid him in beginning his career as a concert pianist [mentioned in Havana newspapers on 13 December 1934]. The "diplomatic passport" given him by the Republic of Cuba states that he holds the "honorary commission" of the Secretary of Education to realize his plans for diffusion of Cuban music.'
28 March 1935
Maison de Cuba, Paris
After the wedding of Mario Recio e Ilzarbe and Margarita Lomard, in Eglise Saint Jean-Baptiste de la Salle, uncle Dr Alberto Recio y Forns held a reception and an evening concert by JB (Diario de la Marina, 27 April 1935)
31 March 1935 (age 20)
Students' Atelier, 65 Quai d'Orsay, Paris
Recital
8 May 1935 (age 20)
Kleine Zaal, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Holland
(Official European début)
Manuel de Falla, Fantasía Bética
C. Franck, Prelude, Chorale et Fugue
Beethoven, Appassionata Op.57
Chopin group incl. Ballade in G minor Op.23
Liszt, Waldesrauschen
Strauss II/Godowsky, Fledermaus
10 May 1935
Diligentia Hall, The Hague, Holland
17 May 1935
Bechsteinsaal, Berlin (Germany)
19 May 1935
Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi, Milan (Italy)
23 May 1935
Schubert-Saal, Konzerthaus, Vienna (Austria)
31 May 1935
Aeolian Hall, New Bond Street, London
6 June 1935
Salle Chopin, 8 rue Daru, Paris (France)
Jorge Bolet played L'Appassionata in an extremely pleasing style. This pianist possesses very good qualities: both his hands are equally skilled and fluid; they are fearless in the fast passages; in the pianissimos, they know how to be silent, so to speak, with lovely sonorities.
But, and this is what we will emphasize because it is all too rare today, his hands seem to understand what they are playing. Thus, Jorge Bolet knows how to move us, and we are very sensitive to it: in the various pieces by Chopin that he interpreted, he showed great talent, as well as in César Franck's Prelude, Chorale and Fugue.
Louta Nouneberg (Comœdia 25.6.1935) [for other reports see EUROPE page]
At some time between June and December 1935, Jorge had lessons with Moriz Rosenthal in Vienna, though the classes may have been earlier (March-May).
24 November 1935
Austrian radio broadcast
Theodor Christoph & Wiener Symphoniker
Tchaikovsky, Konzert für Klavier und Orchester B-Moll, op. 23
8 December 1935
Vienna, Austria
Volksbildungshaus, 5th district, Stöbergasse 11–13. Sunday: 8 p.m.
Street Music (Theatre Evening)— Lydia Jaryghina (contralto), Jorge Bolet
Telegraf , 7. Dezember 1935
On 22 January, 1911 a “Volksbildungshaus” was opened in Stöbergasse 11 in Vienna’s 5th District, which not only housed modern equipped lecture halls, scientific rooms, a library and a microscope room, but also an astronomical observatory on the roof.
28 February 1936 (age 21)
Salón Novedades, Pamplona, Navarra (Spain)
Recital incl. Chopin Sonata No. 3, Beethoven, Chopin, de Falla, Rachmaninoff.
La Voz de Navarra (26.2.1936) mentions that in Vienna Julius Isserlis (1888 – 1968), a pianist and composer born in Kishinev, Russian Empire (now Chișinău, Republic of Moldova), had marvelled at JB's phenomenal technique, his powerful and beautiful touch, captivating rhythm, and his impeccable performances. Moriz Rosenthal is quoted as describing his superb technique which encompasses everything, and his extraordinary musical gifts. Isserlis had studied composition, under Sergei Taneyev. He arrived in Vienna in 1923 with his wife and son, never to return to the Soviet Union again. In the Austrian capital, he was in touch with other Russian émigrés; Nathan Milstein and Josef Lhévinne are among those known to have visited him during this time. At the Anschluss in 1938, Isserlis, fortuitously, was on tour in Britain. He was granted British residency, and was soon joined there by his wife and son. Isserlis's three grandchildren, Annette, Rachel and Steven, are all professional musicians, the last a famous cellist indeed.
13 March 1936
Teatro Dindurra, Gijón (Asturias), Spain
Mendelssohn, Prelude & Fugue in E minor; Beethoven, 32 Variations on an original theme in C minor, Chopin Sonata No. 3, de Falla, Cubana, Andaluza; Albéniz, El Albaicín; Godowsky, In the streets of old Batavia, Gamelan; Strauss/Godowsky, Fledermaus.
18 March 1936
Filarmónica Ovetense, Oviedo (Asturias), Spain
'Good Latin that he is, Bolet has an extraordinary temperament. He is nimble, graceful...his phrasing is clear, impeccable. He is still young and sometimes too pitiless with the ivories. He evidently has a natural feeling for Spanish music and has penetrated deeply and assimilated the psychology of Albéniz and de Falla.'
La Voz de Asturias, 19 March 1936
21 & 28 [31?] March and 4 April 1936
Teatro Español, Madrid, Spain.
Beethoven, Emperor Concerto, No. 5 Op.73 in E flat major with José María Franco
[Also: Fingal's Cave (Mendelssohn), Honegger's Pastorale d'été, Preludio para un tibor japonés by Julian Bautista (in which the pianist was Aurelio Castrillo)]
Pastorale d’été, H. 31 ("Summer Pastoral"), is a short symphonic poem for chamber orchestra by Arthur Honegger. It was inspired by the composer's vacation in the Swiss alps above Bern in 1920 and first performed on 17 February 1921 at the Salle Gaveau in Paris, conducted by Vladimir Golschmann. On 14 November 1944 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Jorge would make his first appearance with The Cleveland Orchestra under French-American Vladimir Golschmann.
14 July 1936, Jorge arrives in Cuba on the ship Pennsylvania
7 September 1936
Auditorio, Havana for Pro Arte Musical
Recital devoted entirely to Godowsky, including the arrangement of Bach, Cello Suite No.3 in C major, BWV 1009, Chopin/Godowsky Etudes and selections from the Java Suite.
10 September 1936
Miramar Yacht Club, Havana
Beethoven's 32 Variations in C minor, a Godowsky group and Rachmaninoff's second piano concerto with Hellen Metzer on a second piano.
9 December 1936 (age 22)
Casimir Hall, Curtis Institute (Philadelphia), radio broadcast
Bach/Liszt: Fantasy & Fugue in G minor, BWV 542 (S.463ii)
Liszt's Liebestraum, Waldesrauschen, Valse impromptu S.213, and Liszt: Paganini Etude No.3 in G-sharp minor, S.141 No.3 (La Campanella) [in a version with additions by Busoni?]
We are told of recitals/concerts in the Caribbean and in Canada, Mexico, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic during 1936-39
1937-39
9 March 1937
William Penn High School, New Castle County, Delaware
Liszt Concerto No. 1 in E flat; York Symphony/ Louis Vyner
Encores included Le papillon ("The Butterfly"/Mariposa) by Calixa Lavallée
The Gazette & Daily (York, PA.) "Few artists who have appeared with the orchestra have been extended a warmer reception than was given last night to the Cuban pianist Jorge Bolet."
4 April 1937 (Friday)
Casimir Hall, Curtis Institute
Students of Marcel Tabuteau (oboe professor)
Jorge accompanied
8 April 1937
Epworth Methodist Church, Palmyra, NJ
Jorge took past in a students' concert.
Dr. Josef Hofmann gave his annual faculty recital in Casimir Hall on 8 April (including Chopin 24 Preludes).
6 June 1937
Havana
Concert with guitarist Rey de la Torrre and Angel Reyes
9 June 1937
Auditorio, Havana (5:30pm)
Recital including Bach-Busoni Toccata , Adagio, Fugue in D major, Balakirev's Islamey, Liszt Sonata etc.
31 July 1937 (Saturday)
Otsego Lake, NY
In the beautiful setting on the spacious lawn of "The Hawthorne", summer home of the Hon. and Mrs Frank J. Loesch of Chicago and Cooperstown, a production in pantomime by Pathfinders' Lodge (summer camp for girls): Wagner, Die Walküre with JB playing the piano score. The Glimmerglass, 2 August 1937 tells that Jorge explained the story with some musical examples over a public address system
19 October 1937
Casimir Hall, Curtis Institute
Same programme as 27 Oct. 1937
23 October 1937
The Grier School, Birmingham, Pennsylvania
Recital by (among others) JB
Chopin, Fantasie in F minor. Opus 49, Etude in E flat major, Op10, No. 11; Etude in A minor. Opus 25, No. 11; Rachmaninoff, Prelude in G sharp minor.Opus 52, No. 12 Prelude in E flat major. Opus 25, No. 6, Strauss/Godowsky, Fledermaus waltzes
27 October 1937 (Naumburg Prize recital)
Town Hall,123, West 43rd Street, New York City,
Organ Fantasia and Fugue in G minor (Bach-Liszt)
Rondo from the Sonata in D major, Opus 53 [=D850] (Franz Schubert)
Etudes: E flat major, Opus 10, No. 11 , C sharp minor. Opus 10, No. 4/ C sharp minor, Opus 25, No. 7/ A minor, Opus 25, No. 11, Fantasie in F minor, Opus 49 (F.Chopin)
Sonata in B minor (Franz Liszt)
Suggestion diabolique (Serge Prokofiev)
Preludes: E flat major, Opus 23, No. 6 & G sharp minor, Opus 32 (Sergei Rachmaninov)
Waltzes from "Die Fledermaus" (Strauss-Godowsky)
20 October 1937
Radio broadcast (CBS)
Casimir Hall, Curtis including -
Rachmaninoff's G# minor Prelude Op. 32 No.12
9 November 1937
Wm. Penn High School auditorium
A group of piano solos (incl. Chopin Etudes Op.10/4 & 11, Op.25/11), and with orchestra Liszt's "Rhapsodie Espagnole" (orchestrated by Busoni)
York Symphony/Louis Vyner
"Cuba's premier pianist will be staying at the Yorktowne Hotel"
Ferruccio Busoni’s arrangement of Franz Liszt’s Rhapsodie Espagnole (BV B 58) transforms the original 1863 solo piano piece (S.254) into a virtuoso concert piece for piano and orchestra. Written around 1894, this orchestration enhances the Spanish-themed "Folies d'Espagne" and jota aragonesa melodies with richer, dramatic orchestral colors and structural adjustments, including modifications to the opening and the addition of faster, more technical passagework in the piano part.
1938
5 January 1938
Iris Club (founded 1895), Lancaster, Pennsylvania (2:30pm)
Recital (incl. Bach/Busoni, Organ Fantasia & Fugue in G minor, "La Campanella", Chopin Etudes Op.10/4 & 11, Op.25/11)
18 January 1938
Morning Musicale; Garden City Hotel, NY
Anton Bilotti (1906-1963, pianist) had cancelled, on the death of his mother
(as 5 January)
20 January 1938
Musical Arts Club, Lamberton Building auditorium, Carlisle, PA.
with Ellwood Hawkins, baritone (Oscar Eierman accompanied him)
Bach-Liszt, Organ fantasia and fugue in G minor
Schubert, Rondo from the Sonata in D major. Opus 53 [ No.17, D850]
Chopin, Etude in C sharp minor. Opus 10, No4, Etude in E flat major. Opus 10, No. 11, Etude in A minor. Opus 25, No. 1
28 January 1938
College Chapel, Millersville, Pennsylvania
[Sharing a recital with Mario Bereini (singer)/Louis Shub]
Chopin, Fantasy in F minor Op.49; Schubert, Rondo in D major (D.850); Chopin, Etudes Op.10/4 in C sharp minor, Op.10/11 in E flat, Op.25/11 in A minor; Rachmaninoff, Preludes Op32/12 in G sharp minor & Op.23/5 in G minor; Liszt-Busoni, Campanella
4, 5 & 8 February 1938
Academy of Music, Philadelphia
Rachmaninoff, Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op.30
Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy (JB's début with the orchestra)
The concerto had last been played there by the 24 year old Vladimir Horowitz, in February 1928. The composer himself had played it on 6/7 February 1920. Jorge played on a Steinway piano.
13 February 1938
Alpha Delta Phi Hall, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY
(Bach/Liszt, Organ Fantasia & Fugue in G minor, Schubert, Rondo, Chopin, Fantasy in F minor, Liszt Sonata in B minor, 4 etudes by Chopin, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff. One account seems to indicate he replaced one item with Beethoven, Appassionata Op.57)
28 April 1938
Curtis
Students of Marcel Tabuteau, wind professor
Camille Saint-Saens, Caprice sur des airs Danois et Russes, Opus 79
Jorge Bolet, Piano; Martin Fleisher, Oboe
Albert Tipton, Flute; Bernard Portnoy, Clarinet
(31 August 1938, Jorge arrives in Havana on a flight from Miami.)
3 October 1938
First recital by Claudio Arrau in Havana [Gran Teatro de la Habana] on Monday at 5:00 pm, for members of the Sociedad Pro Arte Musical only.
Bach JS: Concierto en estilo italiano
Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Handel op.24
Liszt: Sonata en Si menor (Dedicada a Schumann)
Granados: La maja y el ruiseñor (de Goyescas)
Ravel: Jeux d'eau
Debussy: Danza, Feux d'artifice
He gave a second recital on Wednesday 5th October at 5:30 pm,
Mozart: Sonata in Re mayor KV576
Beethoven: Sonata en Mi bemol op.31 no.3
Mussorgsky: Cuadros de una exposición
Liszt: Juegos acuáticos en la Villa del Este, Funerales, Estudio en Fa
Chopin: Balada en Fa menor
14 October 1938
The Cuban consul in Chattanooga, Tennessee, informed Havana of a recital in the First Baptist Church of the city [as reported in Diario de la Marina 27.10.1938]
Bach-Liszt, Organ Fantasia & Fugue in G minor, Schubert Rondo in D major (D.850), Chopin, Etudes: E flat major, Opus 10, No. 11 , C sharp minor. Opus 10, No. 4, A minor, Opus 25, No. 11, Ballade in G minor Op.23; La Campanella (Liszt-Busoni) etc.
12 December 1938
Congregational Church, Rockland , Maine
1939
Musical America, 10 February 1940, records that during the 1939/40 season in Casimir Hall, Curtis Institute, Philadelphia, Jorge had played Beethoven's Sonata Op.106 in B flat, Hammerklavier. Was this on 19 January 1940 (see below)?
C. David Hocker, who came to prominence as chairman for five years of the Committee for the Youth Concerts of the Philadelphia Orchestra has this season actively entered the field as concert manager and impresario. Among the artists on Mr. Hocker’s roster are: Selma Amansky, soprano; Jorge Bolet, pianist; William Harms, pianist ; Fritz Krueger, tenor ; Elsie MacFarlane, contralto; Barbara Thorne, soprano, and Leonard Treash, bass-baritone. Sylvan Levin, conductor and pianist, and musical director of the Philadelphia Opera Company, is also under Mr. Hocker’s management. (Musical America, 10 February 1939)
31 March 1939
Casimir Hall, Curtis Institute
Claude Debussy (from Préludes I & II), La Puerta del Vino, General Lavine — eccentric, La Terrasse des audiences du clair de lune, La Serenade interrompue; Masques (1904), Mouvement (from Images I)
3 August 1939
Anfiteatro, Havana
Recital, incl. Chopin (Etudes Op10/4 and 12, Op.25/7, Polonaise in A flat Op.53), Bach-Rachmaninoff and Johann Strauss II/Godowsky, Künstlerleben ("An Artist's Life" Op.316)
11 August 1939 [Friday, 5:30pm]
Salón de fiestas, Pro-Arte Musical, Havana (Sociedad de Conciertos; president Rosita Rivacoba de Marcos)
Brahms, César Franck, Debussy, Mendelssohn-Rachmaninoff, Albéniz-Godowsky, Schubert & Schumann
[The audience included Jorge's mother Adelina Tremoleda (widowed), his brother Guillermo, Huberto de Blanck (son of Hubert)and Mrs Amelia Solberg de Hoskinson]
A letter written by Jorge on 18 July 1939 has an address Encarnación159, Santos Suárez, Havana, Cuba
30 October 1939
Radio broadcast from Curtis, 4pm
Brahms, Intermezzi Op. 117 & Beethoven, Sonata No.26 in E-flat major, Op.81a (Les Adieux)
18 December 1939
Auditorio, Havana
Liszt's Concerto No.2 in A Major
Orquesta Filarmónica de la Habana/ Massimo Freccia
(Tickets for sale at the orchestra's offices in the arcade of the Hotel Sevilla Biltmore)
Jorge arrived in Havana (Aeropuerto Arsenal) on a PanAm flight from Miami on 14 December.
20 December 1939
Sala Espadero (on calle Galiano), Havana
Recital for the Sociedad Hubert de Blanck
22 December 1939
CMZ and COX radio stations (Havana) broadcast Liszt's first concerto with Alberto Bolet and the Orquesta Sinfónica de la CMZ; Jorge's "debut radiofónica".
Jorge departed Havana for Miami by air on 6 January 1940
Two recordings from 1937 and 1939 are extant: Ludwig van Beethoven: Quintet in E♭ Major for Piano and Winds, Op. 16 and one of Camille Saint-Saëns: Caprice sur des airs Danois et Russes, Op. 79.
1940-41
Jorge told the Knoxville News-Sentinel in January 1988 that he credits "bad breaks" as the explanation for the lack of bookings and international acclaim, "though he is reluctant to go into detail".
19 January 1940
Casimir Hall, Curtis, Philadelphia
The 4th programme of the ‘Historical Series of Solo and Chamber Music’.
Was this the rare occasion of JB performing Piano Sonata No. 29 in B♭ major, Op. 106 (known as the Große Sonate für das Hammerklavier, or more simply as the Hammerklavier) by Ludwig van Beethoven (1817)?
15 February 1940
Mitchell Hall, University of Delaware (Newark Music Society)
Wind music with piano (John DeLancie, oboe, James King, clarinet etc.)
8 March 1940
Williamsport, Pennsylvania
The 25 year old pianist gave a recital in the lounge of the Covenant Central Church. He was weekend guest of Alfred R. Jackson.
incl. Mendelssohn, Variations serieuses
26 March 1940
Curtis Institute
Recital of Leopold Godowsky's compositions
Passacalia
Composed as a tribute to the memory of Franz Schubert on the eve of the hundredth anniversary of his death. The theme is based on the first eight bars of the Unfinished Symphony
Four selections from Phonoramas (Java Suite):
Gamelan, The gardens of Buitenzorg , Chattering monkeys at the sacred Lake of Wendit , In the streets of old Batavia
Ten studies on Chopin's Etudes:
Opus 25. No. 1 in A flat major, third version
Opus 10, No. 2 in A minor, second version — Ignis Fatuus
Posthumous etude in E major, first version. Originally in A flat major
Opus 2 5, No. 6 in G sharp minor
Opus 25, No. 5 in E minor, first version
Opus 10, No. 5 and Opus 25, No. 9 combined, in G flat major — Badinage
Opus 10, No. 6 in E flat minor for the left hand alone
Opus 10, No. 11 and Opus 2*. No. 3 combined, in F major
Opus 10, No. 7 in G flat major, second version. Originally in C major — Nocturne
Opus 10, No. 7 in C major, first version — Toccata
Triana (transcribed from Albeniz)
Symphonic metamorphosis on theme from the "Artist-Life" waltz of Johann Strauss
15 April 1940
Radio broadcast on WCAX
first, second and fourth movements from Ernest Bloch's Concerto Grosso No.1 [1925] (string orchestra with piano obbligato)
19 April 1940
Curtis Institute
Mozart’s Piano Quintet in E Flat
25 April 1940
High School Auditorium, Hagerstown , Maryland, USA
Grieg Concerto
Hagerstown Symphony Orchestra,Russell Gerhart
[Jorge had been recommended by a fellow pianist friend Jacques Abrams. A note in a local paper also says that he doesn't smoke, and that he had been in Spain, 1936, a bare three months before the Civil War broke out. Thomas ["Tod"] D. Perry Jr., who managed the Boston SO for 32 years, told The Boston Globe in 1978, that he recalled driving Jorge Bolet, who was a student then over to "Hagarstown, New York" (sic) to play the Grieg concerto with the symphony there.'.]
27 April 1940
Faculty Recital, Curtis, 4pm
10 May 1940
Casimir Hall, Curtis, Philadelphia
JB is presented with the Josef Hofmann Award “for the pianist who, over and above his technical proficiency has, in the practice of his art, arrived at spiritual and artistic maturity".
12 July 1940 (postponed to Saturday 13th because of threatening weather)
Robin Hood Dell, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia
Schumann, Concerto in A minor
Philadelphia Orchestra, Alexander Hilsberg
10 October 1940
Cocktail party 5:30pm at the Cuban Embassy, Washington DC, given by Dr Pedro Martinez Fraga, celebrating a Cuban fête day, Grito de Yara, but also a double celebration for the inauguration of Fulgencio Batista as President in Havana. Among the guests will be JB, who is studying in Boston, Mass. (Washington Post, 9.10.1940)
15 October 1940
Casimir Hall, Curtis Institute
Same programme as 29 Oct 1940
18 October 1940
Hamilton College, Clinton, NY
Same programme as 29 Oct 1940
"Despite his youthful appearance he had a mature mastery of the keys". Reception afterwards in Theta Delta Chi House; JB was a friend of Tom E. Colby (Class of 1942) and he stayed overnight in the fraternity house.
22 October 1940
The Stony Brook School, Long Island
25 October 1940
Ornstein School of Music, Philadelphia, PA
Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Debussy, Chopin (as 29th)
[A newspaper report says Jorge was teaching at this school]
29 October 1940 (Hofmann Award recital), aged 25 yrs 11 months
Town Hall, New York City
Including: Schubert's Sonata in A (posthumous = D959?)
Brahms' three Intermezzi, Op. 117
Debussy, Three Preludes: ‘La puerta del vino’, ‘La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune’, ‘General Lavine, eccentric’
Schumann's Études Symphoniques, Op. 13
1941
Musical America (10 March 1941) continues to list JB as on the Faculty of Curtis, as he once said 'in a minor capacity", as well as Rudolf Serkin, and Isabelle Vengerova [+ Mieczyslaw Munz, Jeanne Behrend, Freda Pastor, Eleanor Sokoloff]
9 January 1941
Peabody Institute, Baltimore (benefit for the British War relief Society)
21 or 25 January 1941 (Saturday)
Curtis radio broadcast
Beethoven, Eroica Variations (Variations and Fugue in E flat, Op. 35)
27 March 1941
Roosevelt Auditorium (High School), Altoona, Blair County PA.
Tchaikovsky 1
Altoona Civic Symphony/ Russell Gerhart
13 April 1941 (Easter Day)
During Easter Jorge was in Havana. He gave a command performance at the Palace for the President. Madrid journal RITMO mentions a performance in the Teatro Auditorio (during the season ending May 1941) of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto in B flat minor with Alberto Bolet conducting, which may this occasion.
The reviewer, pianist Julián Orbón, resident in Havana, mentions that the Orquesta Filarmónica de la Habana, "which until recently led a languid existence, performing before a small audience, has been transformed by the creation of the Patronato Pro Música Sinfónica (Board for Symphonic Music), presided over by Sr. D. Agustín Batista, a prominent figure in Havana society, who has managed to attract all this valuable talent, filling the Auditorium Theater in an atmosphere of marked distinction. The conductor, Massimo Freccia, a young Italian musician, led the fifteen concerts of the season, quite successfully in most of them. The repertoire was the usual one, with a noticeable lack of works by the most avant-garde composers..."
24 April 1941
High School Auditorium, Hagerstown , Maryland, USA
Beethoven, Emperor Concerto
Hagerstown Symphony Orchestra/Bart Wirtz
(by request from hundreds of orchestra patrons after last's year's concert)
14 May 1941
Scottish Rite Cathedral of the Masonic Temple, Detroit (first appearance)
Schumann's Symphonic Etudes, Debussy Preludes and Schubert's A major Sonata D959
(Presented by Raymond L. Stover Concert Management)
'He is unversed in the art of nuance, and the various implied qualities in the keyboard seem to have utterly escaped him' Charles Gentry, Detroit Evening News seems to have heard a different programme (Beethoven Appassionata is mentioned)
26 November 1941
Tuckahoe Women's Club at Westhampton College, Richmond, Virgina
Chopin, Etudes Op.10/1, 8 and 12, Op.25/3, Op. posth., in F minor ,Brahms/Handel; Schubert Impromptus Op.90/2 and 3, Debussy Mouvements & Masques, Albéniz, Evocación, El Albaicín, Delibes/Dohnanyi, Naila Waltz
In the Richmond News leader, Helen de Motte spoke of his great promise, but 'on present evidence, he does not play Chopin as well as Albeniz and Debussy. Players of Chopin are born, not made, and in any event they must combine the heroic with subtle emotional responsiveness, which is far removed from either the dynamism of Mr Bolet or the sentimental sweetness of the studios. He will, perhaps, acquire it in time. He apparently has everything else.'
1 December 1941
Strong Vincent Auditorium, Erie, Pennsylvania
Recital for the Soroptomist Club
10 December 1941
Auditorio, Havana
Recital
31 December 1941
Recital at the Presidential Palace, Havana 'after which he is to be decorated, we hear, by President Colonel Batista, no less'.
Mid-1940s
Teatro Principal, Camagüey, Cuba
Recital, as recalled by Manuel Reguera Saumell, Cuban architect, who was a high-school student at the time. [See "Washington début' page]
In September 1941, Rítmo (Madrid) launched its coverage of Cuban music, and noted that JB had performed Tchaikovsky and Schumann concertos with his brother Alberto and the Orquesta Filarmónica de la Habana in the Auditorium, Havana (date?)
1942-3
Musical America notes that various musicians performed in Boston (at the Isabella Stewart Gardner House) during December 1941-August 1942, including Jorge Bolet who made his Boston début.
12 January 1942
Auditorio, Havana
Manuel de Falla, Noches en los jardines de España
Havana Philharmonic/ Massimo Freccia
26 February 1942
The Stony Brook School, Long Island
Recital in aid of the Red Cross
Tchaikovsky 1 with the Headmaster Dr Frank E. Gaebelein on second piano
11 April 1942
Peabody Institute, Baltimore
Recital for various charities and war effort
14 April 1942
Valley Forge Music Center, Devon, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia
(but not in the renowned "theatre-in-the-round" venue which was actually founded in the 1950s)
29 April 1942
George Washington Auditorium, Fredericksburg, Virginia
Recital
(sponsored by Mrs Alexander Gordon, Baltimore)
31 May 1942
Detroit Golf Club
incl. Albeniz's El Albaicin , Debussy Suite (Prelude, Sarabande, Toccata), Chopin Etudes and Dohnanyi’s Waltz from the ballet Naila of Delibes.
Repeated 14 June at Detroit Foundation Music School
19 June 1942
Warren County High School Auditorium, Front Royal, Virginia USA
incl. Schubert Impromptus, Chopin, a suite by Debussy, Albéniz, and the waltz from the ballet “Naila” of Leo Delibes by Ernest Von Dohnanyi
A concert sponsored by the Calvary Episcopal Church of Front Royal. 'Mr. and Mrs. George S. Lux are giving a cocktail party at their home on Blue Ridge Ave. after the Jorge Bolet concert tomorrow night.' (Warren Sentinel 18.6.1942)
Northern Virginia Daily, 20 June 1942: Acclaimed At Recital In Front Royal. An audience of approximately 500 persona, including a number of visitors from foreign countries, enthusiastically acclaimed Jorge Bolet, pianist, who was presented in a program last night in Warren County High School Auditorium by Calvary Episcopal Church of Front Royal and Raymond Fayette Stover. Following the concert program, there was a reception in the parish hull of Calvary Episcopal Church and scores of persons availed themselves of an opportunity to meet the distinguished international pianist. Mr. Bolet and his manager, Mr Stover, were the guests of Mrs Alexander Gordon at Kenmore near Huntley last night. (...) Mrs. Alexander Gordon entertained at a buffet supper on Saturday evening (20th) at “Kenmore” in Rappahannock County, in honor of Mr. Jorge Bolet.
A report in The Windsor Daily Star (2 September 1942) says that JB will teach at the Detroit Foundation Music School for six weeks, staring 9 September.
21 October 1942
Prince Edward Hotel, Windsor, Ontario, Canada
'The most modern number of the evening, Albéniz's El Albaicín, a gypsy bit, was made for him.'
Presented by 'Mr [Raymond] Stover who met Señor Bolet during his travels in Europe some years ago and has presented him in 34 concerts since'.
27 October 1942
Cathedral house, Garden City, Nassau County, Long Island, New York.
Brahms, Intermezzi in A major Op.118 No.1 & in C major Op.119 No.2,
Debussy Suite (Prelude, Sarabande, Toccata),
Albéniz's El Albaicín,
Liszt Valse Impromptu and a Petrarch sonnet
Chopin's 4 scherzos
...and then Jorge's own arrangement of The Star-Spangled Banner.
18 December 1942
Carnegie Hall, NYC (JB's first appearance here since January 1932)
Schubert 2 Impromptus B flat Op. 142/3 E flat Op.90/2,
Chopin 4 Scherzi,
Falla Cubana, Andaluza,
Albeniz El Albaícin,
Godowsky 3 pieces from Java Suite "Phonoramas" (Gamelan, In the Gardens of Buitenzorg & In the Streets of Old Batavia)
'One of the most satisfying and delightful piano recitals it has been my good pleasure lo attend in many naday was the one given by Jorge Bolet at Carnegie Hall on December 18th. Rarely does one see a young artist who really enjoys music, as it was evident that this broad-shouldered young musical giant was enjoying it that
evening. The program was wholly unorthodox and I wished that I might have heard the artist play a Beethoven sonata or a Bach fugue or suite. However, after two pretty and sweetly appealing Schubert Impromptus, came the whole of Chopin's four Scherzi, an assignment that only a pianist of unusual technical and musical powers
would dare tackle. To say that Mr. Bolet did a magnificent job is stating it mildly. I have never heard them better played; seldom as well. The program went on to Godowsky, Albéniz, Debussy and numerous encores. At the close, the pianist seemed as fresh and ready for further playing as though just beginning the recital. One may
safely predict that this fine young artist will have a high future before him. With such superb gifts, he should scale the highest peaks.'
Harrison Wall Johnson, The International Musician, January 1943
1943
12 April 1943
Havana
Rachmaninoff 3
[+Mozart, Symphony No.33 in B flat major, K. 319 & Wagner, Meistersinger overture]
Orquesta Filarmónica de la Habana/Erich Kleiber
'In April, Jorge Bolet, Cuban pianist, will appear as soloist and at the closing concert of the season Bruckner’s Te Deum will be sung py the Philharmonic Chorus.' (Nena Benítez, reporting for Havana to Musical America 10.2.1943)
In Noticias de Hoy, Custodio wrote: 'The final subscription concert of the 1942–43 season marked the pinnacle of maturity for the Havana Philharmonic Orchestra and represented its finest artistic achievement. A young Cuban pianist, Jorge Bolet, played a key role in this brilliant outcome, delivering a splendid performance of Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 3; thus, our finest performers reaped the rewards that could be expected from the presence of such a great conductor in our midst as Erich Kleiber.' {He says it was Mozart 32]
Kleiber's first concert in Havana was on 25 March, with Mischa Elman playing Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. See here for colourful picture of Kleiber's time in Cuba
2 August 1943
Avenida Central 3, Alturas de Almendares, Havana
Recital of Mozart, Schubert, Debussy and Chopin
To commemorate the third anniversary of its founding, the National Confederation of Conservatories and Music Professionals will present on August 2nd in its beautiful halls at Avenida Central No. 3, Alturas de Almendares, the eminent young Cuban pianist Jorge Bolet, and afterwards, the Governing Council will offer a "Ponche of Honour" to its members and the attendees.
20 October 1943
Auditorium, Havana
Recital of Bach, Beethoven Debussy and Chopin (?also Alec Wilder)
It was at the end of this recital that Jorge was awarded the Order of Manuel de Cespedes either by President Fulgencio Batista or by Vice President Dr Gustavo Cuervo Rubio.
Cine Gráfico, a widely circulated Cuban film and entertainment magazine, mentions in October 1943 a Saturday evening recital in the Blanca Sala of the Conservatorio Provincial 'the magic hands of Bolet which will transport us'. The concert is organised by Maria Luisa Bory de Alsina (and? pianist Dulce Maria Serret)
8 November 1943
Edward Little Auditorium, Lewiston, Maine
Jorge is replaced by Czech pianist Rudolf Firkušný (1912-1994), as 'he is now an officer in the Cuban army and therefore unable to fulfil his commitments in this country'. Firkušný, who became an American citizen, was a friend of composer Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959), who emigrated to the United States in 1941, fleeing the German invasion of France. Martinů and his wife Charlotte settled first in Jamaica Estates, Queen, NYC.
29 November 1943
Havana
Beethoven's 3rd piano concerto in C minor
Orquesta Filharmónica de La Habana/José Echániz
10 December 1943
A celebration in honour of the Cuban Republic, La Noche Cubana in the Department of the interior, Washington DC. Jorge Bolet played; Gloria Estevez sang.
16 December 1943
Constitution Hall, Washington DC
Impromptu recital (others performed, too) before a capacity audience of 2,500, as Sigmund Romberg's train hadn't arrived! (Washington Post 17.12.1943)
TheTimes Herald (22.7.1949) reports that Jorge said he begged his name not to be announced as he was in the (Cuban) military. he also had a finger covered instiff bandage after parts of a nail were removed at the Walter Reed.
1944-45
7 February 1944
Carnegie Hall, NYC (3rd appearance)
incl. Debussy and - unusually - Shostakovich Preludes...
Bach, Toccata in D
Mozart, Sonata in F (K. 332)
Schubart, “Wanderer” Fantasie
Debussy, "Danseuses de Delphes", ‘‘Ondine’’, “La Cathédrale Engloutie’’, “‘Feux d'artifice”
Shostakovich, Five Preludes, Op. 34
Liszt, Etudes d’Execution Transcendantes in A Minor, “Feux Follets’’, ‘“‘Wilde Jagd”
The gifted young Cuban, for example, is less attuned to music like the Debussy Preludes which he offered on this program than to Bach or the “Wanderer” Fantasie. The notes are there but the distinctive vibrations of the pieces elude him. But when a pianist is, in the main, so soundly gifted in other respects and his approach to fundamental problems of his art so healthy it is no life and death matter if one province remains somewhat inaccessible to him and not altogether congenial to his sympathies.
Mr. Bolet’s Bach and Mozart were beautifully articulated even if the sonata was, perhaps, not everything one understands by quintessential Mozart. For that exacts a more distinctive type of nuance, a more pronounced and characteristic sensuousness. The performance was well enough so far as it went, but it might have gone farther. The Schubert Fantasie, on the other hand, had just the kind of bravura, the exuberance, the touch now of sentiment and now of hobbledehoy deviltry which the composer, who designed the piece as a war horse for a virtuoso of his day, put into it. Often the work seems dated, clumsy and tiresome. Mr. Bolet caused it to sound like living, vibrant music and made the fugal closing part brilliant and exciting rather than soggy and dull. His whole performance became something close to a re-creation, wholly Viennese—or rather Schubertian—in spirit. (Musical America 10.3.1944)
25 March 1944
ShipsCo Theater (Ships Company Theater), Tidewater, Virginia, 2pm
Harp (Rebecca Wagner), piano and flute (Anthony Winkler). JB played solos and accompanied.
4 March 1944 (11:30am)
Friday Morning Music Club, Washington DC
with Mary Apple, contralto.
30 March 1944
Skidmore College Hall, Saratoga Springs, New York
J.S.Bach, Toccata in D major, BWV 912
Mozart, Sonata in F major K332
Schubert, Wanderer Fantasy Op.15
Debussy, 4 Preludes (Danseuses de Delphes, Ondine, Catedral Engloutie, Feux d'Artifice)
Shostakovich, Preludes Op.34
Chopin, incl. Scherzo No. 2 in B flat minor
Musical America 10 April 1944 notes that Andre Mertens and Horace J. Parmelee, heads of the Haensel & Jones division of Columbia Concerts Inc., announced the addition of Lt. Jorge Bolet, Cuban pianist to their list.
14 April 1944
Pan American Day, Hall of the Americas, Washington DC
Schubert, Impromptu, D. 899, No. 2 in E flat
Chopin, Nocturne in F sharp major, Scherzo in B flat minor
Roberto García Morillo (Argentina, b.1911), Canción triste y Danza alegre
Mozart Camargo Guarnieri (Brazil, 1907-1993), Toada triste
Alberto Ginastera (Argentina, b.1916) 3 Piezas infantiles: Antón Pirulero, Chacarerita, Arroz con leche
The Times Herald (Washington) 29 April 1944 mentions a prospective tour of New Zealand (which presumably did not go ahead).
8 May 1944
Tilghman High School, Paducah, Kentucky
Mozart, Sonata in F major K332; Schubert Wanderer Fantasy, Debussy, Shostakovich, Chopin (inc. B flat minor scherzo)
'Breathless arrival in Paducah this morning. He is appearing here tonight in place of Josef Hofmann who in a huff over losing his Pullman reservation from El Paso to Paducah cancelled his engagement and got into difficulties with his New York booking agency. Anyone who is expecting heavily accented words from this Cuban will be just as heavily disappointed. Though his diction is perfect, he is as American as the boy next door. His favourite composer is Schubert.'
The Paducah Sun 8.5.1944
15 May 1944
Sulgrave Club, Washington DC
Lieut. Jorge Bolet, attache at the Cuban Embassy and a well-known pianist, will give a piano recital at the Sulgrave Club Monday evening at 8:30. [The Sulgrave Club is a private women's club located at 1801 Massachusetts Avenue NW on the east side of Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C.]
19 May 1944
Presidential Room of the Statler Hotel, Washington, D.C
'Jorge Bolet of the Cuban Army and Pfc. [Private First Class] Erno Valasek [24 year old violinist from Cleveland] of the United States Army Air Forces Band this evening.' Fior the benefit of the American Red Cross.
Featured will be Raymond Gram Swing's Fantasia quasi una sonata. Present will be Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt, Mrs Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, the Cuban Ambassador Aurelio F. Concheso and Señora de Concheso, Count and Countess Stefan Adam Zamoyski. (Count Zamoyski served as an aide-de-camp to Polish Prime Minister-in-exile Wladislaw Sikorski in London during WW2.)
22 May 1944
Stony Brook School, Long Island, NY
Recital in aid of United China Relief
7 July 1944
Washington D.C.
Tchaikovsky 1
Watergate Symphony/Antal Dorati
[Australian/American pianist & composer Percy Grainger (1882-1961) also appeared this season (21 June-11 July). Grainger was born on 8 July 1882 in Brighton, south-east of Melbourne, Australia]
11 July 1944
Fort Belvoir, United States Army installation, Fairfax County, Virginia,
Recital for soldiers
4 October 1944
Masonic Temple
Scranton Philharmonic/Frieder Weissmann
As an artist of Jewish descent, Weissmann left Germany in June 1933 for the Netherlands. This was followed by six-month stays - alternating with the Netherlands - in Argentina from 1934 to 1937, where he gave concerts in Buenos Aires Radio Splendid and at the Teatro Colón. It was also in Buenos Aires that Weissmann, who had acquired Argentinian citizenship in 1935, married his second wife Rosita Chevallier-Boutell in 1937. As successor to Artur Rodziński, he took over the direction of the Orquesta Filarmónica de La Habana in Havana, Cuba, from 1950 to 1953. He died in Amsterdam, Holland. Moriz Rosenthal recorded Chopin's first concerto for Parlophon in Berlin (1930-31) with Frieder Weissmann (1893-1984) and the Orchester der Staatsoper Berlin.
See here for further information
4 November 1944
Teatro Nacional, Havana
Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto No. 1 in B♭ minor, Op. 23 with Erich Leinsdorf in aid of victims of a cyclone
8 November, 1944
El Crisol reports that the microphones of Havana radio station Circuito CMQ broadcast Jorge in a programme with the radio's own symphony orchestra conducted by his brother Alberto. Items by Debussy, Chopin, Liszt and Beethoven (one of which must have been a concerto with orchestra).
The radio station was heard on the clear channel frequency of 640 AM, with a power of 50,000 watts, making it audible around the Caribbean and Southern United States at night. The company was founded on March 12, 1933, by Miguel Gabriel and Ángel Cambó. At the time of the broadcast, the CMQ 640 radio studios were located on Calle Monte, on the corner of Paseo del Prado.
14 November 1944
Civic Auditorium, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Opus 18
This was Jorge's first appearance with The Cleveland Orchestra which was on tour (under French-American Vladimir Golschmann, who had worked with the Scottish Orchestra - now the Royal Scottish National Orchestra - in Glasgow and Edinburgh, 1928-30)
An unusual number on the programme was three dances from Grétry's ballet, Cephalus and Procris (Versailles, 1773).
‘My last visit to Cuba was in November 1944. I gave a concert in the Auditorio and another in the Teatro Nacional, for the benefit of the victims of the cyclone. Then I was 2nd Lieutenant in the Cuban Army. I had a contract with Columbia Artists. 15 concerts in the USA for 1944/5, a tour of 30 concerts in Australia and New Zealand for the spring of 1945/6. [There are no reports in Australian newspapers of this tour so it probably did not go ahead.]
28 November 1944
Junior High School, Fort Collins, Colorado
Haydn, Andante & Variations in F minor, Hob.XVII:6 (Un Piccolo Divertimento); Beethoven Appassionata, Ravel, Lecuona etc.; encores incl. Finale from dello Joio's second sonata.
1 December 1944
City Auditorium, Denver, Colorado
Schumann Concerto and a group of Latin American compositions
[+ three interludes from Roy Harris's "Folk-Song Symphony", No.4 (1939), in the presence of the composer]
Denver Symphony/Frank Allers
As featured soloist, Lt. Jorge Bolet, Cuban pianist, won enthusiastic applause from the large audience. His brittle, and often powerful style of performance is eminently suited to the group of South American works he played in the second portion of the program. These included ‘“Cancion triste y Danza alegre” by Morillo, “Toada Triste” by Guarnieri, and Ginastera’s ‘“Piezas infantiles.” The added number was a brilliant display of speed, energetic drive and clarity. Bolet’s performance of Schumann’s Concerto in A Minor indicated thorough study, but the work’s romantic sweep and lyrical expressiveness were lacking.
(Rocky Mountain News)
8 December 1944
Carnegie Hall, NYC (4th appearance)
incl. Bach’s French Suite No. 6 in E Major, BWV 817 (very unusual)
Brahms/Handel variations
Norman Dello Joio’s second sonata (the composer was present)
Chopin’s G minor Ballade
Maurice Ravel, Le tombeau de Couperin (1914-1917)
At some point in 1944, JB recorded for Lira Panamericana (location unknown):
Bach: Toccata in D major, BWV 912
Mozart: Rondo in D major, K.485
Chasins: Fantasy on two themes from Weinberger’s opera Schwanda the Bagpiper
Liszt: 12 Études d’exécution transcendante, S.139
2. Etude in A minor
5. Feux Follets
8. Wilde Jagd
1945
Musical America (1.10.1945): The frontier of American concert activity will shortly be pushed to Alaska by the organization of nonprofit membership concert associations there by Community Concert Service, a division of Columbia Concerts, announced Ward French, president of Community Concerts and vicepresident of Columbia Concerts at the closing session of the 15th annual organization conference. He also revealed that as part of Columbia Concerts’ program for the creation of new markets for American singers and instrumentalists in Latin America, Community Concert Service has already undertaken to train representatives from several Latin-American countries in the operational methods of the service. This work is being carried forward in collaboration with Andre Mertens, director of the South American and Mexican Division of the corporation, who made a survey tour of several Latin-American countries last Summer to determine the best means of facilitating an exchange of artists between North and South America. Beginning May 1, concerts will be given in Latin-American countries on a modification of the Community plan, Mr. French said, and will be presented under the auspices of the local managers who are now being trained in the United States in American concert management methods by Columbia Concerts.
Two of the Latin-American representatives, Mme. Ninon de Brower, of the Dominican Republic, founder and president of the Circulo de Bellas Artes, leading musical organization of her country; and Rosita Arguello, representative of the government of El Salvador, attended all sessions of the conference. A modified plan of the Community Concerts kind, which has been applied in Central and South America and the Caribbean area under the name of INTARIN, a derivative of Intercambio Artistico Internacional, founded in 1945.
During the conference the organization directors were entertained by the executives of Columbia Concerts and many Columbia Concerts artists including Lt. Jorge Bolet, Nadine Conner, Donald Dame, Sascha Gorodnitzki, Alexander Kipnis, Erica Morini and James Melton.
In February 1946, Musical America added: INTARIN, which was put into working practice only a year ago, has justified the elaborate arrangements that went into it by the first successful tours of five American concert artists —Emery Darcy, Todd Duncan, William Primrose, Bruna Castagna and Jesus Maria Sanrcma—who gave 120 performances in 22 Latin-American cities, ending in October of 1945. This newly-organized circuit which took in the large cities on a direct route in Mexico, Guatemala, San Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Curacao, Trinidad, Ecuador, Peru and Chile provided a new international field that welcomed American talent. Careful laid groundwork of this tour by Mr. Mertens and Dr. Myron Schaeffer, the musicologist and former director of Folklore Research at Inter-American University, Panama, liaison officer between Columbia Concerts and Latin-American countries which was accomplished entirely by plane, resulted in sold-out houses; improved travelling conditions by continuous tour, and a chance to bring back to this country something of the music and color of the republics to the south. So successful was the two-fold plan which was to give North American artists a chance to become acquainted with the peoples and culture of the Latin American countries and an opporturiity for the Latin American audiences to hear the best talent the United States has to offer, that a second INTARIN tour is now under way.
23 January 1945
McAlister Auditorium, New Orleans, Louisiana
Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto No. 1 in B♭ minor, Op. 23
New Orleans Symphony and Massimo Freccia
(Roy Harris, Overture on "When Johnny Comes Marching Home", Villa Lobos, O Trenzinho do Caipira (Bachianas Brasileiras No.2), First [?] Cuban Suite, by Alejandro Garcia Caturla.
Harris's Overture was first performed by Eugene Ormandy conducting the Minneapolis Symphony in 1935.)
The Times-Picayune, New Orleans (23.1.1945) quotes JB as saying he will be inducted into the US Navy on 30 January, though later says he hopes to be assigned as a seaman - in the end he went into the army.
29 January 1945
First Methodist Church, Marion, Indiana
recital
As JB has decided to join the US Navy, he is replaced by Sascha Gorodnitzki (b. 1904, Kyiv). Further concerts seem to be cancelled e.g. Scranton Philharmonic on 12 March (JB is replaced by Solveig Lunde)
12 March 1945
Scranton, Pennsylvania
Scranton Philharmonic/Frieder Weissmann
(JB is replaced by Solveig Lunde)
17 March 1945, Spartanburg, South Carolina: Jorge becomes a US citizen.
1 April 1945
USO [United Service Organization] Club, North Church Street, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Recital
[Private Jorge Bolet is stationed at Camp Croft]
9 April 1945 (advertised)
Suffolk, Virginia, USA
28 June 1945
Main Service Club, Camp Croft, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Recital by Private Bolet
29 July 1945
Service Club No. 1, Benning, Columbus, Georgia
Recital
Jorge is in the 29th Company, 3rd STR [=Special Troops Regiment?]
Further recitals at Fort Benning on 19 August, 7 October, 1 November 1945
The exact date of the end of World War Two is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 15 August 1945 (V-J Day), rather than with the formal surrender of Japan on 2 September 1945, which officially ended the war in Asia.
1946-47
In 1946 Jorge Bolet was sent as Second Lieutenant in the Army of Occupation to Japan. In which month?
24 May 1946 (age 31)
Ernie Pyle Theatre (*now the Tokyo Takarazuka Theatre, Yurakucho, Chiyoda ward, originally founded in 1914)
Recital by Hungarian violinist Fery Lorant and Jorge Bolet
César Franck's A major Sonata; also Transylvanian Dances by Bartók, Chanson Louis XIII et Pacane by Couperin, and Up the Canyon from Rocky Mounatain Sketches by Cecil Burleigh (1885-1980).
31 July 1946
Hibiya Hall, Tokyo, Japan
Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18
Nippon [later NHK] Philharmonic/ Józef Rosenstock
Schumann, Beethoven 4 and Liszt 2 concertos were also played during this time. These were mentioned in The Japan Times, but are not listed in the current NHK online archive.
His name evolved in spelling during later visits:
1976 Visit: ホルヘ・ボレー (Horuhe Borē)
1988 Visit: ホルヘ・ボレット (Horuhe Boretto)
August 1946
Ernie Pyle Theatre
Jorge conducted performance of The Mikado
13 performances in Nagoya, Kyoto and Osaka were advertised, but did not take place
The Daily Oklahoman (27 August 1946) reports that on Tuesday 27 August Jorge left Tokyo by plane for the United States. His present home is New York City. *View discharge record.
After his discharge in September 1946, Bolet began to tour Mexico, Central America, the West Indies and South America. The tour began on 22 September 1946 and would keep him busy until mid-December. He had been flown back from Japan at the request of Columbia Concerts.
[7 or 9 October 1946 ]?
"George" Bolet
Radio nacional La Voz de Guatemala 8:30-9pm
A recital on radio
Late1946 [?]
'I met Jorge Bolet in Mexico, in the sumptuous Metropolitan [a hotel or the Cathedral in the zócalo?] the night of the concert with which the Orquesta Sinfónica de México made its contribution to the festivities of the transfer of power [this no doubt refers to the election of 7 July 1946, but as stated above, Jorge began his tour of Central America on 22 September of that year]. 'A handshake, a repetition of the ritual phrase "How have you been?" and the subsequent comments in hushed tones (we weren't in Cuba) about the programme, about the orchestra, and about its conductor, the talented and intemperate Carlos Chávez, about his Sinfonia India, and about a lovely work of Silvestre Revueltas [1899-1940] which we had heard.'
(Francisco Ichaso, Diario de la Marina 10 January 1947)
1947
17 January 1947
Auditorio, Havana
Recital
Mozart's Fantasy & Fugue in C major, Beethoven's Les Adieux, Franck's Prelude Choral and Fugue, a suite (1940) by Norman dello Joio and his Prelude For A Young Musician (1944); Liszt's Mephisto Waltz.
[On 20 & 22 January, American soprano Regina Resnik and Swedish heldentenor Set Svanholm gave a joint recital in Havana]
29 January 1947
Teatro Capitolio [1925; on Calle Arzobispo Meriño], Ciudad Trujillo (present day Santo Domingo), Dominican Republic
(programme as 17 Jan 1947)
Manuel Valldeperes write: 'In a concert sponsored by INTARIN, Cuban pianist Jorge Bolet made his debut before our audience yesterday. The select audience that attended the recital immediately realised that this was not an ordinary concert pianist, but a genuine musician with impeccable execution and brilliant sound.
Jorge Bolet has thoroughly studied Chopin's work, so prone to capricious interpretations, and has extracted from it all its musical value. The emotion he managed to convey in these four Studies should not be attributed solely to his impeccable execution, technical excellence, and the clarity and purity of the sound, but to the emotional beauty of the phrasing.'
*See Blanco Delgado Malagon, Vida Musical En Santo Domingo 1940-1965 (Santo Domingo, 1998), 241-2
11 February 1947
Lyceum Lawn Tennis Club, Havana
The A major sonata of Schubert and Franck's Quintet in F minor with Carlos Agostini, Francisco Cao, Luisa Rueda and Roger Dugad
Columbia Concerts and Sociedad Musical Daniel announce a season [March 1947- February 1948 ] including Jorge Bolet, Tito Schipa etc. (La Nacion, Costa Rica 7 January 1947)
Tickets can be bought at the Antigua Botica Francesa, "una farmacia histórica e icónica en San José, Costa Rica, ubicada en la esquina suroeste del Parque Central (Avenida 4 y Calle 2).'
February/March [?] 1947
Aula Magna, National University, Havana, Cuba
Schubert, Sonata in A major D959, Chopin (incl. Impromptus & Sonata No. 3 Op.58 in B minor)
3 March 1947
Auditorio, Havana
Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18
[+Verdi, Sicilian Vespers overture; Tchaikovsky 4]
Orquesta Filarmonica de la Habana/ Erich Kleiber ["el maestro de maestros"]
The Gazette and Daily (York, PA., 2 June 1947) reported that Jorge 'recently retuned from a Latin American tour which took him as far south as Guatemala and included a 10-week radio engagement in Mexico City.' Havana newspapers note that it's been a while since JB played with the orchestra. Jorge returned to the USA on 4 March.
16 March 1947
L'Ermitage, Collège de Montréal, Canada at the corner of Côte-des-Neiges Road & Doctor Penfield Avenue. 8-8:30pm radio broadcast (live) on CBC in their Latin American transmission. See 25 August.
30 April 1947
McMillin Academic Theatre, Columbia University, NYC.
The Composers’ Forum, directed by Ashley Pettis, presented compositions by Norman Dello Joio and Normand Lockwood, under sponsorship of the Music Division of the New York Public Library and the Music Department of Columbia University. Participants included JB.
The Gazette & Daily (York, PA.) 2 June 1947 states that Jorge has recently returned from a Latin American tour ''which took him as far south as Guatemala and included a ten-week radio engagement in Mexico City". 5 recorded programmes for CBC to short-wave transmission to South America.
On 4 December 1949, the San Angelo Standard (Texas) states that 'Bolet had presented 12 half-hour radio programs from Mexico City with the symphony under Jose Sabre Marroquin.'
15 July 1947
Water Gate Concerts, on the Potomac at Lincoln Memorial, DC
Grieg, Piano Concerto in A minor
National Symphony Orchestra/Francis Madeira (30 yr old founder of the Rhode Island Philharmonic)
25 August 1947
A broadcast recital from L'Ermitage, Montreal, Quebec, Canada (first appearance in the city)
Haydn, Andante & Variations in F minor, Hob.XVII:6 (Un Piccolo Divertimento); 3 Chopin works, 2 Intermezzi and a Caprice by Brahms and Mendelssohn's Rondo Capriccioso
13 October 1947
Carnegie Hall, NYC (5th appearance)
incl. Norman dello Joio's Third Sonata, Mozart's Fantasy & Fugue in C major, Beethoven's Les Adieux, Aleksandr Tcherepnin, Bagatelles...
During his absence in the Army Jorge Bolet has developed into one of the finest pianists now before the public. This development is no less gratifying because, from the Cuban artist's earlier achievements, it might have been foreseen. At any rate his return to the local platform at Carnegie Hall on Oct. 13 was an event not easily to be forgotten.
The audience which filled the place was privileged to hear at least two performances that might very nearly be said to have made history. Certainly it is long since any young artist has approached the conception Mr. 3olet achieved and carried of Beethoven’s Les Adieux Sonata. And he prefaced this with an absolutely monumental revelation of Mozart’s grandiose Fantasia and Fugue in C (K. 394), which is one of the finest fruits of Mozart’s deep studies of Bach and Handel at the period of his close friendship with the Baron Van Swieten. It was playing of extraordinary virility and power, consummate in its grasp of big architectures, spacious and illuminating. As for the magnificently integrated reading of the Beethoven sonata, in which the smallest detail filled its logical place in the design, it forever was one calculated to silence anyone who holds this work for a lesser creation of its composer. It united a profoundly moving emotional grasp with a plastic beauty of extraordinary modelling. If Mr. Bolet had done nothing but this alone, his recital would have gained a high distinction.
The evening offered, however, much else that was superlatively eloquent. Hardly second to his Beethoven and his Mozart were the pianist’s search ing, poetic and passionate treatment of five of the numbers from Brahms’ Op. 116—the two D Minor Capriccios, the one in G Minor and the Intermezzi in A Minor and E Major. Then cam a Chopin group, consisting of the Impromptus in F Sharp, A Flat and G Flat, of which the last-named proved one of the irradiated peaks of the occasion. Mr. Bolet’s Chopin is, to be sure, a fundamentally “healthy” Chopin which rather understresses the morbi dessa of certain pages and does not anxiously cultivate the subtlest mezzotints. But as strong, large-scale Cho pin it is, beyond question, masterful.
The last part of the program slumped musically, though the artist’s technical command and imaginative sympathies remained undiminished. He undertook a recently completed Sonata (No, 3) by Norman Dello Joio not yet heard in this city. The composer could hardly have wished a better performance. Of the four movements the first —a theme with five mildly interesting variations—was the best, the remaining sections either negligible or out right exasperating. The composer acknowledged the applause from his box. Ten trivial Bagatelles by A. Tcherepnine lengthened the program needlessly and Prokofieff’s Toccata gave chance to exhibit the fingers and the more aspects of his virtuosity. (Musical America)
1 November 1947
Salinas High School, Monterey, California
5 November 1947
Twin Falls, Idaho
Cancelled (Mr Bolet has been taken ill and has cancelled all his engagements with Columbia Concerts, South Idaho Press, 4.11.1947))
10 November 1947
Shasta Union High School, Redding, California
Cancelled
12 November 1947
Salinas Union High School, Salinas, California
Miss Hilde Somer, 25 year old Viennese pianist, won the hearts of a Salinas audience last night both with her playing and with her friendly stage manner. The audience was quite certain that Miss Somer was a more than adequate substitute for Jorge Bolet, Cuban born performer, whose appearance here was cancelled because of illness. Miss Somer had only 24 hours notice in New York to take over Bolet's tour and has been plagued with transportation troubles. She was expected to arrive at 2:30 o'clock yesterday afternoon from San Francisco and instead, arrived at 8:30 o'clock from Los Angeles because of a routing mistake. Her first number, Sonata in E Minor, by Beethoven is one of the lesser known numbers which may perhaps have accounted for a cool audience reception. The remainder of her program, however, was exceptionally well received. The Chopin group, Polonaise, D minor Nocturne, C-Sharp minor and Polonaise, A-flat major, were especially beautiful. She played Etude by Chopin as an encore. After the intermission she introduced a number by Smetana Etude de concert which she said was being played for the first time in California. Other numbers in this group were Danza Triste, Granados and The Girl With the Flaxen Hair and Toccata by Debussy. Her final group was two Liszt selections, Sonetto del Petrarca, No. 104 and Venezia e Napoli (Tarantella). Miss Somer was very generous with her encores, playing Prelude by Gershwin, Toccata by Khatchaturian. Dance of the Red Cape by Guarino and Brahms Valse (The Californian, Salinas 13.11.1947)
17 November 1947
Newport Beach, Orange County, California
26 November 1947 (moved to 29)
Roseburg, Orgeon
incl. Brahms Op.116/1 & 7, Beethoven, Les Adieux, Liszt Mephisto Waltz, Chopin, 4 Impromtus, Schubert-Godowsky "Rosamunde", Debussy, Masques L.105
Jorge Bolet has been released from hospital and will make this date, having had to cancel all his early autumn dates in Wyoming and Idaho
2 December 1947
Central Washington College, Ellensburg, Washington State
4 December 1947
Kennewick High School Auditorium
Pasco-Kennewick Community Concert Assoc., Washington State.
Recital
'His next concert takes him to Boise, Idaho.'
8 December 1947
Boise, Idaho
1948-9
16 January 1948
Royal Oak High School, South Oakland Community Concert Series, Oakland, California
(replacing an ill artist)
21 Janaury 1948
Peru, Indiana
Recital - as 26 Nov. 1947 (replacing Brazilian pianist Yara Bernette)
23 January 1948
Memorial Hall, Carthage, Missouri
Recital (replacing Ms Bernette)
'Mr Bolet departed somewhat from the conventional interpretation of the Chopin numbers, but the result was refreshing. Only the inflexibility of railway timetables prevented the playing of additional encores, for which the audience clamoured.'Carthage Evening News
26 January 1948
High School, Berwick, PA.
31 January 1948
Jordan High School, Columbus, Georgia
Grieg Concerto
St Louis Sinfonietta/ Paul Schreiber
JB was interviewed on local morning radio on 2 February by Maureen Moon. That evening he was guest of Mr and Mrs Bass Lewis at their home in Peacock Woods, where he played informally among beautiful arrangements of crimson gladioli and pink begonias.
10 February 1948
High School, Nebraska City, Nebraska
Recital - as 26 Nov. 1947
JB arrived that morning on the Eagle and was staying at the Hotel Grand. He found the town comparatively warm after the minus 45 degrees of his previous concert in Morris, Minnesota. A Steinway was brought from Omaha, but only expected to arrive 4pm on the day (Tuesday). Six High School boys and girls will be ushers. Electricity failed during the Mephisto waltz but JB played on in the darkness, not missing a note. less than an hour after his recital closes he will board a bus for Omaha and catch the City of Denver streamliner for Colorado where he will play four town within the next week or so. (Nebraska City News)
15 February 1948
Walsenburg, Colorado
16 February 1948
Glenwood Springs, Colorado
18 February 1948
Central Auditorium, Monte Vista, Rio Grande County, Colorado
23 February 1948
Carlisle gymnasium, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
Grieg, Concerto in A minor
St Louis Sinfonietta/ Paul Schreiber
Three encores, including Saint-Saëns' Studying the Form of a Waltz (sic)
25 February 1948
City Hall, Deming, New Mexico
27 February 1948
High School, Williams, Arizona
Recital
His Chopin was described as music in technicolour, and one audience member said his rapid runs over the keys were "like chiffon". Many local pianists commented on the unusual pedalling and marvelled at the beautiful effects produced.
5 March 1948
E.E.Bass Auditorium, Greenville, Mississippi
8 March 1948
Birmingham, Alabama
10 March 1948
Rádio Roquette-Pinto, a historic Brazilian public radio station based in Rio de Janeiro (founded in 1923 by Edgar Roquette-Pinto), broadcast recordings of JB playing Bach Toccata in D major, Debussy, Danseuses de Delphes, Liszt, étude in A minor [No.2 of Transcendental Etudes?], Feux Follets, Wilde Jagd.
10 March 1948
High School Auditorium, Waycross, Ware County, Georgia
incl. Beethoven, Les Adieux Op.81a; Brahms, Capriccios Op/116/1 & 7; Chopin, 4 Impromptus, Debussy, Masques, Saint-Saëns, Study in the form of a waltz.
15 March
City High School auditorium, Dothan, Alabama
Recital - still as 27 Nov. 1947
The USA concerts now seem to end here until the autumn.
6 April 1948
Auditorio, Havana: recital
Jorge had been touring in Cuba - Cienfuegos and Santa Clara are mentioned. If he was in also Camagüey on this tour, then a young Cuban schoolboy [Manuel Reguera Saumell, architect] heard him, an occasion he recalled in 2022. This Havana recital was organised by the Sociedad de Amigos de la Música, from which tickets could be bought at Calles 23 & G, beside the Cine Riviera. Claudio Arrau appeared on 31 March under the same auspices. Arrau would afterwards play on 2nd April in the Teatro Bolívar of Medellín (Colombia), then in [?] Cartagena de Indias on Colombia's northern coast before moving on to Recife, Brazil (Teatro Santa Isabel, 16 April) etc.
April 1948
Diario de la Marina (21.5.1948) mentions that Jorge departs for New York that day for the United States after a short visit to Cuba. As well as Havan, he had also performed in Cienfuegos and Santa Clara. He will be in Mexico in July.
JB seems to have been engaged to give concerts in Bogotá, Colombia during an Inter-American conference in April 1948 but these had to be cancelled due to the political situation.
27 May 1948
Teatro Riviera, Havana.
Claudio Arrau, violinist Ginette Noveau and and the Hungarian Miklos Gafni ('a sensational tenor, discovered in a Czechoslovakian [Polish?] concentration camp') - among others - took part.
July 1948
Mexico?
The Sioux City Journal 26 September announces JB is back in the USA after tours of Canada and Latin America
14 October 1948
The University Field House, Fayetteville, Arkansas
20 October 1948
St Francis auditorium, Santa Fe, New Mexico
incl. Mendelssohn, Rondo Capriccioso
Schubert, Sonata in A minor Op.143,D.784
Chopin, Berceuse, Ballade No.1 in G minor Op.23
Beethoven, Rondo in C, Op.51/1
Debussy, Albéniz [El Albaicín] Mendelssohn-Rachmaninoff Scherzo, and Saint-Saëns
"Despite the unkind weather, St Francis was jammed."
27 October 1948
Santa Maria Theater, Santa Maria, California
3 November 1948
High School, Santa Ana, California
4 November 1948
Citrus Union High School, Azusa/Glendora, California,
Programme as 24 Oct. 1948
8 November 1948
High School auditorium, Reedley, Sequoia, California
Recital
"Mr Bolet presented a program of music written by the masters the great names in music from Beethoven to Debussy' He did not do - as some concert artists do - yield to the wishes of listeners and offer selections of a semi-popular nature, and it is a tribute to his artistry that this lapse apparently was forgotten by the audience and he was called back for three encore selections." [Reedley Exponent, 11 November 1948]
10 November 1948
Washington Union High School, Fresno, California (and the following evening 11th in Livermore, the easternmost city in the San Francisco Bay area)
"Away from the cultural centers, we nevertheless had one of the world’s great artists right in our own back yard, and the audience was grateful and appreciative of this opportunity of hearing the best. The popular Chopin “Ballade in G Minor” was roundly applauded as was the Mendelssohn “Rondo capriccioso.” Perhaps some in the audience were disappointed that the pianist failed to play some of the more spectacular favorites, but it must be remembered that a Lizst rhapsody is not needed to prove a pianist’s mastery of his instrument. Bolet showed this In his rendition of the Debussy preludes—delicate as gossamer and leaving an atmosphere of elusiveness and mystery." Washington Township News, 12.11.1948
13 November 1948
Burlinghame, San Mateo, California
A terrific gas explosion tonight wrecked the boiler room in the basement of Burlingame high school imperiling more than 200 local residents gathered in the school auditorium for a concert. Fire department spokesmen said the blast apparently occurred when Janitor Leo Barreta, about 50, of San Bruno, ignited accumulated gas fumes when he attempted to light the boilers. The blast, which virtually demolished the basement boiler room, rocked the entire building and sent the upstairs crowd rushbig to safety.The crowd, of music lovers was gathered for a concert by pianist Jorge Bolet under the auspices of the Community Concert Association.
Press Democrat, 14.11.1948
17 November 1948
Sierra Madre, California
22 November 1948
Orpheum Theater, Sioux City, Iowa
Schumann Concerto in A minor
[two items, Weinberger/Chasins, "Schwanda the Bagpiper"and "Molly on the shore, an Irish reel" by Percy Grainger were orchestral, though in one advert I thought they were solo items and that I could add a new item to JB's repertoire]
Sioux City Symphony/ Leo Kucinki
24 November, 1948
Foothill, Azusa (at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains and located 20 miles/32 km east of downtown Los Angeles), as part of the Sierra Madre Community Concerts. A capacity audience of 'over 500 persons. Holders of student tickets, particularly filled the balcony section.
3 December 1948
Carnegie Hall, NYC
The programme of his 6th appearance here included: Beethoven's Rondo Op. 51/1 in C, Schubert's A minor Sonata D.748, Prokofiev's Sonata No. 8 in B flat major Op. 84, Chopin's Ballade in G minor Op.23, Berceuse, and a Saint-Saëns Waltz.
'The pyrotechnics of the Prokofieff sonata were easily within Mr. Bolet’s command. He was not satisfied, however, to remain on the surface of the work, but imbued it with a rhythmic savagery which made its brassy measures sound more impressive than they usually do. To pass from this athletic work to the gossamer texture of Chopin’s Berceuse was something of a tour de force. He even managed to do interesting things to the Ballade in G minor.' (Musical America)
However, it was in the Prokofiev Sonata No. 8, Op. 84, that he really came into his own. His and Prokofiev’s styles click like two sides of a zipper. Bolet’s clarity, his incisiveness, was meant for such a work as this Sonata. His percussive quality was indispensable to the Al- legro passages. And then in the Andante sognando he could make Prokofiev sound innocent and tender. There was stir and beauty, all the more touching for the surrounding glitter. One senses that here a composer is being presented whole, and truly. (...) Bolet is best, we decided, in his ability to identify him-self with composers of the special characteristics, the ones that call for the more unusual treatment. Many modernists, we should suppose, look at him with expectancy and hope. I have a feeling he will not let them down.' (International Musician)
Prokofiev completed the sonata in 1944 and dedicated it to his partner Mira Mendelson, who later became his second wife. The sonata was first performed on 30 December 1944, in Moscow, by Emil Gilels. In the brief movement [Andante sognando in D flat major], Prokofiev uses a theme from his then unperformed melodramatic adaptation of Eugene Onegin.
7 December 1948
Municipal Auditorium, New Orleans
Gershwin, Piano Concerto in F/ Rhapsody in Blue
(JB's first public performance of the composer)
New Orleans Symphony/ Massimo Freccia
1949
5 January 1949
Detroit Town Hall, Fisher Theater (11am)
12 January 1949
High School, Keyser, West Virginia
24 January 1949
Majestic Theatre, Corner Brook, Newfoundland (Canada)
Including Beethoven, Rondo in C major, Op.51/1, Albéniz and Lecuona. 'He will leave on 26th for Grand Falls and other Newfoundland towns.'
27 January 1949
Town Hall, Grand Falls-Windsor, Newfoundland, Canada
incl. Beethoven, Rondo in C major, Op.51/1,, Schubert, Sonata in A minor [D784], Dhopin, Berceuse, Ballade [G minor?], Mendelssohn, Rondo capriccioso, Scherzo (MND, arr. Rachmaninoff...
3 February 1949
Citrus Union High School, Azusa/Glendora, California
9 February 1949
Jordan High School, Columbus, Georgia
Programme as 20 October 1948
JB arrived by air from New York on the 8th (Tuesday). On Thursday he will play a free concert for the Warm Springs Foundation. He will return to New York form there. Special tickets are being made available for Fort Benning personnel. At a reception at the home of the McPhersons, guests got a taste of Ravel's Concerto for the Left Hand which JB will play in Boston.
March 1949
Diario de la Marina (29.8.1948) says Jorge, que es orgullo de Cuba ["the pride of Cuba"], is scheduled to perform in March 1949 for the Sociedad "Amigos de la Música" in Havana. This probably turns out to be the concert in April 1949, below.
11 March 1949
Teatro Degollado, Guadalajara, Mexico
Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue
Guadalajara Symphony Orchestra/ Leslie Hodge
Dr Hodge was Australian-born (Albany, Western Australia, c.1914). He took his post-graduate degree in music from the University of Melbourne before emigrating to the USA. During World War II, he joined the Navy as an apprentice seaman and participated in four invasions of Italy and the Murmansk supply run to Russia. The Guadalajara Symphony Orchestra was ;ater renamed Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco; Hodge held the post 1945-1950. Guadalajara was at this time (and still is) the second largest city of Mexico.
14 March 1949
Masonic Temple, Scranton, PA.
Liszt, Concerto No. 2 in A major
Scranton Philharmonic/ Frieder Weissmann
16 March 1949
Senior High School, Uniontown, Pennsylvania
c.25 March 1949
Syria Mosque, Pittsburgh
Bolet replaced Vladimir Horowitz ["a slight indisposition"], for two of three performances of Rachmaninoff's third concerto.
Pittsburgh Symphony/Lorin Maazel - a pupil of Vladimir B. - was conducting Prokofiev's Classical Symphony, but it is said that Vladimir Bakaleinikoff would conduct the Rachmaninoff in an advert.
28 March, 1949
Penn Yan Junior High School, Penn Yan, NY
Beethoven, Rondo in C major, Op.51/1, Schubert, Sonata in A minor Op.143 [=No.14, D.784], Chopin, Ballade No.1, Berceuse, Scherzo No.2 in B flat minor, Debussy Preludes, Mendelssohn incl. Scherzo from "Midsummer Night's Dream" (arr. Rachmaninoff), Camille Saint-Saëns, Etude in the form of a Waltz, Albéniz (El Albaicín) and Lecuona.
Penn Yan in Yates County NY lies at the north end of the east branch of Keuka Lake, one of the Finger Lakes.
5 April 1949
First Methodist Church, Marion, Indiana
18 April 1949
Sebring High School, Tampa, Florida
23 April 1949
Davis Gymnasium, Lewisburg, PA.
25 April 1949
Auditorio, Havana
Schumann concerto [+Gluck's Iphigeneia in Aulis overture, Tchaikovsky 5 and R. Strauss, Der Rosenkavalier suite]
Orquesta Filarmónica de Havana/Eugen Szenkar (1891-1977, Hungarian-German-Brazilian)
Huberto de Blanck [son of Hubert; there were five sons, Guillermo "Willy", Huberto, Armando, Florencio, Narciso; and a daughter, Rosario] reported in Musical Courier (July 1949) that this was a special concert, given for the benefit of the orchestra's pension fund. He also mentions that 'the young Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan had made his first bow s conductor in Havana this season'.
In 1939, Szenkar had been invited as guest conductor at the Theatro Municipal of Rio de Janeiro. The beginning of World War II kept him in Brazil, where he and a few colleagues founded the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra in 1940, which he led until 1948.
27 April 1949
Havana (for the Sociedad Amigos de la Música)
incl. Piano Sonata in A minor, D 784 (Schubert) and Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 8 in B♭ major, Op. 84.
Two encores, Adiós a Cuba (Ignacio Cervantes) and a dance by Lecuona
We are told in a newspaper report that Jorge will make his first appearance in the Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City.
17 May 1949
Teatro Sauto, Matanzas, Cuba
Beethoven, Rondo in C Op.51/1, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Debussy, Mendelssohn-Rachmaninoff, Saint-Saëns; two encores, Adiós a Cuba (Ignacio Cervantes) and a dance by Lecuona.
The review says that after the Beethoven, the audience reception was not courteous and polite but "an explosion". Jorge's mother was present. The reviewer Manolo Jarquín also noticed in one of the boxes an austere figure of romantic charm, Hortensia María Aranguren de Guiteras (1874–1963), wearing authentic Chantilly lace and a triple row of pearls. She was married to the distinguished Cuban physician Gregorio María Guiteras (1863–1934), a member of the renowned Guiteras family of Matanzas.
Musical America, May 1949: 'After presenting three concerts in the Dominican Republic, Jorge Bolet appeared with the Havana Symphony in five performances.'
22 July 1949
Watergate, Washington, DC
Franck, Symphonic Variations, Liszt 1
National Symphony Orchestra/ Howard Mitchell
Concert took place along the Potomac by the Arlington Bridge, 8000 in the audience. 15 aircraft roared by in the skies during the concert, reports The Baltimore Sun.
For conductor Howard Mitchell, see 5 February 1932
18, 20 October 1949
Havana, Cuba
[Vladimir Horowitz performed here on 6, 9 December]
In 1949, Artur Rodzinski (1892- 1958, a Polish music director of the Cleveland Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic in the 1930s and 1940s) heard Bolet in Havana (possibly at recitals on 18 and 20 October, 1949). He introduced him to the Greek conductor, resident in America, Dimitri Mitropoulos (1896-1960) and the New York Philharmonic.
4 November 1949
Greenport, (a waterfront village on) Long Island, New York
Easter Suffolk Community Concert Association
10 November 1949
High School, Washington Court House, Ohio
14 November 1949
C.K.Preuss auditorium, Decorah, Iowa
(replacing Albert Spalding, violinist)
17 November 1949
Salida, Chaffee County, Colorado
"Jorge Bolet thrilled the large crowd that packed the high school auditorium. with his superb artistry.Joseph Haydn's "Andante with Variations", Sonata tn D minor, Opus 31. No. 2, by Beethoven, Chopin, four Etudes were followed by Scherzo No. 3 in C sharp minor. Opus 39. Songs Without Words" by Felix Mendelssohn- "These aged and well loved themes were perhaps the most popular of all the numbers in the Bolet Salida concert, and his encore responses were most generous. "Fledermaus Waltzes" by Godowsky was an especially appreciated number for Salidans. Bolet has studied under Godowsky and his Interpretation of the Maestro’s waltzes Is from a manuscript that has not been published[?]"
19 November 1949
Stake Tabernacle, Brigham City (Box Elder County), Utah.
Recital incl.Haydn's Andante & Variations in F minor, Hob.XVII:6 (Un Piccolo Divertimento), Beethoven's Tempest, Chopin
21 November 1949
G. Walter Monroe Auditorium, Canoga Park, Los Angeles, CA.
West Valley Community Concert in the High School auditorium
'He played to an audience as responsive to his handsome good looks and dramatic manner as to the ease and artistry of his music. His program was mainly Chopin and Mendelssohn though he opened with a Haydn selection followed by the Beethoven Sonata in D minor. The final number on his program was “Fledermaus Waltzes” an interesting choice for a piano concert for the waltzes are usually done by a full orchestra. The tall dark-haired pianist was enthusiastically applauded and returned to favor the gathering with three encores: "Elegy for the Left Hand" by Godowsky was his first encore then the ever popular “Minute Waltz” and Bolet climaxed his appearance with a Latin American number he called “And the Nigger Danced”[Ernesto Lecuona] a selection with all of the color and rhythm of his native country." (Merced Express)
22 November 1949
Merced Community Concert Association, Merced, California
Programme as 8 Dec.1949
28 November 1949
Victoria, Texas
recital (date changed to 28th, so Jorge could make the Pittsburgh concerts in December)
2- 4 December 1949
Rachmaninoff 2
Syria Mosque, Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh Symphony/ Vladimir Bakaleinikoff
On 4 December 1949, the San Angelo Standard (Texas) states that 'Bolet come to San Angelo from a seven-month tour of Latin America and Canada. He performed with Erich Kleiber and the Havana Philharmonic and presented 12 half-hour radio programs from Mexico City with the symphony under Jose Sabre Marroquin.'
8 December 1949
Municipal Auditorium, San Angelo, TX.
Recital to include Beethoven, Op31/2 Tempest and Strauss/Godowsky Fledermaus.
The audience, according to the San Angelo Evening Standard (9.12.1949) was "entertained, if not throughly enchanted" - finding Bolet a little cold for their Texan tastes, though they loved the Chopin and the Strauss! The Mendelssohn group of Songs Without Words was thought over-long.
12 December 1949
Dallas Symphony under Walter Hendl: Rachmaninoff's Third Concerto
(This was his Dallas début and it led to Jorge being re-engaged for 27 March 1950)
'Mr. Hendl also conducted the Overture to Smetana’s The Bartered Bride, Enesco’s First Romanian Rhapsody, and Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler, in which the orchestra played with an unusually luscious tone.' Musical America (1.1.1950)
1950-51
5 January 1950 (at 11am)
Fisher Theater, Town Hall, Detroit , Michigan
10 January 1950
Municipal Auditorium, New Orleans, Louisiana
Prokofiev, Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 16
New Orleans Symphony & Massimo Freccia
JB's first public performance of the concerto, in an interview with the Times-Picayune (10.1.1950). He had heard it a few years ago, played by Abbey Simon and had rushed out to buy the score but found to his dismay that it was out of print. Simon had photostats of it form The New York Public Library, obtained at considerable expense. But then Jorge found out in 1948 that it had been republished. Orchestral scores were quite scarce, but one arrived from London a month ago. Maestro Freccia's score is annotated in Russian and the players are reading from hand copies. He is a guest of Fred Bultman Jr, 1525, Louisiana.
12 January 1950
First Baptist Church, Clanton, Alabama
25 January 1950
Memorial Auditorium, Wauseon, Fulton County, Ohio
Recital
1 February 1950
Ritz Carlton Hotel, New York City
75th birthday of violinist Fritz Kreisler.Bolet played piano selections, ‘pinch-hitting’ for Claudio Arrau who was unable to make plane connections to get to the dinner on time.
?-11 February 1950
Havana, Cuba [Havana Philharmonic]
Caracas, Venezuela
According to Diario de la Marina, Jorge departed Havana for the USA on the 11th. He had stayed in the capital after 3 successful recitals in Caracas for the Sociedad de Conciertos. The paper also mentions that JB met Koussevitzky in Havana.
15 February 1950
Constitution Hall, Washington, DC
Rachmaninoff 3 with Howard Mitchell [=Hindemith's Mathis de Maler Symphony]
Fresh from an engagement (3 concerts) in Caracas, Venezuela - mostly likely in the Teatro Municipal, Jorge had flown back on February 14. Jorge was covering for Byron Janis who was ill. Afterwards, a buffet supper courtesy of Mr and Mrs James Pomeroy Hendrick. Hendrick (1901-1990) had begun his government service
in 1941, as a civilian assistant to the Secretary of War, Robert Patterson, and rose to the rank of colonel. From 1946 to 1948, he was the State Department advisor to Eleanor Roosevelt. In that capacity, he contributed to the creation of the United Nations Children’s Fund and to drafting the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Christian Johansson notes: '[The Rachmaninoff] was privately recorded on acetates and has some brief gaps during the side shifts. This is the only known recording of Bolet playing the original cadenza for this concerto.'
10 March 1950
Recital with Thelma Altman, soprano
Witherspoon Hall Auditorium, Walnut/Juniper Streets, Philadelphia
12 March 1950
Hillsboro, Illinois
27 March 1950
Fair Park Auditorium, Dallas, Texas (a benefit for Girlstown, sponsored bv Delta Rho Delta)
Liszt 1 and Franck Variations Symphoniques
Dallas SO/ Walter Hendl
5 April 1950
Marion, Indiana
25 April 1950
Carson Auditorium, The Stony Brook School, Long Island NY.
Haydn, Chopin, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Strauss-Godowsky.
Jorge flew to Cuba on 6 May.
7 May, 1950 (Sunday morning recital)
Teatro Nacional, Havana
Recital incl. Beethoven's Sonata in D minor ("Tempest"?), Franck, Prelude, Chorale et Fugue & some Mendelssohn, ending with Strauss/Godowsky "El Murciélago"(Fledermaus Waltzes)
*A spirited review by Nena Benitez, noting significant developments in JB's playing
20 May 1950: Howard Mitchell announces that two young American pianists Jorge Bolet and Wild have been signed up for three year contracts with the National Symphony. One solo appearance each in the winter season.
18 June 1950
Concert for the 150th birthday of the city of Washington, DC. 'Cuba sent Bolet as one of its representatives.' Is this the July 11 concert?
11 July 1950
Fifth Gala Sesquicentennial Watergate Concert, for city's 150th birthday
Rachmaninoff, concerto No. 2 in C minor
The Brazilian composer Walter Burle Marx conducted Bolet
15, 16 July 1950
Grant Park, Chicago, IL.
Schumann Concerto
Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto No. 1 in B♭ minor, Op. 23
Nicolai Malko and the Grant Park Symphony orchestra
(First Chicago appearance or Grant Park, Chicago début?)
5 August 1950
Berkshire Music Festival, Tanglewood, Massachusetts.
Prokofiev, Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 16
October 1950
Teatro San Jorge/Teatro de Colón (?), Bogotá, Colombia
(Sociedad de los Amigos de la Música)
*Advertised, but it looks as if he didn't appear, to judge by a handwritten note beside his name in one of the programmes.
3 November 1950
Ed Landreth Auditorium, Fort Worth, Texas
Recital incl. Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes and Weinberger/Chasins’ Schwanda the Bagpiper polka
(Under the auspices of the Junior League and the TCU School of Fine Arts)
7 November 1950
Cine Victoria/ Victoria Theater, Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua (Mexico)
Recital
9 November 1950
Mercedes High School, Mercedes, Texas: recital
Mozart, Mendelssohn, Chopin Barcarolle, 2 Polonaises (C sharp minor & C minor), Ballade in F minor, Liszt Concert Studies, Schwanda Fantasy
12 November 1950 (Sunday, 3:30pm)
Convention Hall, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Franck, Tchaikovsky 1
Tulsa Philharmonic/ H. Arthur Brown
Jorge arrived on Friday and there were various performance for nuns, convalescent handicapped children, boys' homes and piano students from Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas. Reception in the Mayo Hotel after Sunday's concert; the hotel (1925) was a 19-story building in the Sullivanesque, Art Deco style of a Chicago schoolhouse. Boasting a base of two-story Doric columns with a terra cotta facade accented by stone etchings, it soon garnered buzz as the tallest building in Oklahoma at the time.
14 November 1950
San Jacinto High School, Houston, Texas.
Schubert Sonata in B flat D960, Scwanda the Bagpiper, Chopin Polonaises & Ballade No.4
Anne Holmes of the Houston Chronicle was not too impressed. Works involving pyrotechnics came as something of a relief to "an incredibly monotonous performance" of the Schubert. "Even his more fiery offerings that they had been well memorised and practised carefully just that way." Hubert Roussel, Houston Post: 'We think of the Cuban, as having no lack of romantic imagination and temperament. These were the very qualities that I failed to discern. He gave some of the most distressingly literal, unimaginative and told her the restrictive interpretations I have heard from many a concert performer in many a trip to the hall.
15 November 1950
Fine Arts Auditorium, Natchitoches (Louisiana).
Incl. Chopin's Barcarolle, Schumann's Symphonic Etudes and the Schwanda Fantasy.
October 1950
Teatro Colón, Bogotá (Colombia)?
19 December 1950
Dinner in honour of Dr Frank E. Gaebelein, Keystone Rome, Hotel Statler, a famous 2,200-room hotel located at 401 Seventh Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, across from Penn Station and Madison Square Garden. JB played.
1951
New York Philharmonic début in March 1951
21, 22 January 1951
Romanian conductor Sergiu Celibidache was in Havana, conducing the Orquesta Filarmónica
On 29 January, Jorge arrived from New York in Havana
4/5 February 1951
Teatro Auditorium, Havana
Rachmaninoff 2
Orquesta Filarmónica de la Habana/ Eric Simon (or Jean Morel)
The 1950-51 season also included recitals in Cienfuegos (?in the Teatro Tomás Terry) and Santa Clara
11 February 1951
Constitution Hall, Washington DC
Tchaikovsky 1
National Philharmonic/ Howard Mitchell
27 February 1951
Universalist Church, Maine, USA
3 March 1951
Carnegie Hall, NYC
Prokofiev, Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 16
[+Stravinsky, Petrushka; Mozart, Suite from Idomeneo, K.366, arr. Ferruccio Busoni]
New York Philharmonic/Dimitri Mitropoulos
(Jorge's début with the New York Philharmonic. Isaac Stern had performed Bach and Dvorak on Thursday/Friday, and Jorge played on the Saturday. The New York World-Telegram and Sun [Louis Biancolli]: 'Cuban Spectacular in Piano Concerto. One of the season's most spectacular concerto readings highlighted Saturday night's programme. It takes a fiendish technique and nerves of steel to accommodate it. Mr Bolet ripped though it like two Horowitzes and four Rubinsteins rolled into one. The rhythms plunged ahead like cavalcades, with Mr Bolet's hands going mad... Mr Mitropoulos lashed the orchestra into a frenzied excitement that never let up for even a moment's peace.'
12 March 1951
John F Carson Memorial Hall, The Stony Brook School
Recital, benefit for the Suffolk Museum
17 March 1951
Davis Gymnasium, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA.
Mozart, Rondo in D major K485, Chopin, Barcarolle & Ballade No.4, Norman dello Joio, Sonata No. 3 (1947), Schwanda the Bagpiper etc.
3 April 1951
Carnegie Hall: recital
Beethoven, Tempest Sonata Op31/2 of Beethoven and Schumann’s Concerto without orchestra Op. 14, Franck’s Prelude, Choral and Fugue, de Falla’s Cubana and Andaluza.
After this, his 8th performance in the hall, Bolet was not to perform in the city for the next five years (4 December 1956).
12 April 1951
Auditorium, Havana
Repeated his Carnegie Hall recital of 3 April
It is this recital to which Huberto de Blanck (son of Hubert) likely refers when he writes in Musical Courier (June 1951): 'Under the continued leadership of its founder, Mary McCarthy de Gomez Cueto, the Sociedad Amigos de la Musica is providing concerts of outstanding merits. Mia Slavenska’s Ballet Variante opened the season. Dorothy Maynor, soprano, and Henryk Szeryng, violinist; played remarkable recitals and the Cuban Jorge Bolet performed one of the finest piano programs of the year.' [Heifetz and Milstein had also appeared this season]
As well as JB's mother, there were present from the family *Dulce Maria Loynaz Castro de Bolet, Marie D'Apud de Bolet.
*?Dulce María Loynaz Muñoz (Havana, Cuba; 1902 –1997) was a Cuban poet, considered one of the principal figures of Cuban literature.
22 April (10:45am) and Monday 23 (9:30pm)
Auditorio, Havana
Brahms, Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat Op.83 [+Brahms Symphony No.1 in C minor]
Orquesta Filarmónica de La Habana and Frieder Weissmann
In the audience was María Dolores "Mary" Tarrero-Serrano de Prio (1924 – 2010), a Cuban politician who was the First Lady of Cuba from 1948 to 1952. She was the second wife of Cuban President Carlos Prío Socarrás, who was overthrown by Fulgencio Batista in the 1952 Cuban coup d'état.
5 May 1951
Florence, Alabama
12 May 1951
Convention Hall, Philadelphia
Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue
Philadelphia Orchestra/ Eugene Ormandy
25 July 1951
Summer Prom, Public Auditorium [500, Lakeside Ave], Cleveland, Ohio
Liszt, Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major (Jorge also played Camargo Guarnieri, Toada Triste and Lecuona's Afro-Cuban Dances)
Cleveland Orchestra and Rudolph Ringwall
29 July 1951
Summer concert with the Chautauqua SO under Franco Autori, NewYork
Brahms, Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat Op.83
5 August 1951
Tanglewood, Massachusetts
Prokofiev, Second Piano Concerto [Guarnieri, Symph. No. 2 (advertised, not played?) + Mussorgsky, Pictures]
Boston Symphony under Brazilian maestro Eleazar de Carvalho (whom Julian Seaman of The (Toledo, Ohio) Blade found pedantic)
8 October 1951
Community Concert, Freeport
(as 10 Dec.1951)
Freeport is a village in the town of Hempstead, in Nassau County, on the South Shore of Long Island, in New York state
12 October 1951
Christ Church, Methodist; Glen Falls, NY
(as 10 Dec.1951)
Two particular encores added were movements from a suite by Abram Chasins, "Dancing Bagpipes" & "Tricky Trumpet" (from Piano Playtime [1951]), hot off the press.
14 October 1951
George Wythe, high school auditorium, Wytheville, Virginia
15 October 1951
Hazelton, PA.
(as 10 Dec.1951)
24 October 1951
Wytheville,
29 October 1951
High School auditorium, Decatur, Alabama
(as 10 Dec.1951)
5 November 1951
Junior HIgh, Fort Smith, Arkansas
11 November 1951
Northrop Memorial Auditorium [?], Minneapolis, Minnesota
Tchaikovsky, Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor Op.23
Twilight Concert with the Minneapolis Orchestra/ Antál Dorati
15 November 1951
United Church, Leamington, Ontario (Canada)
Community Concert recital (one of only four the town has each year)
18 November 1951
University City Senior High School, University City, St Louis, Missouri
20 November 1951
Consistory, Bloomington, Illinois
Recital
25 November 1951
McFarlin Memorial Auditorium on the Southern Methodist University campus, Dallas
Beethoven, Concerto No. 4 in G major Op.58 [+Bartok, Concerto for Orchestra]
Dallas Symphony/Walter Hendl
28 November 1951
Constitution Hall, Washington DC
Beethoven, Concerto No. 4 in G major Op.58
Glenn Dillard Gunn was not impressed. Bolet's preoccupation with bravura quite contradicted the traditions of poetry and restraint...By contrast one was reminded of Dame Myra Hess a few seasons back, or Artur Schnabel's luminous performance or Mme. teresa Careño, as great as any. Then there was Bolet's own teacher (sic), Josef Hofmann who never was guilty of bad taste in this work.
6/7 December 1951
Orchestra Hall, Chicago
Chicago Symphony/ Rafael Kubelik
Gershwin, Concerto in F
"Kubelik muddles Gershwin and Strauss" tells you all you need to know about Claudia Cassidy's review for the Chicago Tribune
Louis O. Palmer noted: 'Mr. Kubelik seemed to find [the concerto] mildly distasteful, and Jorge Bolet, the soloist, was on his own most of the time in trying to inject vitality into a rather lifeless score.'
10 December 1951
Jackson High School, Michigan
Beethoven (Andante favori), Franck, Brahms, Intermezzo in C Op.119/3, Rhapsody in E flat Op.119/4; Chopin incl. Ballade No.3, Weinberger/Chasins Schwanda
'No Horowitz is he for brilliance, and no Ania Dorfmann for technique, nevertheless Bolet stands on the threshold of greatness. He can hardly escape in years to come.' William J Swank, Jackson Citizen Patriot
11 December 1951
Bloomington, Illinois
29 December 1951
Municipal Auditorium, San Antonio, Texas
Rachmaninoff, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini Op.43
San Antonio Symphony/Victor Alessandro
JB's début with this orchestra, for which he received a tremendous ovation, with much foot-stomping, not heard thus far in the season.
1952-53
Comments in newspapers are now using the phrase "much re-engaged" and occasionally "the fiery Cuban". I am being a little more selective in choosing which concerts to include as the newspapers are much fuller now.
"He is no more the Cuban stereotype than, say, Anthony Eden" (John Bustin, Austin, Texas)
"This year Mr Bolet is playing the greatest number of concerts of any pianist with Columbia Artists - 75 in one season."
The Star-News, Wilmington, North Carolina (20 February, 1952).
Sun Dial (Virginia), 2 March 1961, in referring to the biopic of Liszt's life, mentions the soundtrack by the Danish pianist Jorge Bolet.
It was in 1952 that Jorge made his first commercial recording (in Boston, Massachusetts) for Boston Records | Airs of Spain:
Lecuona: Danzas Afro-Cubanas
3. …y la Negra Bailaba!
4. Danza de los Ñañigos
Granados: Spanish Dance in E minor, Op.37 No.5 (Andaluza)
de Falla: Cuatro Piezas Españolas, G.37
4. Andaluza
2. Cubana
Albéniz: Preludio (Asturias), Op.232 No.1 (from Cantos de España); Malagueña, Op.165 No.3 (from España); Córdoba, Op.232 No.4 (from Cantos de España)
5 January 1952??
Municipal Auditorium, San Antonio, Texas
Rachmaninoff, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini Op.43 (JB's debut with this orchestra)
San Antonio Symphony/Victor Alessandro
11 January 1952
Peabody Institute, Baltimore, 4pm
Schubert, Wanderer Fantasy, Beethoven Tempest, Chopin Preludes
14 January 1952
Wadesboro, North Carolina
15 January 1952
Carolina theater, Orangeburg, South Carolina
(arriving with his own caravan/Baldwin in tow; programme as 17 Jan.1952)
17 January 1952
New Hanover High School, Wilmington, North Carolina
Beethoven, Andante [favori] in F major
Brahms, Intermezzo Op.119/3 in C major
Brahms, Rhapsody Op.119/4 in E flat major
Chopin, 7 Preludes; Ballade No. 3 in A flat
Franck, Prelude, Chorale and Fugue
Kreisler/Rachmaninoff, Liebesleid
Weinberger/Chasins, Schwanda the Bagpiper
23 January 1952
Ridgewood High School Ridgewood, New Jersey
He 'took the audience by storm' and Abram Chasins, present in the audience, was called to the platform for a bow.
29 January 1952
Kilgore High School Texas
31 January 1952
Ada, Oklahoma
After which he left early on Friday morning for Las Vegas (New Mexico).
A frequent encore is Scriabin's Nocturne for the Left Hand, Op. 9 (unless this is confused with the Godowsky elegy...)
1 February 1952
Peabody Institute, Baltimore
Recital
4 February 1951
Ilfield Auditorium, Las Vegas. New Mexico
(programme as 17 Jan.1952)
6 February 1952
Holbrook, Arizona
12 February 1952
Mesa College Auditorium, Grand Junction, Colorado
Audience of around 1,100 people
27 February 1952
Fox Theater, Spokane, Washington State
(programme as 17 Jan.1952)
The Spokesman-Review noted that his Chopin is more virile than one usually hears. (Again Scriabin's Nocturne for the Left Hand is mentioned as an encore]
1 March 1952
High School auditorium, Dillon, Montana
4 March 1952
Junior High, Lewistown, Montana
6 March, 1952
Omak Chronicle reports on a recital in Okanogan, Washington State.
'[Jorge Bolet] received baskets of flowers, a boutonnière which the Nelson Florist Shop presented to him and a box of beautifully gift-wrapped Okanagan apples from the local high school girls. In the Schwanda fantasy [Weinberger/ Abram Chasins], ‘he ripped through it like two Horowitzes and four Rubinsteins rolled into one.'
[8 March 1952]
Lewiston, Idaho
[11 March 1952]
Walla Walla, Washington
17 March 1952
Mount Shasta High School, Southern Siskiyou Community Concert, Siskiyou, Ca.
21 March 1952
Petaluma High School, Petaluma, California
Beethoven Andante in F major, Brahms, Intermezzo in C Major, Rhapsody in E Flat major.
"In this latter work, one of the last he wrote, Brahms really let himself go, and Bolet gave it a highly emotional, ecstatic performance. The pianist has the weight to get a big 'tone without pounding, so that his forte passages were never muddy, or percussive."
7 Preludes of Chopin: 11 in B major (vivace), 12 in G sharp minor (presto). 15 in D flat major, 23 in F major, 21 in B flat major (cantabile) 24 in D minor (allegro appasionato), Ballades No.3 in A flat major; Cesar Franck Prelude, Chorale and Fugue, Kreisler/Rachmaninoff Liebesleid and the Abram Chasins "Schwanda Fantasy."
"And he said he had fallen in love with Petaluma, and that he would like to live here. He had already won the admiration and respect of his audience by his playing, but that earned him their devotion."
Duncan M. Olmstead, Petaluma Argus. Fritz Pumphrey added a few days later that Bolet was really serious and had begun negotiations to purchase a lot in Petaluma.
24 March 1952
Redwood City, Oakland, California
Recital
[1 April 1952]
Laguna Beach, California
3 April 1952
Temple of Music, Tucson (Arizona)
(programme as 17 Jan. 1952)
He played in Tucson again on 13 April 1953 and 26 February 1958
JB mage gracious reference to the manager of the Saturday Morning Musical Club Mrs Elizabeth Healy who had helped to launch his career many years ago.
(Guy Thackary, Tucson Citizen)
5 April 1952
Gallup, New Mexico
7 April 1952
Civic Auditorium, Los Alamos, New Mexico
14 April 1952
Carl Godwin Auditorium, West Orange, Texas
Recital
4 May 1952
University Musical Society, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Beethoven’s fourth piano concerto in G major with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Thor Johnson. (Also Walton's Belshazzar's Feast) The First Lady of Brazilian Piano, Guiomar Novaes, was indisposed and JB replaced her.
Musical America notes: Sunday, May 4, was another heavenly day, with perfect festival weather bringing out all the bright blossoms and pastel frocks, making Ann Arbor a fairyland, and that JB was new to this festival.
24 August 1952
Lewis Auditorium, Lake Geneva campus, George Williams College, Rockford, Illinois
A tour of Canada, October 1952
Bolet toured Canada ("with his 9 foot Baldwin") in the autumn of 1952
27 September 1952
High School auditorium, St John, New Brunswick, Canada
(incl. Liszt Sonata in B minor, 4 pieces from Schumann's Fantasiestücke, Debussy preludes
6 October 1952, Théâtre Cartier, Montréal
(recital as 27 Sept. 1952)
Gilles Boyer in La Voix de Shawinigan 10 Oct 1952 claims this is Jorge's first tour of Canada.
He didn't feel that the Minute Waltz of Chopin gained much in Godowsky's transcription, but 'le "Cygne" de Saint-Saëns, autre transcription de Godowski, choque moins.'
8 October 1952
Centre Paroissial Thetford Mines, south-central Quebec
13 October 1952
War Memorial auditorium, Holyoke, Massachussetts
15 October 1952
Westfield High School, Springfields, MASS.
19 October 1952
Municipal Auditorium, Sioux City, Iowa
Benny Goodman, Percy Grainger etc.?? Or separately?
Sioux City Symphony
23 October 1952
High School auditorium, Chambersburg, PA
A review of Mr. Bolet’s 1951-52 season is indicative of the high place he has won for himself in the music world. It comprised of over sixty engagements across the continent and back and included summer performances with the orchestras of Cleveland, Chautauqua, and Boston at Tanglewood; and winter engagements with the symphonies of Minneapolis, Dallas, Washington, Chicago and San Antonio. (The Wilson Billboard, 17.10.1952)
28 October 1952
Blackstone High School auditorium, Blackstone, VA
Liszt, Sonata; Schumann, Fantasy in C...
Courier Record, 10 October 1952: 'Immediately following the concert on October 28th, the Association will hold a reception to which all members are invited. This affair will be given in the Blackstone High Street USO [=United Service Organizations] and already a committee Is at work preparing to make this reception a gala follow-up to the spectacular performance which it is known that Mr. Bolet will give. W. C. Crawley, president of the local association has received a letter of acceptance from Mr. Bolet who is now on a concert tour of Canada and Nova Scotia. As a good will gesture on the part of the Southslde Association a group of enlisted personel from nearby Camp Pickett is being Invited to hear Jorge Bolet.
29 October 1952
Clinton Andrews Memorial Hall, Meriden, Connecticut
31 October 1952
Newport,Virginia
3 November 1952
Limestone College, Gaffney, South Carolina
6 November 1952
Vidalia High School, Vidalia, Georgia
11 November 1952
Centro Asturiano, Tampa, Florida
Beethoven (Andante favori), Mendelssohn, Liszt (sonata), Granados, De Falla, Albéniz, Debussy, Saint-Saëns; encores by Lecuona and Ignacio Cervantes.
For this, JB's first appearance in Tampa, his mother flew in from Havana. After the piano had been set up, heaters were set up so that the damp of the climate would not ruin its tuning.
17 November 1952
City Coliseum, Austin, Texas
Austin SO/ Ezra Rachlin
17 or 25 November 1952
San Pedro Playhouse, San Antonio, Texas
San Pedro Springs Park, named in 1709 by Spanish missionaries, is the second-oldest public park in the United States. As a faithful replication of the Old Market House constructed in 1858 and razed in 1925 for a river channel bypass, the Playhouse boasts a neo-classic facade that hearkens to San Antonio's frontier days.
1 December 1952
High School, Sikeston, Missouri
2 December 1952
High School, Mt Vernon, Illinois
[123 miles from Sikeston]
1953
In August 1953, a newspaper announced: JB has travelled 45,000 miles, giving 67 concerts in 38 states during the last 12 months. Tex Compton was the "bad-weather" driver. Going up a hill in Connecticut once, the wheels came off the wagon carrying the piano, but the instrument was undamaged. One review in the 1950s by Ronald C. Teare notes of the 9 foot Baldwin that "it is the only time in the memory of those to whom we spoke that an instrument of that size had ever been placed on the high school stage".
2, 3 January 1953
War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco
Bolet made his San Francisco debut with Prokofiev's second piano concerto
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra / Erich Leinsdorf
His first performance anywhere was on 10 January 1950 in New Orleans. In this 1953 concert, Ildebrando Pizzetti's Rondò Veneziano was performed.
9, 10 January 1953 [Friday 2:15pm, Saturday 8:30]
Music Hall, Cincinnati (début with the orchestra)
Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 3
Cincinnati Symphony/ Thor Johnson
Musical Courier: Jorge Bolet, the Cuban pianist’s, Cincinnati debut on Jan. 9, made a remarkable impression in this musically informed community. When he had concluded the Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto, the traditionally staid and cool-gloved Friday matinee audience demanded numerous recalls to the platform and shouted “bravos.” Mr. Bolet’s technique is not only formidable; it serves a deeper artistic purpose. There are good reasons why the third Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto is not as popular as his second—its texture is often thick, and it seems padded in spots. But Mr. Bolet made it credible. Certainly -he played it better than it has been done hereabouts in many a day. (Louis John Johnson)
13, 14 January 1953
Fair Park High auditorium, Shreveport Symphony, Louisiana
Rachmaninoff, No. 2 in C minor Op.18
Shreveport Symphony/John Shenaut
'Mr Shenaut was founding Music Director of the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra, conducting the first concert at Byrd High School Auditorium on November 9, 1948. He led the orchestra for an astonishing 33 years, building it from scratch into a well respected ensemble.'
17 January 1953
Oklahoma City University auditorium, Oklahoma City
(recital as 27 Sept. 1952)
19 January 1953??
Municipal Auditorium, Charleston, West Virginia
Liszt Sonata
3 February 1953
Teatro Municipal, Caracas, Venezuela
Concerts in honour of José Martí (b.1853), who is considered a Cuban national hero because of his role in the liberation of his country from Spain.
Beethoven [Andante favori ?], Brahms [Intermezzo Op.119 No. 3 in C , Rhapsody Op.118 No. 4 in E flat] , Liszt's Sonata & Mephisto Waltz, Chopin [7 Preludes & Ballade No. 3 in. A flat] and Rachmaninoff
6 February 1953
Teatro Municipal, Caracas, Venezuela
Schumann, Concerto
Rachmaninoff, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
Orquesta Sinfónica Venezuela/ Ángel Sauce
11 February 1953
Hempstead, Nassau County, Long Island
16 February 1953
New London Baptist Church, Concord, New Hampshire
25 February 1953
Constitution Hall, Washington DC
Rachmaninoff 3
National Symphony/ Howard Mitchell
26 February 1953
Coliseum, University of Maryland
Rachmaninoff 3
National Symphony/ Howard Mitchell
5 March 1953
High School, Logansport, Indiana
12 March 1953
High School auditorium, Iowa Falls
15 March 1953
Municipal auditorium, Sioux City, Iowa
De Falla, Nights in the gardens of Spain
Liszt 1
Sioux City Symphony/ Leo Kucinski
"Mr Bolet exhibited a cyclonic quality which set off stunningly the delicacies of which his assured art is capable."
In 1923, a young, Polish-born violin soloist named Leo Kucinski (1904-1998) took over the baton; he had attended the Warsaw (Poland) Conservatory, and continued his violin studies at Oberlin, the Cleveland Institute of Music and at Juilliard. For more than fifty years, Kucinski’s name was synonymous with symphonic music in Siouxland. His vision, drive, and dedication to musical excellence guided the development of the orchestra through its formative years. Leo Kucinski was sent off to the South Pacific during WWII. He was a Lieutenant in the Air Corps. While Leo was away, Henri Pensis from Luxemburg filled in at the podium for Kucinski from 1942 to 1946. Leo Kucinski conducted the symphony from 1923 to 1976.
23 March 1953
Quincy Elementary School, Quincy, California
Beethoven Rondo in C major, Mendelssohn Rondo capriccioso, Liszt Sonata in B minor, 4 Fantasy Pieces by Schumann, "Engulfed Cathedral" by Debussy and "Fireworks". The Godowsky Transcriptions of Chopin's' "Minute Waltz" and Saint-Sains' "The Swan" were most rewarding to the listener. The often heard melodies emerged with a freshness which could only restore the lustre of their original beauty. Godowsky, with Mr. Bolet's assistance, simply removed the familiarity which had tended to breed contempt. All too soon it was time to close the program with the beautifully constructed "Study in the Style of a Waltz" by Saint-Saens. In a brief chat, Mr. Bolet complimented his audience on its patience during the Liszt Sonata and told of an 8 year old boy who had tagged that selection, "lasting". In anticipation of questions concerning material he had played when he was a student, the artist introduced the Moszkowski "Autumn" as "a little piece I used to play when I was ten." Junior should do so well! (Feather River Bulletin, 26.3.1953)
24 March 1953
Willows, Glenn County, California
"The finest pianist ever presented here by the local Community Concerts"
26 March 1953
Eureka, California
(recital as 27 Sept. 1952)
28 March 1953
Cotton Auditorium, Fort Bragg, California
Mendocino Coast Community Concert
30 March 1953
Paso Robles High School auditorium, Paso Robles, CA
2 April 1953
Oceanside Carlsbad high school auditorium, North County San Diego, California
'He gave a wonderful experience to more than 700 awed listeners In the Oceanside-Carlsbad high school auditorium last night.Here one of the world's greatest artists interpreted some of the world's greatest piano literature with the aid of his own cherished ''friend and colleague,” a superbly toned Baldwin piano, which he said had traveled over a thousand miles with him already on his present tour.' Blade Tribune
[5 April: Easter Day]
6 April 1953
Citrus Junior College, Foothill, Azusa (at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains and located 20 miles/32 km east of downtown Los Angeles), as part of the Sierra Madre Community Concerts - for which he had played on 24 November 1948
7 April 1953
Fullerton High School, Fullerton, California
13 April 1953
Temple of Music (330 South Scott St.), Tucson, Arizona
Saturday Morning Music Club
(recital as 27 Sept. 1952)
Guy Thackeray describes this "top musical treat", noting how JB had continued to develop since his last recital. 'When Mr Bolet becomes a 'name' pianist, as surely he will, the University auditorium will probably not hold his audience and I doubt he will play vastly better than he did last night. He has moved into the forefront of pianists." (Tucson Citizen, 14.4.1953)
15 April 1953
Union High School auditorium, Phoenix, Arizona
(First concert in Phoenix)
(recital as 27 Sept. 1952)
19/20 April 1953
Miami Beach/Dade County Auditoriums
Rachmaninoff 3 [+ Paul Schwartz, Overture to a Shakespearean Comedy Op.23]
University of Miami Symphony/John Bitter.
Doris Reno in The Miami Herald: "The audience leapt pell-pell onto the heels of his performance with shouting and stamping that would have shaken the rafters...But his vehicle Sunday night was a tub-thumping, brow-mopping, third-rate hackneyed structure concerned entirely with the piano." Three encores: Moszkowski, In Autumn; Lecuona, Afro-Cuban dance; Saint-Saëns/Godowsky, The Swan.
(JB staying at the Lord Tarleton Hotel?)
30 April 1935
Junior High, Alexander City, Alabama
10 May 1953
Sioux City Municipal Auditorium, 401 Gordon Drive, Sioux City, Iowa
Tchaikovsky 1
Sioux City Symphony Orchestra/ [Leo Kucinski?]
Iowa is in the tallgrass prairie of the North American Great Plains, historically inhabited by speakers of Siouan languages. The area of Sioux City was inhabited by Yankton Sioux when it was first reached by Spanish and French furtrappers in the 18th century. Jorge, in a letter, had offered his services free for charge because he had enjoyed Sioux City so much in the past. This was his third appearance there.
The Sioux City Journal (10 May) interviewed Mrs Antonio Bolet (aged 69), translated by Jorge. She is the only daughter of a wealthy Cuban tobacco merchant. Married at the age of 16 in her native village of Caraballo; her husband died in 1935. Embroidery work became her "bread and butter", her financial earners. Maria, his sister, taught him piano from the age of 7 for 5 years on her own. Mary (née Norris, of Sioux City) and Albert Tipton, also at Curtis, became with Jorge the "Three Inseparables". Mary also studied with David Saperton
In the spring of 1953 he had a concert at the Hollywood Bowl which was described by Cuban-American composer Aurelio de la Vega (1925-2022) as ‘a climax, one of Bolet’s biggest triumphs’. The composer dedicated his virtuosic 1957 Toccata for piano to Jorge.
21 June 1953
Miami Beach, Florida
Liszt 1
Summer concert with conductor John Bitte
2 August 1953
Tchaikovsky 1
Tanglewood under Pierre Monteux
7 August 1953
Starlight Concerts, Chastain Memorial Amphitheater, North Fulton Park, Atlanta
Rachmaninoff 3
8 August 1953
Brevard Festival (North Carolina)
Rachmaninoff 3 with Brevard Festival Orchestra and James Christian Pfohl
The concert was at the beautiful Transylvania Music Camp, in the shadow of Mt Pisgah. Christine M. Baermann for The Waynesville Mountaineer (13 August) said that JB was somewhat nervous about the evening performance because of the dampness after a summer storm. Students had kept three hair-dryers full blast on the felt pads all afternoon.
11 August 1953
Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles: "Symphonies Under The Stars"
Jorge gave the first Los Angeles Philharmonic performance of the Prokofiev concerto on with Erich Leinsdorf conducting.
16 August 1953
Forest Meadows, Dominican College, San Rafael
Jennie Tourel, mezzo soprano/ accompanist Richard Cumming
Purcell, Haydn, Brahms, Schubert, Debussy, Offenbach
JB played Beethoven Rondo, Chopin Etudes, Liszt (Waldesrauschen) and Fledermaus Waltzes.
16 October 1953
Civic auditorium, Grand Rapids, MI
Brahms 2
Grand Rapids Symphony/ Jose Echaniz (an old friend of JB)
(Benno Moiseiwitsch, a pianist JB greatly admired, was appearing there on 20 November)
Before starting this tour, JB had stopped off in Cincinnati (where the factory was) to pick up his Baldwin. Lucien Wulsin (Jr., 1889-1964), company president, came down to watch it being loaded onto the wagon. For three years now, Mr Bolet has been accompanied by his piano on tour. But if it's a case of one hall being miffed and "What's wrong with our piano?", he'll use theirs. The Baldwin will be unloaded some 55 times on this tour. (Cincinnati Post 15.10.1953) Elsewhere, we are told its value is $7,000, approximately $84,344 in 2026.
22 October 1953
Sandpoint Theater
24 October 1953
Post Theater, Spokane, Washington State
Brahms Concerto No. 2 in B flat
Spokane Phil. under Harold Paul Whelan
Jorge described highway 10A (travelling via Thompson Falls) as one of the most beautiful in America.
1 November 1953 (Sunday afternoon)
First appearance in Vancouver, Canada
Orpheum Theatre, Vancouver, British Columbia
Franck Variations/ Rachmaninoff Paganini
Vancouver Symphony/Irwin Hoffman
Jorge received one of the greatest ovations ever accorded a guest artist with the orchestra. In the Franck, his tone never, even in the pianissimo passages, became "fluffy' or superficial, wrote Stanley Bligh in the Vancouver Sun.
9 November 1953
Senior High School, Salem, Oregon
incl Schumann, Intermezzo; Ravel, Tombeau de Couperin, Chopin Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor Op.35, Liszt, Waldesrauschen, Chasins, 3 preludes, Fledermaus waltzes.
10 November 1953
High School, Albany, Orgeon
16 November 1953 (wrong date, or JB never appeared!)
Alkázar Theater, Camagüey (Cuba).
Ballet performances Alicia Alonso. The orchestra was conducted [?] by maestro Jorge Bolet
18 November 1953
City auditorium, Fremont, Nebraska
(as 9 Nov. 1953)
22 November 1953 (Sunday afternoon)
Senior High School auditorium, Alton, Illinois
29 November 1953
Watertown High School NY
7, 8 December 1953
George Washington auditorium, Jacksonville, Florida
Tchaikovsky 1
Jacksonville Symphony/ James Christian Pfohl
The Sinfonia Piccola (1935) by Heikki Theodor Suolahti, a 17 year old boy who died at 18. The score was given to Thor Johnson by no less a figure than Sibelius, in Finland in 1950. (It was first performed in February 1938 under Tauno Hannikainen)
10 December 1953
Tampa, Florida
Schumann (Fledermaus Waltzes etc. were on the menu too)
Tampa Philharmonic/ Lyman Wiltse
Hot wassail, a traditional Christmas drink will be served at a reception in the U of Tampa ballroom afterwards.
13 December 1953
Masonic Auditorium, Detroit
Prokofiev 2 [in more Christmas spirit, Britten's "Ceremony of Carols" was sung]
Detroit Symphony/ Valter Poole
1954
10 January 1954
Senior High, Waterville Maine
(programme as 9 Non. 1953)
JB has - apparently - "performed with practically every major symphony orchestra in South America" (news to me!)
11 January 1954
Cony auditorium, Augusta, Maine
(in spite of the storm, a most appreciative audience)
13 January 1954
The Fitchburg Sentinel (Massachusetts)
Schumann, Mendelssohn, Chopin (B flat minor sonata, No. 2, the Funeral March) and Liszt; Strauss/Godowsky's Fledermaus waltzes came at the end. Jorge was entertained afterward sat a buffet supper by Mr and Mrs Charles Patch of 138 Pleasant Street. He says that he plays 3 to 4 concerts a week and rarely has time to practise between October and April.
18 January 1954
Pittsfield (Massachusetts)
In the Pittsfield Berkshire Evening Eagle, 19 January 1954 (Massachusetts), critic Jay Rosenfeld felt Jorge should be a bit more venturesome in his repertoire (only Ravel's Tombeau de Couperin was from the 20th century).
27 January 1954
Lima, Ohio
(programme as 9 Nov. 1953)
2 February 1954
Stephens College, Columbia Missouri
Tchaikovsky 1 (+ Haydn 82 "Bear" and La Gazza Ladra]
Burrall Symphony/ Edward Murphy
4 February 1954
Municipal auditorium, Jackson, Mississippi
Gershwin's Concerto in F & Rhapsody in Blue
Gershwin Concert Orchestra
5 February 1954
Northwestern State College, Natchitoches, Louisiana
Gershwin's Concerto in F & Rhapsody in Blue
Shreveport Symphony/ Robert Zeller
7 February 1954
Montgomery Hall, Southeastern State College, Durant, Ohio
(programme as 9 Non. 1953)
'In an after noon pf crystalline piano playing every bit as dazzling as the atmospheric conditions outside, which prompted the enthusiastic capacity house...His Ravel created fascinating new colour harmonies and intriguing pulsations of rhythm not found at any other time in the concert." (William Edwards)
8 February 1954
High School gymnasium, Lampasas, Texas
12 February 1954
Jacob Brown Memorial College, Brownsville, Texas
16/17 February 1954
Fair Park and Byrd High auditoriums, Shreveport, Louisiana
Tchaikovsky Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Op.23
Shreveport Symphony Orchestra; John Shenaut [?]
18 February 1954
Howard Auditorium, Ruston, Louisiana
Tchaikovsky Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Op.23
Shreveport Symphony Orchestra; John Shenaut
21 February 1954 (Sunday afternoon)
The Florentine Club, Shreveport
24 February 1954
McClenaghan High School, Florence, South Carolina
(programme as 9 Nov. 1953)
At the time, a newspaper reported a few of the pianist's pet hates: playing strange pianos, especially upright pianos in high schools, non-mixing bathroom taps (faucets), Rossini, peanut butter, mint in any form including toothpaste, Berlioz.
25 February 1954
Senior High School, High Point, Piedmont, North Carolina
28 February 1954
Armory-Auditorium, Charlotte, North Carolina: a recital which included four selections from Ravel's Tombeau de Couperin (not often played by JB?); Chopin's Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor
In March 1954 (Music Hall, Cincinnati, Ohio), Jorge recorded Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No.2 in G minor, Op.16 for Remington Records with Thor Johnson / Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
Christian Johansson notes: 'This was the first recording of the Concerto, if with an abbreviated 1st mvt. cadenza. I’ve seen this listed with a recording date of November 1953 as well, but…? Release was in fall 1954. The master was almost surely an experimental stereo recording, but was released on LP in mono which is what we have today.'
4 March 1954
Robert Toaz Junior High School, Huntington, New York
Mendelssohn, Variations serieuses; Ravel, 4 pieces from Le Tombeau de Couperin; Chopin's Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor; Strauss-Godowsky, Fledermaus.
'A program which avoided hard worked music,' happily proclaimed The Long-Islander, on 11 March.
11/ 12 March 1954
Eastman Theater, Rochester NY/ Bailey Hall, Cornell University
Prokofiev 2 [+ Debussy, Nocturnes (Nuages, Fêtes)]
Rochester Philharmonic and Erich Leinsdorf (who had met JB in Havana a few years earlier)
17 March 1954
Consistory Auditorium , Freeport, Illinos
(programme as 9 Nov. 1953)
21 March 1954
Harlem High Scool, Rockford, Illinois
Rachmaninoff 3
Rockford Symphony/ Arthur Zack
26, 27 March 1954
Cincinnati, Ohio
Prokofiev 2 (also Griffes, The White Peacock, advertised but taken off; Tchaikovsky's "Little Russian"was on the programme)
Thor Johnson
In the spring (April) of 1954, Bolet became one of five American musicians invited for a four-week visit to West Germany as guests of the Federal Republic. While in Germany, Bolet appeared as soloist with the Berlin Philharmonic. Europe for the next 6 weeks, according to newspapers.
7 April 1954
Hochschule für Musik, Berlin
Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, under the baton of Arthur Rother.
Full programme:
Zugunsten des Neubaues der Philharmonie
Hochschule für Musik
Arthur Rother
Gesang: Barbara Gibson und Carol Brice
Klavier: Constance Keene und Jorge Bolet
Harmonika: John Sebastian
Johannes Brahms: Akademische Festouvertüre
Gustav Mahler: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (C. Brice)
Frédéric Chopin: Klavierkonzert Nr. 1 e-Moll op. 11 (C. Keene)
Gioacchino Rossini: Ouvertüre zu Der Barbier von Sevilla
Giacomo Meyerbeer: Schattentanz aus Dinorah (B. Gibson)
R. Vaughan Williams: Romanze für Harmonika, Streichorchester und Klavier
Sergej Rachmaninow: Rhapsodie für Klavier über ein Thema von Paganini (J. Bolet)
25 May 1954
Carson Auditorium, The Stony Brook School, Long Island
Bolet was back in Europe in May 1954. A photo in Musical America, July 1954 shows Jorge backstage at London's Wigmore Hall after a recital in June by American mezzo-soprano Jennie Tourel.
20 June 1954
Miami Beach Auditorium, Florida
Tchaikovsky 1 with John Bitter [a Pops concert incl. Morton Gould's Guaracha]
JB had just returned from Europe. The Miami herald (20.6.1954) says that Bolet is fast becoming runner-up to the Puerto Rican pianist Jesu Maria Sanroma for widespread local popularity and rapid consecutive appearances with our orchestra.
7, 8 August 1954
Grant Park, Chicago
Tchaikovsky 1
Grant Park SO/ Joseph Rosenstock (with whom JB had performed in Tokyo in 1946)
12 October 1954
Hackensack, NJ
incl. Schubert, Impromptu No.2 in E flat Op.90/D899, No 3 in B flat Op.142/D935;
Beethoven Les Adieux;
Franck, Prelude, Aria & Fugue
Chopin, Nocturne in D flat Op.27/2, Scherzo in B flat minor
Rachmaninoff, Etudes tableaux E flat minor [Op.33/6?] /C major [Op.33/2?]
Liszt Mephisto waltz.
14 October 1954
Carson Auditorium, The Stony Brook School, Long Island
18 October 1954
Staunton, Virginia
21 October 1954
Woodrow Wilson High School, Beckley, West Virginia
(Programme as 12 Oct. 1954)
"He kept his programme strictly 'top drawer' and the audience liked it. The reception was much better than he found it in that center of culture in Mother Virginia, Staunton, where he last played" {Beckley Post Herald]
28 October 1954
Junior High, McAllen, Texas
1 November 1954
Junior High, Freeport, Texas
4 November 1954
Bolton High School, Alexandria, Louisiana
(Programme as 12 Oct. 1954)
9 November 1954
Decatur Illinois
"One of the most widely heard recitalists in the USA and Canada"
15 November 1954
Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan [2nd appearance here after May 1952]
Haydn: Andante & Variations in F minor, Hob.XVII:6 (Un Piccolo Divertimento); Beethoven: Sonata in E-flat major, Op.81a; Liszt: Sonata in B minor; Chopin: Four Scherzi.
The Ann Arbor News reported on the novelty of hearing all four Scherzos together - "these rather neglected pieces"; No.4 in E major "is almost never played".
30 November 1954
Capitol Theatre, Ottawa (Canada)
Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 [with "the Chilean pianist" (The Ottawa Citizen)]
Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Josef Krips
Repeated in Québec on 2 December.
It will be another 22 years before Jorge returns to Ottawa (30 September 1976)
3 December 1954
Paramount Theatre, Brantford, Ontario (Canada)
"A capsule comment - one 8-year old boy was heard to tell his mother: "Gee. He showed Brantford something, didn't he?" The Epositor review (4.12): So few pianists can do more than bulldoze their way through the Mephisto Waltz. Here it was performed by an artist whose equipment if fully equal to its formidable difficulties. Amusingly, the reports sattes that "The Swan" was so prettied, so cluttered up that it sounded more like duck with trimmings. Undoubtedly a pianist of rare endowments. " He has the power to impress deeply, to awe, to stimulate, and, I suspect, if need be to stun. But unless I am uncommonly hard-boiled, he cannot stand the tender emotions or evoke, the softer moods of the listener. He can make people want to cheer, but does he ever make them want to cry?" (Clifford Hulme)
6 December 1954
Oneonta, New York
Baldwin piano advertising. Oneonta is a city in Otsego County, New York, known as the "City of the Hills", a college town in the northern foothills of the Catskill Mountains. East-central New York along the Susquehanna River, roughly 80 miles southwest of Albany.
12, 14 December 1954
Kleinhans Music Hall, Buffalo, NY [JB's first Buffalo appearance]
Beethoven – Piano Concerto No.4 in G major, op.58
(Bruckner – Symphony No.8 in C minor)
Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Josef Krips
1955, Brazil and Argentina
17 January 1955
Houghton College, New York
recital
2 February 1955
Sweet Briar, Virginia
Haydn, Andante & Variations in F minor, Hob.XVII:6 (Un Piccolo Divertimento), the Schubert “Wanderer” Fantasy, and the four ballades of Chopin plus three encores.
21 February 1955
Crowley High School gymnasium, Crowley, Louisiana
Inclement weather entailed only a small crowd. The Crowley Post (25.2.1955) reports that in addition to Tex, another member of the entourage was Dr Hans Kuhnis form Zürich, Switzerland (a chemist), a close personal friend of JB who is staying with both men in Washington Square, NYC. They will now head for the West and the Pacific Northwest. With Chinese pug "Baldwin", too!
28 February 1955
High School, Las Cruces, New Mexico
(Programme as 12 Oct. 1954)
9 March 1955
Santa Clara High School, Oxnard, California
incl. Schubert, Impromptu; Chopin, Scherzo No.2 in B flat minor; Rachmaninoff, Etude-Tableau in E flat minor; Liszt, Mephisto waltz + Lecuona
20 March 1955,
Orpheum Theatre, Vancouver, Canada
Mozart No. 24 in C minor, K491 and Prokofiev 2
Vancouver Symphony/Irwin Hoffman
Colin McPhee's "Transitions" was premiered.
Thursday, 24 March 1955, Penticton High School auditorium, Canada for the South Okanagan Community Concerts Assoc. (incl. Franck's Prelude, Aria and Finale - 'with its rich orchestral effects and chromatic vagaries'- , and Liszt's Mephisto Waltz)
A report in The New York Times, 26 May, 1955 informs us that ‘Jorge Bolet, pianist, leaves today by air to play a series of eighteen concerts in Brazil and Argentina'. Only five concerts found thus far, though it might be that political unrest in Argentina curtailed the tour.
30 March 1955
Tower Theater, Bend, Oregon
JB "didn't play down to his audience" but "this music is too high brow for the average listener" seems to be the gist of one review by an average listener, who seemed only to recognise the Minute Waltz (encore)! Further correspondence seemed to agree, along the lines of: why do we have to sit through too-heavy programmes?
1 April 1955
Shasta Union high school, Redding, California
(Programme as 12 Oct. 1954)
11 April 1955
Whitefish High School ,Whitefish, Montana
Jorge was astounded at the quality of the local piano offered him; it had been bought 7 years ago. The Power River County Examiner notes that JB would be the only American musician to appear with Herbert von Karajan and the celebrated Berlin Philharmonic on its first American tour in the spring. Herbert von Karajan led the Berlin Philharmonic on their historic first USA/Canada tour in February and March 1955. This tour was originally planned to be conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler, who died in November 1954, leading to Karajan (aged 46) stepping in to lead the orchestra. In just five weeks, they gave 26 concerts in 21 cities. The trip had been a gamble: ten years after the end of the Second World War, the horrors of the Nazi regime were still vivid memories. Karajan had been a card-carrying Nazi, and his presence was likely to be seen as an affront by the American musicians’ union and Jewish organisations. The concerts were faced with protests, including picketers in New York and a cancelled performance in Detroit. André Mertens, Vice President of the American concert agency Columbia Artists Management, organised the tour. No mention of JB as soloist?
Karajan - speaking to Joachim Tiburtius - is quoted in Klaus Lang, The Karajan Dossier, as saying 'an American pianist, Jorge Bolet, will play Beethoven's G major concerto in Chicago'.
13 April 1955
High School, Havre, Montana
(Programme as 12 Oct. 1954)
15 April 1955
Montana Theater, Miles City, Montana
18 April 1955
High School auditorium, Casper, Wyoming
Jorge was entertained by Mr and Mrs Fred Layman at their home on Casper Mountain afterwards, Tex Compton proving to be a most entertaining and friendly guest. The Laymans' son Stephen in the Navy had written that their flight surgeon, Dr Carlson, was a friend of JB. It was a Dr. Richard Carlson (son? relative?) who informed Bolet on December 7, 1988, that he was HIV positive, a result discovered during a routine test required before a minor surgery.
Casper is the second-most populous city in the state after Cheyenne (in the 2020 census).It is nicknamed "The Oil City" and has a long history of oil boomtown and cowboy culture, dating back to the development of the nearby Salt Creek Oil Field.
21 April 1955
Farmington, New Mexico
A tour of Brazil and Argentina, 18 concerts being mentioned (of which I've found details of only five thus far)
30 May 1955 (age 40)
Teatro Municipal, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
Haydn, Andante con variazione
Beethoven, Sonata Les Adieux op. 81
Liszt, Sonata in B minor
Debussy, Préludes (La puerta del vino, La terasse, Ondine, General Lavine)
Rachmaninoff, Prelude Op.23 No.6 in E flat major
Prokofiev, Toccata
31 May/1 June 1955
Teatro Cultura Artistica, São Paulo (Brazil)
Other destinations in Brazil may have included Porto Alegre. There were also radio appearances. In the Rio de Janeiro newspaper Correio da Manhã (11 December 1955), Eurico Nogueira França, reviewing the season, wrote: 'This year's music season – given the negative influx of political, social, and economic causes that profoundly compromised musical life – began later than usual and ended earlier. (...) The Cuban pianist Jorge Bolet, who trained in the United States, gave a performance for the members of ‘Cultura Artistica’ and astonished the audience with his virtuosic technique. A fine musician, to be sure. But a hyper-virtuoso who, so to speak, expands the outer dimensions of Liszt’s Sonata in B minor. What octaves! And what a left hand!'
[Bom músico, de resto. Mas virtuose hipertrófico que alarga, por assim dizer, as dimensões exteriores da Sonata em si menor de Liszt. Que oitavas! E que mão esquerda!]
6, 7 June 1955
Teatro Broadway, Avenida Corrientes, Buenos Aires (Argentina)
Jorge added "Gato" (1940), a lively, syncopated dance by an Argentinian composer Carlos Guastavino (1912-2000) to his programme, for a bit of local colour.
The Latrobe Bulletin (3.10.1955) said that he played both orchestral and recital engagements. Jorge may have performed in Córdoba and Rosario (El Círculo), the next two most populous cites in Argentina. Other cities may have included:
San Miguel de Tucumán (Teatro General San Martín), Bahía Blanca (Teatro Municipal), Asociación Cultural de Bahía Blanca, Mendoza (Teatro Avenida [1926-1988]), La Plata (Teatro Argentino), Mar del Plata (Teatro Auditorio).
30 June & 2 July 1955
Ravinia Festival, Chicago
Rachmaninoff 3 and Schumann
Chicago Symphony with Dutch maestro Eduard van Beinum, who is here for 2 weeks.
In an interview with the Leidsch Dagblad (5 December, 1983), Jore said: 'I played under Eduard van Beinum in Chicago - that man could do the impossible. We played Rachmaninoff third concerto and there was only one rehearsal. The day before he came to me and said he'd like to go through it with me because he'd never conducted the piece before. The performance was as fantastic as one could ever hope to hear. Unfortunately he died a short time afterwards [April 1959].'
Haydn's Symphony No. 96 (Miracle) and Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra. Seymour Raven of the Chicago Tribune said it was embarrassing to see how few people attended the concert (blame the ticket prices going up). Bolet's performance was neither saintly nor sinful. It sat in the vast middle ground of adequacy whose occupants are many and difficult to distinguish.
In just one way the planning backfired. Jorge Bolet, the Cuban pianist, was billed as the Schumann soloist. The orchestra played Schumann and Mr. Bolet went along for the ride. Finds Technique Skimpy. He is not a pianist of the first rank and he has been miscast twice this week. His technique is skimpy, his tone small, and his playing turns edgy under pressure. When modest agility served, he had it. But it was the Chicago Symphony orchestra that answered the conductor's call to deep throated Schumann of the heady romantic glow. It was the sort of Schumann Artur Rubinstein played in those lustrous, unforgotten days of his prime-how he would have sung with the cellos in the intermezzo. (Claudia Cassidy, Chicago tribune)
The Daily Worker, 6 June 1955, however, notes that on Saturday 25 June at Lewisohn Stadium on the campus of the City College of New York (CCNY), Jorge would take part in a "Latin American Fiesta".Perhaps Jorge's Argentina trip was cut short, due to the political unrest and the bombings of the 16 June?
3 August 1955
Worcester auditorium, Worcester, Massachusetts
Jorge will make festival history by playing two major works on the same night. 'The pianist will be honored on Wednesday by having " Pianist's Night " named for him.'
The Woonsocket Call And Evening Reporter, July 29 1955 (Woonsocket, Providence, Rhode Island]
8 August 1955 (or 29 July)
Red Rocks Festival, near Denver Colorado
Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto No.1 in B flat minor
Saul Caston and the Denver Symphony
["The One When The Piano Ran Away From Jorge!"]
'Even in perfect weather, Red Rocks tested the patience of the players. Safstrom recalls guest soloist Jorge Bolet's unplanned vaudeville routine: “Bolet was playing the Tchaikovsky (First Piano) Concerto. Someone must have forgotten to lock the wheels on the piano, because it slowly started to roll across the stage. I can still see Bolet hopping forward with his bench to catch up with the piano.” Dwindling audiences and ever-increasing (and ever-expensive)rain-outs forced the orchestra to abandon its Red Rocks season in 1964.'
Bass player Harry Safstrom recalling the event in June 1988 in The Rocky Mountain News
4 October 1955
High School, Greensburg, Pennsylvania
14 October 1955
The Stony Brook School, Long Island: recital
19, 20 October 1955
Columbia auditorium, Louisville, Kentucky
Tchaikovsky 1 [+Harold Shapero's Credo for Orchestra]
Louisville Orchestra/ Robert Whitney
26 October 1955
Worcester Music Festival, (Leominster), Worcester, Massachusetts, USA.
Rachmaninoff, Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini Op.43
Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue [+ Sibelius 7]
Philadelphia Orchestra/ Eugene Ormandy
JB's third appearance; previous recitals in 1951 and 1954 at Horticultural Hall in the Becker Junior College series
*Return to Europe, his first time since 1935/36 (?)*
23 November 1955
Copenhagen, Denmark (in the Odd Fellow Palace, Bredgade 28 [Odd Fellow Palæet]: Beethoven 4 with Robert Blot conductor
Dagens Nyheder: 'The playing was too brilliant, he was too much of a virtuoso. Yet there was enthralling refinement, even if the spirit was hardly what we understand by Beethovenian.'
9 December 1955
Copenhagen, small hall of the Odd Fellow Palace
Recital
Haydn, Andante & Variations, Beethoven Les Adieux, Op.81, Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy and the 4 Scherzos of Chopin.
Politiken (10 December 1955) wrote that the recital was thrilling to listen to, but tiring in the long run. 'Ecstatic playing may be quite all right in Chopin's Scherzos, although the blue flower of poetry thrives more luxuriantly in a more temperate climate than a tropical one.'
[selvom poesiens blaa blomst trives frodigere i et mere tempereret klima end det tropiske.]
13 December 1955
Small Hall, Konserthuset, Stockholm
Programme as 9th
16 December 1955
Kleine Zaal, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam (Holland).
This was Jorge's first appearance in Holland since his European début in May 1935.
18 December 1955 (age 41)
Royal Festival Hall, London (in the Recital Room)
The programme included Haydn’s Sonata in E flat No.62 (Hob.XVI:52), Beethoven’s Les Adieux Op.81, Schubert, Wanderer, and Chopin’s 4 Scherzos
[solo recital début in London]
The Havre Daily News (Montana, USA; 14.2.1956) states that Jorge played with the London Philharmonic and Sir Thomas Beecham.
23 December 1955, Jorge sailed from Southampton back to New York, via Halifax on the SS Italia. (the other vessel on this line was the Homeric)
1956-57
On a major USA archival newspapers website I've been using, there seem to be fewer mentions of JB in 1956 than in the previous couple of years. This does not however include the European tour of Autumn.
18 January 1956
Belleville Township High School, Belleville, Illinois
Bach, Toccata in D
Brahms, Intermezzos Op.116/2 in A minor & 116/4 in E major, Capriccios Op.116/1 and 7
Schubert Wanderer
Chopin, Ballade No.2 in F major Op.38, Berceuse, Fantasy
Mendelssohn/Rachmaninoff, Scherzo
Prokofiev Toccata
Snow deterred a large number of Community Concert goers.
26 January 1956
Masonic Auditorium, Detroit
Tchaikovsky 1 [+ Cherubini, Anacreon overture]
Detroit Symphony/Paul Paray
His first appearance with the orchestra since December 1953.
1 February 1956
Palace Theater, Flint, Michigan (sponsored by the St Cecilia Society)
(Programme as 18 January)
JB is visiting an old friend, Mrs Grant Sturgis of Grand Blanc, a friendship dating back to Curtis days.
8 February 1956
Withrow Court, Oxford, Ohio
11 February 1956
Chicago, Illinois
Gershwin concerto & rhapsody
replacing Leonard Pennario
Chicago Symphony/George Schick
13 February 1956
Orlando, Florida
Prokofiev 2
Florida Symphony/Frank Miller
15 February 1956
Peabody Auditorium, Daytona Beach, Florida
Daytona Beach Symphony/Frank Miller
28 February 1956
Victoria Theatre, El Paso
Recital (Juarez Community Concert)
3 March 1956
North Penn Joint High School, Lansdale, Pennsylvania
(Programme as 18 January)
5 April 1956 (unless this is 1957)
Tom S. Lubbock High School, Lubbock, Texas
(Programme as 18 January)
If there was somewhat of a hazy knowledge of this young pianist on the South Plains before his arrival Thursday, there should be no doubts today that he is one of the most brilliant young concert pianists. (Lubbock Evening Journal)
14, 15 April 1956
Miami
5 May 1956
Graham Memorial Chapel, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri.
30 September 1956
Royal Festival Hall, London
Tchaikovsky 1 with the RPO and Herman Lindars
This London concert was regarded as the highlight of a two-month tour of Europe by Musical America (15.12.56).
21 October 1956
Åmål in Västra Götaland County, Sweden
14 November 1956
Teatro Carrión, Valladolid, Spain
'Beside a Fantasia by Mozart, we shall hear a Sonata by the Argentinian composer Ginastera, a work of exceptional artistic quality and original brilliance'. Also the Liszt Sonata.
JB had not played in Spain for 20 years.
1 December 1956
Jennie Rogers School, Danville, Kentucky
4 December 1956
Carnegie Hall, NYC (his first since December 1951, and his ninth here).
Recital incl. Liszt B minor Sonata and Argentinian composer Ginastera’s Sonata No. 1 Op.22 (1952)
In Havana, Diario de la Marina (6.12.1956) quotes reviews: 'The Herald Tribune says: "When Mr. Bolet performs, the keyboard acquires magnificence in every sense. It is massive in sonority, virtually unlimited in expression. It can thunder and whisper, and it can also murmur with the intimacy of a cherished secret, spoken with tenderness."'
Jorge left NYC on 7 December for a series of concerts in Cuba.
14 December 1956 (Friday)
Auditorium, Havana
Same recital as Carnegie Hall on 4 December.
Alberto and Jorge gave concerts on Sunday morning (10:30am) and Monday evening:
Samuel Barber's overture "School for Scandal"
Prokofiev No. 2 in G minor and Brahms No. 2 in B flat
21 December 1956
Palacio de Bellas Artes, Havana.
Brahms and Shostakovich with the Sociedad de Conciertos Quartet (Odnoposoff, Prilutchi, Hospital and Periche)
22 December 1956
Havana
Tchaikovsky's 1st piano concerto
Diario de Noticias (Rio de Janeiro), 23 March 1956 has a notice that the Associação Riograndense de Música, in their upcoming season [March/April - Nov/Dec] would feature Jorge Bolet, violinist Henryk Szeryng and Japanese soprano Tomiko Kanazawa in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
1957
'His American tour runs through to May, followed by concerts in South America during the summer, and Europeans engagements from October to December 1957.'
(Musical Courier, 1 January 1957)
6 January 1957
High School, Bay Shore, Long Island, New York
Recital
21 January 1957
Park County high school, Livingston, Montana
Mozart, Fantasy in C minor; Liszt, Sonata; Mendelssohn, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev
Sub-zero temperatures, but still a good audience.
22 January 1957
Bow Theater, Butte, Montana
24 January 1957
Hendrix Auditorium, Prescott, Arizona
26 January 1957
Artesia, Eddy Valley, New Mexico
Recital
29 January 1957
Liberty Hall, El Paso
(Programme as 21 January 1957; he also played Sonata No. 1 Op.22 by Alberto Ginastera)
1 February 1957
Marshall, Texas
6,5, February 1957
Peristyle, Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio
Tchaikovsky 1 [+ "Coronal" by Richard Swift, local-born composer, and de Falla's Tricorne]
Toledo Orchestra/Joseph Hawthorne
12 February 1957
Desmond Theater, Port Huron, Michigan
14 February 1957
Des Plaines, Illinois
27 February 1957
Atlanta, Georgia
Mozart No. 24 in C minor K.491, Schumann, Rachmaninoff 3
Atlanta Symphony/Henry Sopkin
An obituary notice for JB in an Atlanta paper (October 1990) reminds readers that ‘Atlanta Symphony audiences were treated to his artistry on three occasions in 1957, 1959 and not again until 1985. Mr. Bolet was scheduled to perform with the ASO again in January 1989, but illness forced a cancellation.’
'Mozart's music is simpler and more crystalline. It's like the difference between learning the plot of Snow White and the plot for The Karamazov Brothers.
1 March 1957
Orchestra Hall, Chicago
Liszt's Sonata in B minor
8 March 1957
Taft auditorium, Cincinnati
incl. Liszt Sonata, a sonata by Ginastera [No. 1 Op.,22?]
First solo recital in the city
15 March 1957
Peabody Auditorium, Daytona Beach, Florida
Brahms 2
Daytona Beach Symphony/Frank Miller
and on 16th in Orlando {with a Gretry-Mottl ballet suite, "Céphale Et Procris”]
21 March 1957
High School, Key West, Florida
Mozart Fantasy in C minor K475, Liszt Sonata, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninoff preludes, Prokofiev, Toccata
31 March 1957
Orchestra Hall, Chicago
(replacing Rudolph Firkušny, who was replacing English pianist Solomon)
Haydn, Andante con variazioni in F minor, Liszt, Sonata, Ginastera, Sonata (1952), Rachmaninoff Preludes & Prokofiev's Toccata
'To this reviewer the Liszt sonata has long been a work to be endured, but the endurance in Mr Bolet's performance, bordered on pleasure. Not only were there great masses of torrential sound, but also passages of utmost lyrical beauty, delicacy and finesse.' (Musical Courier)
5 April 1957 (unless this is 1956)
Tom S. Lubbock High School, Lubbock, Texas
The programme looks as if this is 1956
11 April 1957
Ocala, Florida
Liszt Sonata, Prokofiev Toccata, Mozart Fantasy in C minor, 3 Rachmaninoff Preludes etc.
14/15 April 1957
Dade Auditorium., Miami
Rachmaninoff 3 [+ Peter Mennin, Moby-Dick, Bizet, Symphony in C]
U. of Miami Symphony and John Bitter
This concert was presented in honour of Costa Rica. On 31 May 1957, in Teatro Nacional, San José, Costa Rica, there was a "return" concert with the Orquesta Nacional/Peter Pfisterer - not with JB - in which Dvořak's New World Symphony was played: La Prensa libre, 21.5.1957.)
30 April 1957
High School auditorium, New Bedford, Massachusetts
(Programme as 21 January 1957)
The Standard said that Bolet has what Sir Walter Scott would call the big bow-wow technique. The phrase was coined bythe Scottish novelist and poet in his 1826 journal, referring to his own style of writing historical romances—characterised by grand, dramatic, and sweeping narratives. In a famous journal entry comparing his work to Jane Austen's, Scott noted that while he could execute the "Big Bow-Wow strain" (dramatic, high-stakes storytelling) with ease, he lacked the "exquisite touch" required to make mundane, everyday life interesting.
The critic had not heard such playing since Claudio Arrau, a couple of seasons ago. (arrau House however lists the recent performances of the Chilean as being in July 1954: Beethoven's Emperor Concerto in E flat major under guest conductor Pierre Monteux directing the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Berkshire Music Festival of Tanglewood in Lenox, Massachusetts, on Sunday 11 July.
New Bedford served as the setting for the opening chapters of Moby-Dick and the place from which Herman Melville embarked on his own whaling voyage in 1841 on the Acushnet. The Spouter-Inn is a fictional, gritty, and crowded boarding house in New Bedford, where the narrator, Ishmael, tays before departing on the Pequod. The Inn is famous for the scene where Ishmael is forced to share a bed with the tattooed harpooner Queequeg.
3 May 1957
Cornell College festival, King Memorial Chapel, Mt Vernon, Iowa
(Programme as 21 January 1957 & Ginastera Sonata)
'[In this, the oldest music festival west of the Mississippi,] Mr Bolet showed a refreshing intellectual grasp of musical structure, bringing out clean, masculine lines even in the most Romantic music of Liszt and Rachmaninoff.' (Robert Cantrick)
A Costa Rica newspaper states that Jorge went to Cuba for concerts in May 1957 with his brother Alberto, both appearing together in Havana for the first time in five years. Back in the USA for concerts with the Atlanta Symphony, he will then go to South America for spring.
The Key West Citizen, 20 March 1957 noted that after the season finishes in May, there will be concerts in South America during the summer. (June/July)
22 July 1957
Robin Hood Dell, Philadelphia (JB last performed here in 1940)
Liszt 2 & Rachmaninoff Paganini
The Philadelphia Inquirer said that the Liszt is "a rhapsody on a principal theme of frankly Victorian sentimentality which is developed in dazzling shades of Lisztian mauve, purple and gold. Bolet rodes its turbulent surges and luxuritated in its melting lyricism with equal mastery." This was the annual William Kapell Memorial Concert, since the pianist had died in a plane crash 4 years previously.
31 July 1957
Lewisohn Stadium, campus of the City College of New York (CCNY), New York
Rachmaninoff 3
Stadium Symphony Orchestra/Julius Rudel
Encore: Rachmaninoff: Étude-Tableau in E-flat major, Op.33 No.6
In December 1957, a Cuban newspaper, Diario de la Marina, reported that after a tour of seven months in the USA 'the famous pianist has returned to Havana'. He had covered 30,000 miles in an automobile from coast to coast, as he reported at the airport on disembarking from a Viscount de Cubana de Aviacion flight via Miami.
15 October 1957
Carnegie Hall, NYC. (JB's 10th appearance)
Schubert's Sonata in B-flat Major, D. 960 (1828) - something not often to be found in his repertoire (?) - and a selection of Liszt's Études d’exécution transcendante, S. 139.
'Make no mistake about it, there is nothing small-scaled about Jorge Bolet’s performances—at least judging from his recent appearances in New York. And also there was nothing small-scaled about this program. To the Beethoven variations and the Schubert sonata the pianist brought his mastery of the broad line. Once the music began there was no hesitation, no trifling with details to stop the music in its onward surge. However, the Beethoven, like the Schubert, was carefully planned, and each variation was in proper proportion. No matter how spontaneous the performance sounded, one had a secure feeling that nothing was left to chance.'
F.M.Jr., Musical America 1.11.1957
Rarely have we heard this work [D.960] played with such breadth of conception or such caressing beauty.' (Musical Courier)
9 November 1957
Royal Festival Hall, London
Brahms' second Piano Concerto with conductor Henry Krips [with the Royal Philharmonic]
17 November 1957 (Sunday 11:30am)
Monumental Cinema, calle de Atocha, Madrid (Spain)
Tchaikovsky 1
La Orquesta Municipal de Valencia/Jose Iturbi
(In response to the devastating Great Flood of the Turia River, 14 October 1957 in Valencia, resulting in significant damage to property and causing the deaths of at least 81 people.)
Spanish newspaper Libertad 25 November 1957 records that Jorge had great success in the past week in Madrid, with the Orquesta de Valencia under José Iturbi. "He will offer us [in Valladolid] the same programme as his Carnegie Hall recital a month ago."
JB also gave his first concert Málaga in November 1957
1958-59
6 January 1958
Dallas, Texas
Dallas Symphony/alberto Bolet
7 January 1958
Will Rogers Memorial Auditorium, Fort Worth, Texas
Dallas Symphony/Walter Hendl
13 January 1958
Coffee High School Auditorium, Florence, Alabama (USA)
Recital (for the Muscle Shoals Concert Association)
14 January 1958
High School Auditorium, Corinth, Missouri
19 January, 1958
Carnegie Hall, New York City, New York
Liszt: Piano Concerto No.1 in E-flat major, S.124
New York Philharmonic Orchestra/Leonard Bernstein
1 February 1958 (?)
New York City
Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 and the first Liszt concerto.
New York Philharmonic/Leonard Bernstein
In January 1958 [21, 22, 23, 27-29], Jorge recorded a selection of Liszt's 12 Études d’exécution transcendante, S.139 in the Manhattan Center, New York City, New York for RCA.
1. Preludio
3. Paysage
9. Ricordanza
5. Feux Follets
8. Wilde Jagd
2. Etude in A minor
7. Eroica
11. Harmonies du Soir
10. Etude in F minor
6 February 1958
Municipal Auditorium/Tower Theater, Atlanta, Georgia
Beethoven, 32 Variations in C minor, Liszt, Sonata, Ginastera, Sonata (1952), Rachmaninoff Preludes (F major, F minor, [Op.32/6 & 7?] G flat major [Op.23/10?]), Prokofiev, Toccata
19 February 1958
Memorial Hall, Dayton, Ohio
Dayton Philharmonic/Paul Katz
23 February 1958
Sioux City Auditorium, Iowa
Sioux City SO/Leo Kucinski
26 February 1958
Temple of Music, Tucson, Arizona
Beethoven, Brahms, Franck, Liszt
2 March 1958
Civic Auditorium, Reno, Nevada
3 March 1958
Hayward Union High School, Oakland, California
(228 miles from Reno)
10 March 1958
Corpus Christi, Texas (début)
Corpus Christi SO/ Alberto Bolet
(on 13 January, "the brilliant Brazilian (sic) pianist" Claudio Arrau had appeared there)
16 March 1958
Florida Symphony/ Frank Miller
24 March 1958
Columbus, Georgia
A return visit by popular request
1 April 1958
Central High School, Flint, Michigan
Flint Symphony
6 April 1958
Teatro Auditorium, Havana, Cuba
with Alberto Bolet
Orquesta filarmónica de La Habana, memoria 1924-1959 (Editorial Orbe, La Habana, 1979) by Maruja Sánchez Cabrera
7, 8 April 1958
Central High School Auditorium, Flint, Michigan
Tchaikovsky, Concerto in B flat minor
Flint Symphony/Raymond Gerkowski
13 April 1958
Orchestra Hall, Chicago
Beethoven, 32 Variations in C minor
Schubert, Sonata in B flat D860
Liszt, Transcendental Etudes (selections)
Roger Dettmer, Chicago American (14.4.1958) said that Bolet's recital was 'a remarkable improvement over last spring's performance on the same stage'. The Sentinel recorded that Daniel Barenboim, a 14 (sic) year old Israeli pianist [born on 15 November 1942 in Buenos Aires, Argentina] made his Chicago début on 19 January.
6 May 1958
Civic Auditorium, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Beethoven 4
Albuquerque Civic Symphony/Hans Lange
25 June 1958
Grant Park, Chicago
Prokofiev 2 [+ Berlioz, Benvenuto Cellini overture]
with Joseph Rosenstock
27 June 1958
Grant Park, Chicago
Beethoven 4
with Joseph Rosenstock
27 July 1958
Miami Beach Auditorium, Miami
Liszt 1 + Spanish Rhapsody
Albert Bolet
5 August 1958
East River Park Amphitheater, just south of Grand Street, New York City
Franck, Symphonic Variations, Liszt 1
LENA Symphony/
17 August 1958
Pavilion, Southern Vermont Art Center, Manchester, Vermont
Beethoven, 32 Variations in C minor; Schubert, Sonata in B flat D860; Liszt, Transcendental Etudes (selections)
'A powerful pianist whose career has been studded with one success after another...who specializes in playing to sold-out houses.' Glens Falls Times, 13 August 1958
7 October 1958
Theatre of the University of Puerto Rico, San Juan PR.
Haydn (Sonata No.62 in E-flat major, Hob.XVI:52), Franck (Prélude, choral et fugue [1884]), Chopin (4 Scherzos).
22 October 1958
Carnegie Hall, NYC
(Programme as 7 Oct.1958)
25 October 1958
Worcester, Mass. USA
Beethoven 4
Detroit Symphony/Paul Paray
28 October 1958
Memorial Hall, Dayton, Ohio
Dayton Philharmonic/Paul Katz (who founded the orchestra 26 years previously)
3 November 1958
Haddonfield High School, Haddonfield, New Jersey
5 November 1958
Conestoga High School, Berwyn, PA
16 November 1959
Central High Sschool Auditorium, Kalamazoo, Michigan
Liszt 1 and Rachmaninoff Paganini (filling in for another pianist)
JB substituting for Hungarian refugee György Cziffra who had made his debut a few days earlier with the New York Phil & Thomas Schippers, but injuries to his wrists as a result of detention in concentration camps. Herman Felber in the Kalamazoo Gazette said that "his deliberate approach to the technical complexities of the great Hungarian lifted them out of the fireworks class into the realm of most appealing beauty."
19 November 1958
Paramount theater, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
recital
-I'm very fond of Iowa audiences. I would rather play in this State than any other in the U.S.
-Oh, you're just being a politician
-No, I really mean it. I've even said it in Missouri.
25, 26 November, 1958
Constitution Hall, Washington DC
John LaMontaine, Piano Concerto (premiere)
Rachmaninoff Paganani
National Symphony/Howard Mitchell
The concerto was the result of a commission by the Ford Foundation, and the Illinois-born composer produced a 1958-model concerto of neo-Victorian opulence. despite its guarantee of multiple performances, it will be difficult to park in the current repertoire in the narrow spaces between the export models of Prokofiev, Bartok and Rachmaninoff. The new piece falls in that dismal area between truly adventurous, inventive new music (Elliott Caretr) and conservative new music with solidly calculated certified effects (Samuel Barber). Jorge Bolet's enthusiastic interpretation was almost contagious in the new work and completely captivating in the old - it [Rach/Pag] came off as the best performance we have ever witnessed."(John White)
28 November, 1958 ?
Carnegie Hall, NYC
John LaMontaine, Piano Concerto (première)
National Symphony/Howard Mitchell
The Billboard (24 Nov.1958) reports: 'Efforts to get commercial recordings for new works of living composers by U. S. and Canadian symphony orchestras are being furthered by the recording guarantee project of the American International Music Fund, Inc., this month. Available funds for the project will assure commercial recording this year for two selections to be chosen from taped symphony performance by a special jury. This year's funds received a renewed grant of $27,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation. The National Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Howard Mitchell, will have as its entry for the project (25), the world premiere of John La Montaine's "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra," with Cuban -born pianist Jorge Bolet. The recording project is designed to benefit living composers whose works will get commercial recording, and to provide extra income to performing musicians. The project hopes to increase the interest of the public and the music industry in the work of living composers.'
2 December 1958
Auditorium, Havana: recital for Pro-Arte. Schubert's B flat major sonata D960 and a election of Liszt's Transcendental Etudes.
There is a note dated 2 December 1958 in which Jorge appoints Getta Strok (119, W.57 Street, NYC) as his agent for the Far East, Israel, Soviet Union, South Africa and 'any other areas that do not conflict with the interests of my European manager, J.Beek.'
4 December 1958
Florida Gymnasium, U. of Florida, Gainesville, FL.
6 December 1958
Centro Asturiano Theater, Tampa, Florida
Haydn, Beethoven (C minor variations), Mendelssohn, Liszt (etudes)
Havana?
12 December 1958
Northrop Auditorium, Minneapolis, Minnesota
John LaMontaine concerto
Minneapolis Symphony/Antál Dorati
The next stop, Grand Junction, Colorado, 15 December (his second appearance there), in the High School auditorium
Promotional material stated that Bolet had an annual European tour (England, Germany, Holland) in January/February 1959 and in America during March/May. Nederlandsche Concertdirektie J. Beek, Koninginnegracht 82, the Hague was Jorge's exclusive agent for Europe; annual tours were in January and February.
1959
Virginia Dillon, a columnist, notes that Van Cliburn's success in the Soviet Union means Community Concerts, who could get him for $300 would now have to pay thousands. 'We have had one such artist who has become world famous -Jorge Bolet. Whereas he played for 'peanuts' here, he will now appear only in large cities." (The Alexander City Outlook,{Alabama] 13 February 1959)
11 January 1959
Royal Festival Hall, London
Rachmaninoff 3
LSO/ Walter Goehr
12 January 1959
Delft, Holland
Het Residentie Orkest /Louis Stotijn
14 January 1959
Concertgebouw, Amsterdam: recital.
Beethoven, Liszt, Ginastera, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev.
15 January 1959
Diligentia, The Hague, Holland
Recital
A number of the Dutch reviews were not impressed and found him too loud. 'He plays as though he has to fill a stadium.''Perhaps the artist is used to larger halls than the Diligentia, which would explain his over emphasis of some of the musical nuances.' In an interview with the Uruguayan newspaper El País (15.7.1979) before a recital inn Montevideo, Jorge said that he considers himself fortunate with the critics, with the exception of the Dutch ones. 'In Amsterdam, the critics don't accept music that isn't intellectual.'
18 January 1959
Hochschule für Musik, Berlin
Tchaikovsky 1 [+Romeo und Julia, Symphony No. 4 in F minor]
Berliner Symphonisches Orchester, W. Steiner
20 January 1959
Solo recital in the Städtisches Konservatorium, Berlin.
[22 January 1959]
Hamburg recital
28 February 1959
Shrine auditorium, Los Angeles
Rachmaninoff 2 [Saint-Saëns, Overture to "La Princesse jaune", Paul Creston "Frontiers" Op.34 (1943) etc.]
Los Angeles Philharmonic/Andre Kostelanetz
8 March 1959
Palo Alto High School, California
10 March 1959
Napa Union High School auditorium, Napa Valley Concert Association, California
Beethoven 32 Variations, Liszt Transcendental Etudes (selection), Haydn E-flat Sonata,
14 March
Seth Hall, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Schumann/ Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue
Santa Fe Sinfonietta/Hans Lange
10 curtain calls, the audience will talk for month to come about this performance
17, 18 March 1959
Jacksonville, Florida
Rachmaninoff 3
Jacksonville Symphony/Pfohl
20 March 1959
Peabody auditorium, Florida
Rachmaninoff 3
Florida Symphony/Frank Miller
25 March 1959
Brigham Young University, Salt Lake City, Utah
Transcendental Etudes of Liszt
2 April 1959
Rapid City, South Dakota
Dorothy Moreton began her long review with: April 1959 may be marked as important by the coming of spring and the renewal of cyclical beauty. For many people, however, it will remain in the memory as the month which brought Jorge Bolet to Rapid City.
5 April 1959
Kirkwood High School auditorium, Kirkwood, Missouri
7 April 1959
Akron Armory, Akron, Ohio
Liszt, Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major with Hungarian maestro George Szell and The Cleveland Orchestra.
Bob Hunker gave a party afterwards. Mr Bolet is a good friend of Ruth Oenslager who wrote to Bob from Hing Kong, Thailand and Saigon, reminding him to give a party as she wouldn't be able to do it herself. (Bob was staying in her house while she was away.). Ruth Alderfer Oenslager, 1892-1992
9 April 1959
High School Sandusky, Ohio
14 April 1959
Finney Memorial Chapel, Oberlin, Ohio
15 April 1959
Junior High School Auditorium, Salem, Ohio
16 April 1969
Municipal auditorium
Zanesville, Ohio
18 April 1959
War Memorial Chapel, Nashville Tennessee
A riot of pianism rarely experience in our town, wrote Sidney Dalton.
By April 1959, Jorge had taped the piano part for the Liszt film with Dirk Bogarde, which was at this stage called "A Magic Flame"
6 May 1959
Universitetets Aula (University Hall), Oslo, 'the world-famous Cuban pianist Jorge Bolet comes to Norway for the first time'. (Aftenposten).
Liszt's B minor sonata
[12 May 1959]
Sociedad Filármonica with Alberto Bolet (Spain?)
20 May 1959
Mozart-Saal, Wiener Konzerhaus (Vienna)
He last appeared here (and in Vienna?) in 1935. Ludwig van Beethoven, 32 Variationen c-moll über ein eigenes Thema WoO 80 (1806); Franz Liszt, Sonate h-moll S 178 (1852–1853); Alberto Ginastera, Sonate Nr. 1 op. 22 (1952); Sergej Rachmaninoff, Prélude F-Dur op. 32/7 (1910), Prélude f-moll op. 32/6 (1910); Prélude Ges-Dur op. 23/10 (1903); Sergej Prokofjew, Toccata d-moll op. 11 (1912).
6 July 1959
Robin Hood Dell, Philadelphia
Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff with Alexander Hilsberg conducting
11 July 1959
Stony Brook Music Festival (5th season)
All-Tchaikovsky programme
Stony Brook Festival Orchestra/Max Goberman
Max Goberman (1911 – 1962) was an American conductor. He conducted ballets, Broadway musicals (including the original productions of Leonard Bernstein's On the Town and West Side Story), and the classical repertoire. At the time of his death, he was approximately halfway through working on the first recording of the complete symphonies of Joseph Haydn with the Vienna State Opera Orchestra,. He studied violin with Leopold Auer, and conducting with Fritz Reiner at the Curtis Institute of Music. He had also started to record the complete works of Antonio Vivaldi, but this project was never realised; he did, however, record over 70 works. His recording of Vivaldi's Concerto in C for mandolin, strings and harpsichord was heard on the soundtrack of the film Kramer vs. Kramer.
23 August 1959
Grant Park, Chicago
15 September, 1959
Ford Auditorium, Detroit, Michigan (Radio Broadcast , concert?)
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.4 in G major, Op.58
Detroit Symphony Orchestra/ Paul Paray
9 /10 October 1959
Symphony Hall, Boston
Variations Symphoniques by César Franck with the Boston Symphony under Charles Munch in . (In the first half he had played John LaMontaine's concerto) Jorge told friends that this 1959 performance of the Franck with Munch had been the finest concerto collaboration of his career - 'a meeting of minds'. The Boston Globe claims this is Jorge's first appearance in the city of Boston with the orchestra. Cyrus Durgin wrote: 'Quite naturally, the familiar Symphonic Variations of Cesar Franck were a better test of Mr. Bolet’s playing, which was a model of fine singing tone (upon a superb piano, by the way), mastery of the Franckian style, and an unfailing sense of adjustment. with the orchestra.'
12 October 1959
Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
Orchestre Symphonique de Québec/ Wilfrid Pelletier
17 November 1959
Music Hall, Kansas City, Missouri
Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 3
Kansas City Philharmonic Orchestra & Hans Schwieger
3/4 December 1959
Tower Theater, Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta SO and Henry Sopkin.
8 December 1959
Sheldon-Williams Collegate Auditorium, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
Chopin, 4 Ballades, Mozart, Sonata in D major K576, Liszt
16 December 1959
War Memorial auditorium, Sacramento
Chopin, Mozart and Liszt