Jorge Bolet's concerts 3
(1981-89)

"I think that I may have been instrumental in convincing the world that Liszt wasn't a second- or third-rate 19th century composer..."  San Francisco Chronicle, 5 October 1988

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The Carmel Pine Cone (29 December ,1987) had announced that Jorge would play on Sunday 3 January 1988 in Sunset Theatre, Carmel, California.[?]

9, 10, 11 January 1988

San Jose/ Flint Center, Cupertino, California

Tchaikovsky 1

San Jose Symphony/ George Cleve

The San Jose Mercury described Jorge as "invincible".  Each note and phrase was placed just so, as if it were intended for some 19th century Fabergé minature.  he savours Tchaikovsky like some rare sherry.  His first appearance here was a coup for the Symphony.

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Allan Ulrich in the San Francisco Examiner: "Bolet remembers the concerto differently from the rest of us. From the piano's first entr -  those trios of rising stentorian chords -  one knew this was not to be the Tchaikovsky of common lore, the heart-on-sleeve sentimentalist...

There was no dancing on the keyboard Friday evening. Disdaining surface allure, Bolet offered Tchaikovsky of uncommon sobriety, persuasive monumentality, and stony grandeur.  He carved, chiselled, drilled, and sculpted a marble edifice to romanticism that, paradoxically, may have been one of the least overtly romantic and one of the more fascinating Tchaikovsky Firsts of anyone's concert going career. He still commands a ringing tone, a masterful deployment of pedal and flexibility in passage work, and it was his insights into the concerto which, understandably, coloured the performance of the orchestra. There were trade-offs, of course. A less than mercurial Andantino followed the massive opening movement and in the finale, Bolet preferred to isolate notes, rather than sewing them together in a seamless fabric."

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14, 16, 17 January 1988

Boettcher Concert Hall, 13th & Curtis, Denver, Colorado

Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30

Denver Symphony/ Gaetano Delogu

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21, 22 January 1988

The Tennessee Theater, Knoxville, Tennessee

Chopin 1

Knoxville Symphony

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28 January 1988

Royal Festival Hall, London

Rachmaninoff 3

Royal Philharmonic and Witold Rowicki

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30 January 1988

The Congress Theatre, Eastbourne, England

Rachmaninoff 3

Royal Philharmonic and Witold Rowicki

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1-4 February 1988

Walthamstow Assembly Hall, London

César Franck: Prélude, Aria et Final & Prélude, Choral et Fugue are recorded for Decca​

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7 February 1988

Curtis Institute, 18th & Locust streets, Philadelphia

(as 25 Feb. 1988, with an encore by Faure - assuming it is correctly identified!)

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9, 10 February 1988

The Forum Auditorium, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30

Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, Larry Newland

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20, 21 February 1988

Tarrant County Convention Center, Fort Worth, Texas

Grieg

Fort Worth Symphony/Enrique Garcia-Asensio

In an interview for Madrid music magazine Ritmo (1 April 1974), Spanish conductor Enrique Garcia Asensio (born Valencia, 1937) states that it is definite he will record the Liszt concertos with Bolet for the Ensayo label in September in London, with the New Philharmonia.  [But I don't think this happened.]

On 5  February 1976, in City Hall, Cape Town/ Kaapstad Jorge had played Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 2 in A major  & Hungarian Fantasy with Enrique Garcia Asensio.

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The Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Wayne Lee Gay) noted a sensitive original approach to the Grieg, but "the big puzzle last night was why the pianist and conductor couldn't seem to put their sensitive approaches together.  Bolet was, as usual, a wizard at pulling a wide range of colour and expression from the piano. He took an appealingly underplayed approach to a piece that's all too often milked for blood and thunder. But he also indulged and erratic and unpredictable tempos, slowing up at some odd points. Though it's difficult to know exactly what was happening between Garcia and Bolet, orchestra and pianist was simply not together much of the time."

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25 February 1988

Meany Theater, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington State

Mendelssohn, Prelude & Fugue in E minor Op.35/1, Rondo Capriccioso Op.14

Beethoven, Appassionata
C.Franck,  Prélude, Choral et Fugue

Liszt, Réminiscences de Norma S394

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The near-capacity audience liked it all, confirming the well-known observation that typical American classical music audiences prefer over-familiar music to anything modern or innovative. Bolet is known, of course, for his robust and technically dazzling renditions of the big Liszt transcriptions, music that is almost devoid of substance but long on color and drama. His choice for this concert was of that ilk "Reminiscences of Bellini's 'Norma" The melodies are there, all right, but so overwhelmed by filigree and froufrou that they seem more the excuse than the reason for being. Lisztean excess is everywhere present in this 19th century dodo.

Polet played it with an apparent sense of conviction, though his facial and body expressions are now so masked by impassivity that it is hard to know how he feels about his art. His fingers are nimble and the chords often extremely forceful, though he tended to be heavy on the pedaling. so that many passages had a blurred quality.

His rendering of Mendelssohn's "Rondo capriccioso" was, to these ears, the most appealing piece on the program (perhaps because I played it so much in my youth). It has, at its best, a "Midsummer Night's Dream feeling, with its airy arpeggios and skittery scherzo rhythms. Bolet's touch there was light and wonderfully agile.

He presented the Beethoven "Appassionata sonata forthrightly and with suitable gravity or mock profundity. (The more one listens to Beethoven's more serious work, the less profound it seems.) And the same could be said for the "Prelude, Chorale and Fugue" by Cesar Franck, an often noisy work that seems as empty of content and true feeling as Liszt's big works.

Without doubt, Bolet is still a major artist, one whose career has spanned about half the 20th century. We should be grateful that he still performs with vigor and command, but we must look to other artists for a sense of what the 20th century musical impulses can mean. (Eugene Smith, The Daily Herald, Everett, Washington)​

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Seattle Gay News: "Is this the same Bolet who is lionized by the eastern press?"

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29 February/Tuesday 1 March 1988

(the Tuesday at both 10.30am and in the evening)

Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, Place des Arts, Montreal, Canada

Grieg's Piano Concerto

Jorge had been due to play with Mexican maestro Eduardo Mata and Orchestre symphonique de Montréal.  But in the end, Mata was indisposed, and the Czech conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Libor Pesek (aged 55) took over.  (He replaced the Sinfonia India by Chavez)

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​4 March 1988

Carnegie Hall NYC

included Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 23 in F Minor, Op. 57, "Appassionata" (1804-1805) and  Vincenzo Bellini (1801—1835) Réminiscences de Norma, S. 393 (1841 arr. Franz Liszt).

13 March 1988 (Sunday, 3:15pm)

Royal Festival Hall, London

inc. Franck, Prelude, Chorale & Fugue, Beethoven Sonata No.31 Op. 110 in A flat and Bellini/Liszt, Réminiscences de Norma. [Harrison/Parrott Ltd]

"The Norma was one of the great performances in the old, now largely vanished grand manner.  The Lisztian cascades of notes (which the Russian poet Mandelstam once likened to wide staircases festooned with bells) were delivered with a lofty and scintillating bravura.  In the ravishing central section...his playing was a kaleidoscopic miracle of subtly blended touch and colour.  It preserved that air of instantly recreative spontaneity which, above all, separates the older romantic tradition from the modern style of piano playing in which everything seems to have been forever fixed, polished, and rigorously researched, down to the very last semiquaver.  (...) The single but crucial blindspot in the programme was Beethoven Op.110.  For Bolet has never been the most convincing of Beethoven pianists.  Its closing fugue was shaped with an exemplary clarity but drained of any sense of what might be described as philosophical grit.  His gently musing treatment of the opening moderato, almost in the manner of a Chopin nocturne, also sounded simply lethargic - all too tentative and unidiomatic."  Robert Henderson, Daily Telegraph

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24, 26 March 1988

Powell Symphony Hall, St Louis , Missouri

Tchaikovsky 1 [+ Albëniz El Corpus en Sevilla]

St Louis Symphony/Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos

"He played the daylights out of it Thursday evening, just as he did nine years ago on his previous Powell Hall engagement. His technique is impeccable and he lacks nothing in terms of finesse or elegance. At the same time, he gives the impression that everything he does, is governed by an immense strength, that is as much mental as physical.(...) Even in the concertos, softer more lyric sections, a feeling of intensity crackles through the air; in those sections, where the music really is intense, the results are likely to be explosive." James Wierzbicki

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30, 21 March, 1, 2 April 1988

Englewood, Red Bank, Trenton, Newark, NJ

Chopin 2

New Jersey Symphony/Zdenek Macal

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4 April 1988

Carolyn Blount Theater, Montgomery, Alabama USA (as part of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival)
MENDELSSOHN Prelude & Fugue in E minor Op.35/1, LISZT Réminiscences de Norma S394
FRANCK Prélude, Choral et Fugue (recorded)

7 April 1988

Barbican Hall, London

Liszt 1

LSO/Michael Tilson Thomas

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11 April 1988

Bern Casino Hall, Bern, Switzerland

Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Franck; Liszt

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19 April 1988 [?]

Strasbourg, France

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22 April 1988

Gothenburg/Göteborgs konserthuset, Sweden

Edvard Grieg, Piano Concerto

Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra/ Riccardo Chailly 

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24 April 1988

Konserthuset, Stockholm.  
Edvard Grieg, Piano Concerto

Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra/ Riccardo Chailly 

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30 April/ 2 & 3 May 1988

Auditorio Pio, Rome

Rachmaninoff, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini Op. 43

Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia under David Shallon

(the second of only two appearances with this orchestra, the first being in January 1973)

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7[?] May 1988

Bamberg Symphony under Rudolf Barshai in one of the two Liszt concertos.

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12 May 1988

Salle Pleyel Paris

Debussy and Chopin Preludes.

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14 May 1988

Schwetzinger Schloss, Rokokotheather; Baden-Württemberg, Germany

including Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 23 in F Minor, Op. 57 'Appassionata'; and Bellini/Liszt, Réminiscences de Norma, S. 394.

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16 May 1988

Main hall of the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam

Mendelssohn, Prélude and fugue opus 35 no. 1, Rondo Capriccioso opus 14, Beethoven Sonata opus 57 Appassionata. Franck, Prelude, Choral et Fugue. Liszt, Réminiscences de Norma, S. 394.​​

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20/ 21 May 1988

Musiektheater, The Hague

Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30

Residentie-Orkest and Bruno Weill

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26 May 1988

The Dome, Brighton, England

Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Franck, Liszt

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9 June 1988

Ascona, on the northern shore of Lake Maggiore, in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland   

Liszt, Bénédiction de Dieu dans la Solitude; Wagner/Liszt, Tannhäuser Overture; Schubert/Liszt, 4 songs [Der Müller und der Bach, Auf dem Wasser zu singen, Lebe Wohl!, Die Forelle], and Schubert, Sonata in A major, D 959

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In June 1988, Bolet gave two concerts in the great Turkish city, once Byzantium, famously Constantinople, and - since 1930 - Istanbul.

21 and 23 June 1988

Atatürk Cultural Center, Büyük Salonu (Large Hall), Istanbul, Turkey​

incl. Mendelssohn, Beethoven's "Appassionata" Op.57, F Minor No: 23, Franck's Prelüd, Koral ve Füg and Bellini/Liszt, Reminiscences de Norma.

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'It turned out that we were listening at the time to two of the last concerts of Jorge Bolet, who was discovered in Turkey in the autumn of his life by giving two piano recitals during the International Istanbul Festival on 21-23 June 1988 in our country.'(Cumhuriyet obituary 1990)

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25 June 1988

Meslay [nr. Tours in the Loire Valley], France

Jorge replaced an ailing Claudio Arrau in recital​

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23 July 1988

Riverbend Music Center, Ohio

JB cancelled his performance with the Cincinnati SO due to scheduling conflict (announced 23 February).  Eugene Istomin replaced him.

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10 August 1988

Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles. 

Replacing the ill Vladimir Ovchinnikov

incl. Beethoven’s “Appassionata” Sonata and Liszt’s “Reminiscences de ‘Norma’ “, Cesar Franck’s “Prelude, choral et fugue”

A single encore: Godowsky’s transcription of the Adagietto from Bizet’s “L’Arlesienne”

​Daniel Cariaga, Los Angeles Times:  "At 73, Jorge Bolet has come to that place of a distinguished career where he is more a keyboard aristocrat than a musical barnburner. Bolet still produces heat at the piano, but not always sparks. Not the kind of conflagration, a 30-year-old firebrand can set, but the steady smouldering glow made by a mature fire-lighter. It was not an evening spent in the rocking chair, however. At the keyboard, Bolet retains that virile presence and commanding address that always characterised his appearance on the stage.[In the Norma] he offered awesomely effortless, gorgeously spun-out playing..."

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26 August 1988

Teatro Odeion, Pompeii, Italy

Liszt, Schubert recital

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​Publicity material for the 1988/89 season - Jorge's last as it turned out -  includes Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (Charles Dutoit), Orchestre National de France, Monte Carlo Philharmonic (Riccardo Chailly), Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, San Francisco Symphony and the NHK Symphony (Tokyo), recitals at Carnegie Hall, the Royal Festival Hall, Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Alte Oper Frankfurt and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall; appearances at the Bath and Roque d’Antheron Festivals, tours of the Far East and Australia and a tour of Belgium and Germany with the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Sir Edward Downes and Bernhard Klee.  Michael Edgley International Ltd. advertised the upcoming performances of Jorge Bolet - 75th Birthday Tour to Australasia in October 1989 - but this was of course cancelled when Jorge retired from the stage in June that year.​

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10 September 1988

Royal Albert Hall, London: Proms

Weber, Konzertstück in F minor [+ Mahler, Das Klagende Lied]

LSO/Michael Tilson Thomas

"Veteran he may be, virtuoso he remains, but above all, he is a vernal musician, bringing a captivating freshness to such music." Christopher Grier, Evening Standard​

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17 September 1988

Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, England

Grieg, PIano Concerto

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic under Polish conductor Grzegorz Nowak

"He chose to explore a decidedly anti-heroic line emphasising the concerto's introspective, lyrical aspects. However, this apparently entailed exaggerating the "molto" in Grieg's first movement Allegro molto moderato marking to the extent that both audience and orchestra were left bemused.  The slow movement fared rather better, but with Bolet proving unexpectedly fallible on occasions, antiheroic, Greig was not all it might have been." Jeremy Moore, Guardian.  Conversely, Neil Tierney in the Daily Telegraph: "It was thrilling to hear Jorge Bolet infusing much subtlety and imagination into this familiar music.His clear, glittering roulades, lordly, cadenzas, and brilliantkeyboard runs were impressive. What he sometimes failed to do, alas, was to integrate his playing meticulously with that of the orchestra."

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17 September, 1988, French television broadcast a studio recording entitled Jorge Bolet: Prince du Piano, which features an interview hosted by Alain Duault and three works:

Chopin: Ballade No.3 in A-flat major, Op.47

Kreisler/Rachmaninoff: Liebesfreud 

Liszt: Réminiscences de Norma (Bellini), S.394

A selection of Debussy's Préludes was recorded 21-23 September 1988, in Davies Symphony Hall,  San Francisco.  Decca/London had all the equipment set up for the Nielsen symphonies with Herbert Blomsted.

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25 September 1988

Gusman Center for the Performing Arts, Miami

A review dated 27/9 by James Roos in the Miami Herald mentions JB's contribution to a piano gala. "Liszt's Norma what is a serious letdown. I don't know what has happened to Bolet,once a lion of the pianist jungle, but his Sunday night performance of Liszt's bravura transcription was unaccountably tame and turgid. He seemed to be struggling, slowly and choppily, just to get through it."

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2 October, 1988

Sunset Theatre, Carmel, California

Liszt: Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude, S.173 No.3 (from Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses)

Schubert: Piano Sonata No.20 in A major, D.959

Schubert/Liszt: Four Song Transcriptions

Wagner/Liszt: Overture to Tannhäuser, S.442

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One of the two encores does not feature regularly in JB's recitals, a Schubert Impromptu 

Bizet/Godowsky: Adagietto from L’Arlésienne

Schubert: Impromptu in G-flat major, D.899 No.3 (Op.90 No.3)

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5, 7, 8 October 1988

Davies Hall, San Francisco

Chopin's Piano Concert No. 1 [+ Messiaen, Chronochromie]

San Francisco Symphony/ Andrew Massey.
​Only JB's second appearance with the orchestra after 1964.  "So, for the first time in 24 years, the Symphony invited back, Cuban-born, pianist Jorge Bolet for a very odd traversal of Chopin's first concerto. Bolet may have set a record for the longest Chopin E Minor concerto in the annals.  The playing was assured, magisterial, pristine and spontaneous. Bolet caressed and cuddled the score, pausing at favourite passages, stretching a phrase almost to the breaking point. The tempo started slow and it grew even slower as the performance proceeded.  It snapped, of course. Bolet deployed rubato liberally, smoothed out contrast, lingered over notes for an eternity and permitted the final rondo to dribble away. Passage work glowed with enormous conviction, and a few smudged notes. It was a performance of towering individuality, and you couldn't bribe me to sit through it again." (Allan Ulrich, San Francisco Examiner 6.10.1988)   The SF Chronicle: "By the time the final Rondo rolled around, the languid tempos, and laconic phrasing, began to wear thin, and what had been a lack of showmanship started to sound like a lack of inflection or passion. The latter half of the concerto went by in a stream of innocuous sound. In the end, it turns out that Chopin doesn't play all that well in pastels"   The Oakland Tribune mentions a serious memory lapse in the first movement which caused the orchestra to vamp for a few seconds, and ultimately records "a disastrous performance".

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A number of the reviews clearly show - even if the writers did not know it at the time - that Jorge was very unwell.  But see 11 October.

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11 October 1988

Victoria Hall, Hanley, England

Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. [+ Elgar 2]

BBC Philharmonic and Sir Edward Downes

​The ringing vitality of his playing belied his years, and his touch was as taut and electric as ever, without ever being flamboyant. The 18th variation of the Rhapsody melts in the mind as a Choc, ice melts in the mouth, and many members of the audience must've enjoyed the sensation of both.  Eric Snape (Evening Sentinel)

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17 October 1988

De Prinsen van de Musiek Symfonie and Bernhard Klee (Belgium?)

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18-26 October 1988: various concerts in Germany in Bielefeld, Braunschweig, Kassel and Friederichshafen and Frankfurt with the BBC Philharmonic under Berhard Klee and Sire Edward Downes.

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[?] November 1988

Victoria Hall, Geneva, Switzerland

Liszt 1

Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under Erich Leinsdorf

The reviewer expressed an opinion that this might be JB's first appearance in Geneva (but this is not so, as he had certainly been there in 1974 and 1975.

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En bis, Jorge Bolet parvient, dans les quelques mesures d'un Nocturne de Chopin, au sublime par l'intensité de la poésie la plus pure. Quelques secondes réellement bouleversantes.'

​"As an encore, Jorge Bolet attained, in the few bars of a nocturne by Chopin, the sublime by the intensity of the purest poetry. A few truly heartbreaking seconds."  (The Nocturne is presumably a favourite encore, Op.15/2 in F # major.)

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2 November, 1988

Suntory Hall, Tokyo, Japan

Liszt: Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude, S.173 No.3 (from Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses), Piano Sonata in B minor, S.178, Six Consolations, S.172 and Réminiscences

de Norma (Bellini), S.394

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9 and 10 November 1988 (Wed/Thurs)

NHK Hall, Shibuya Tokyo

Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 (filmed on 9th)

The concert also included Berlioz's overture Les Francs-juges Op. 3 and Messiaen's Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum.  

NHK Symphony under David Atherton​
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Il Piccolo di Trieste 5 October 1988 had announced a recital on 25 November in Monfalcone (Friuli-Venezia Giulia, northern Italy), JB's first recital in this region:

Schubert, Schubert/Liszt, Wagner/Liszt, Tannhäuser

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6 December 1988

Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris

Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30

Orchestre Colonne under Philippe Entremont