Jorge Bolet's concerts 1
(1926-59)

This is not a comprehensive list

1926-29

1930-34

1935-39

1926-1927

27 April 1926 (age 11)

Sala Falcón, Havana (9pm)

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.

13 August 1926

Teatro Principal de la Comedia, Havana

Waltz in A major Op.2 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.

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.

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

Havana

Pro Arte Musicale Society; recital

César Franck, Beethoven Appassionata, Chopin, Manuel de Falla and the Leo Delibes Naila waltz.

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

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

19 November 1930

Fahnestock Hall, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Curtis students' recital

24 April 1931 (age 16)

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)

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

13 December 1931 (age 17)

Pennsylvania Museum of Art/ also listed as Casimir Hall, Curtis

Arensky, Piano Quintet in D major Op.51

13 April 1931

Mitchell Hall, University of Delaware (Newark Music Society)

Curtis students

27 December 1931

Teatro Nacional, Havana

Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto No. 1 in B♭ minor, Op. 23 [+ another concerto]

Orquesta Filharmónica Havana, Amadeo Roldán

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

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

15 April 15, 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

27 October 1932

Bomberger Hall, Ursinus College, Collegeville, Pennsylvania

Schumann, Fantasiestücke Op.12 (Des Abends, Fabel, Aufschwung, Ende vom Lied)

Paul de Schloezer, étude

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

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

8 August 1934

Teatro Principal de la Comedia, Havana; recital to include-

Beethoven's Sonata No.26 Les Adieux Op.81a and "La Campanella by Liszt/Busoni.

14 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

Recital 'en obsequio a la Asociación de Antiguos Alumnos de Blanck'.

1 September 1934

Lyceum, Havana

Beethoven Op.24 & Cesar Franck with brother Alberto, violin

1935-36, Europe

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)

24 November 1935

Austrian radio broadcast

Theodor Christoph & Wiener Symphoniker

Tchaikovsky, Konzert für Klavier und Orchester B-Moll, op. 23

28 February 1936 (age 21)

Salón Novedades, Pamplona, Navarra (Spain)

Recital incl. Chopin Sonata No. 3, Beethoven, Chopin, de Falla, Rachmaninoff.

21 & 28 March and 4 April 1936

Teatro Español, Madrid, Spain.

Beethoven, Emperor Concerto, No. 5 Op.73 in E flat major with José María Franco

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

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

Liszt's Fantasie and Fugue in G minor on a Bach Chorale

Liszt's Liebestraum, Waldesrauschen, Valse impromptu, and 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/ Teatro Nacional, Havana (5:30pm)

Recital including Bach-Busoni Toccata , Adagio, Fugue in D major, Balakirev's Islamey, Liszt Sonata etc.

19 October 1937

Casimir Hall, Curtis Institute

Same programme as 27 Oct. 1937

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.

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)

20 January 1938

Musical Arts Club, Lamberton Building auditorium, Carlisle, PA.

with Ellwood Hawkins, baritone (JB did not accompany him)

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.

(31 August 1938, Jorge arrives in Havana on a flight from Miami.)

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

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, Humberto de Blanck and Mrs Amelia Solberg de Hoskinson]

Jorge arrived in Havana (Aeropuerto Arsenal) on a PanAm flight from Miami on 14 December

30 October 1939

Radio broadcast from Curtis, 4pm

Brahms Intermezzi Op. 117 & Beethoven 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)

20 December 1939

Sala Espadero, 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".

15 February 1940

Mitchell Hall, University of Delaware (Newark Music Society)

Wind music with piano (John DeLancie, oboe, James King, clarinet etc.)

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.]

27 April 1940

Faculty Recital, Curtis, 4pm

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

15 October 1940

Casimir Hall, Curtis Institute

Same programme as 29 Oct 1940

18 October 1940

Hamilton College, Clinton, NY

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

9 January 1941

Peabody Institute, Baltimore (benefit for the British War relief Society)

25 January 1941 (Saturday)

Curtis radio broadcast

Beethoven, Eroica Variations

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 cave a command performance at the Palace for the President.

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

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 of Philadelphia

28 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, Virginia USA

incl. waltz from the ballet “Naila” of Leo Delibes by Ernest Von Dohnanyi

A concert sponsored by the Calvary Episcopal Church of Front Royal

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)

1943

12 April 1943

Havana

Rachmaninoff 3 with Erich Kleiber

2 August 1943

Avenida Central 3, Alturas de Almendares, Havana

Recital of Mozart, Schubert, Debussy and Chopin

20 October 1943

Auditorium, Havana

Recital of Bach, Beethoven Debussy and Chopin

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, with José Echániz/ Orquesta Filharmónica de La Habana

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, as Sigmund Romberg's train hadn't arrived!

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 Shostakovich Preludes

30 March 1944

Skidmore College Hall, Saratoga Springs, New York

14 April 1944

Pan American Day, Hall of the Americas, Washington DC

Schubert's Impromptu, D. 899, No. 2 in E flat

Chopin's 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) Piezas infantiles

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

22 May 1944

Stony Brook School, Long Island, NY

Recital in aid of United China Relief

7 July 1944

Tchaikovsky 1

Watergate Symphony/Antal Dorati

11 July 1944

Fort Belvoir, United States Army installation, Fairfax County, Virginia,

Recital for soldiers

4 October 1944

Masonic Temple

Scranton Philharmonic/Frieder Weissmann

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.

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, 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 in E major)

Brahms/Handel variations

Norman Dello Joio’s second sonata (the composer was present)

Chopin’s G minor Ballade

1945

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 (replaced by Solveig Lunde)

17 March 1945, Spartanburg, South Carolina: Jorge becomes a US citizen.

1 April 1945

USO [United Service Organization] Club, Spartanburg, South Carolina

Recital

[Private Jorge Bolet is stationed at Camp Croft]

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.

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.

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 the change 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]. We spoke in low voices (after all, we were not in Cuba!) about the conductor Carlos Chávez, about his Sinfonia India, and about a lovely work of Silvestre Revueltas [1899-1940] which we had heard.' (Francisco Ichaso)

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.

30 January 1947

Teatro Capitolio, Ciudad Trujillo (present day Santo Domingo) Dominican Republic

(as 17 Jan 1947)

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

1, 3 March 1947

Auditorio, Havana

Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 with Erich Kleiber

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.'

[El Imparcial was a major daily newspaper active during the 1940s in Guatemala: British Library MFM.MF1384]

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.

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's Andante & Variations, 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...

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

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

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, Cuban architect] heard him, an occasion he recalled in 2022.

April 1948

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.

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

Grand Falls-Windsor, Newfoundland, Canada

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.

11 March 1949

Teatro Degollado, Guadalajara, Mexico

Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with Leslie Hodge and the Guadalajara SO

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

High School auditorium, Geneva, NY [or Pen Yan High School, NY?]

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

Filarmónica de Havana and conductor Eugen Szenkar

27 April 1949

Havana

inc;. 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 Teatro de Bellas Artes, Mexico City.

17 May 1949

Teatro Sauto, Matanzas, Cuba

Programme as 27 April

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.

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.

10 November 1949

High School, Washington Court House, Ohio

14 November 1949

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 Che 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, 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

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 led to Jorge being re-engaged for 27 March 1950)

1950-51

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

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.

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)

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.

7 May, 1950

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)

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.

11 July 1950

Fifth Gala Sesquicentennial Watergate Concert

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

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

4/5 February 1951

Havana

Havana Philharmonic under 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 with Dimitri Mitropoulos

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 etc.

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

22 April (10:45am) and Monday 23 (9:30pm)

Havana

Brahms, Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat Op.83

Orquesta Filarmónica de La Habana and Frieder Wessmann

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)

12 October 1951

Glen Falls, NY

(as 10 Dec.1951)

14 October 1951

Wytheville, Virginia

15 October 1951

Hazelton, PA.

(as 10 Dec.1951)

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 Symphony Orchestra/ Antál Dorati

15 November 1951

United Church, Leamington, Ontario (Canada)

Community Concert recital (one of only four the town has each year)

20 November 1951

Consistory, Bloomington, Illinois

Recital

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

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, 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 (JB's debut with this orchestra, for which he received a tremendous ovation, with much foot-stomping, not heard thus far in the season)

San Antonio Symphony/Victor Alessandro

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).

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

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...)

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

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 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.'

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

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.

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)

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

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 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.

2 December 1952

High School, Mt Vernon, Illinois

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

The usually apathetic Friday afternoon audience gave him an ovation that was described by old-timers as the loudest and most prolonged they had ever heard at the concerts.

13, 14 January 1953

Fair Park High auditorium, Shreveport Symphony, Louisiana

Rachmaninoff, No. 2 in C minor Op.18

Shreveport Symphony/John Shenaut

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

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

"Mr Bolet exhibited a cyclonic quality which set off stunningly the delicacies of which his assured art is capable."

Sioux City Symphony/ Leo Kucinski

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

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 and Dade County Auditorium

Rachmaninoff 3 [+ Paul Schwartz, Overture to a Shakespearean Comedy Op.23]

U.Miami Symphony and John Bitter.

(JB staying at the Lord Tarleton Hotel?)

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, Saitn-Saëns/Godowsky, The Sawn.

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 SO

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 Aurelio de la Vega as ‘a climax, one of Bolet’s biggest triumphs’.

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

Detroit

Prokofiev 2

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

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

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)

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.

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"

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)

15 November 1954

Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan [2nd appearance here after May 1952]

Haydn: Andante con variazioni; 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.

15 November 1954

Lyric Theater, Allentown, Pennsylvania

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

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 and Variations in F Minor, 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

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?

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

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?

8 August 1955

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

3 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

Louisville Orchestra/ Robert Whitney

26 October 1955

Worcester Music Festival, 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

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.

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)

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

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

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

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

26 January 1957

Artesia, Eddy Valley, New Mexico

Recital

29 January 1957

Liberty Hall, El Paso

(Programme as 21 January 1957)

1 February 1957

Marshall, Texas

6 February 1957

Peristyle of the 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 Firkusny, who was replacing English pianist Solomon

14/15 April 1957

Dade Auditorium., Miami

Rachmaninoff 3 with the U. of Miami Symphony and John Bitter

5 April 1957 (unless this is 1956)

Tom S. Lubbock High School, Lubbock, Texas

The programme looks as if this is 1956

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)

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, City College, New York

Rachmaninoff 3

Julius Rudel

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.

9 November 1957

Royal Festival Hall, London

Brahms' second Piano Concerto with conductor Henry Krips [with the Royal Philharmonic]

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."

1958-59

13 January 1958

Coffee High School Auditorium, Florence, Alabama (USA)

Recital (for the Muscle Shoals Concert Association)

1 February 1958

New York City

Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 and the first Liszt concerto.

New York Philharmonic with Leonard Bernstein

23 February 1958

Sioux City Auditorium, Iowa

Sioux City SO

26 February 1958

Temple of Music, Tucson, Arizona

Beethoven, Brahms, Franck, Liszt

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)

24 March 1958

Columbus, Georgia

A return visit by popular request

1 April 1958

Central High School, Flint, Michigan

Flint Symphony

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'.

6 May1958

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

Southern Vermont Art Center, Manchester, Vermont

(as 13 April 1958)

7 October 1958

Theatre of the University of Puerto Rico, San Juan PR.

Haydn (Piano Sonata in E-flat Major, H.XVI:52), Franck (Prélude, choral et fugue [1884]), Chopin (4 Scherzos).

22 October 1958

Carnegie Hall, NYC

(Programme as 7 Oct.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 (premiere)

National Symphony/Howard Mitchell

2 December 1958

Auditorium, Havana: recital for Pro-Arte. Schubert's B flat major sonata D960 and a election of Liszt's Transcendental Etudes.

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

18 January 1959

Hochschule für Musik, Berlin

Tchaikovsky

Berliner Symphonisches Orchester, W.Steiner

20 January 1959

solo recital in the Städtisches Konservatorium, Berlin.

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

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

23 August 1959

Grant Park, Chicago

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'.

17 November 1959

Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Kansas City Philharmonic Orchestra & Hans Schwieger

3/4 December 1959

Tower Theater, Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta SO and Henry Sopkin.

16 December 1959

War Memorial auditorium, Sacramento

Chopin, Mozart and Liszt

Jorge Bolet's concerts 1 (1926-59)

This is not a comprehensive list

1926-1927

1928-29

1930-32

1933-34

1935-36, Europe

1937-39

1940-41

1942-3

1944-45

1946-47

1948-9

1949

1950-51

1951

1952-53

1953

1954

1955, Brazil and Argentina

1956-57

1957

1958-59

1959

Jorge Bolet's concerts 1
(1926-59)