Difficult Years
1950s
Jorge may not have been the greatest pianist, but he was always my favourite pianist.
William Livingstone
Despite the apparent glamour of much of what follows, Jorge Bolet has described some tough times in the late 1940s/50s, years when he was grateful for the many friends who supported him in these ‘ghastly lean years’. The promise of his golden years at Curtis was now being tested.
'These were ‘terrible years... great struggle...half-starvation’.
Interview with The New York Times, 28 January 1973
Lean Years
Jorge returned often to Cuba during these years. There were recitals for Pro-Arte Musical, or performances as soloist with the Havana Filarmonica under Erich Kleiber, Artur Rodzinski, his compatriot José Echaniz, the British conductor Eric Simon, and his own brother Alberto. Paquito D'Rivera, My Sax Life: A Memoir (2008) talks of his father who ‘opened a modest importing business that sold instruments, books, and musical accessories. It was located on Virtudes 57 between Consulado and Prado, in the heart of Havana, 'that marvelous city immortalized by Guillermo Cabrera Infante in his novel, Tres Tristes Tigres and destroyed shortly after by Dr. Castro, inch by inch. Among the many friends and clients who visited this small enterprise were musicians such as Cachao, Arturo “Chico” O’Farrill, Bebo Valdés, Chocolate Armenteros, Mario Bauzá, René Touzet, Peruchín, Gilberto Valdés, Jorge Bolet, José “Chombo” Silva and Ernesto Lecuona.’
Serge Koussevitzky
In an interview with Elyse Mach in 1988, Jorge ruminated about Serge Koussevitzky and the element of luck in a pianist’s career.
Koussevitzky was legendary conductor, born in Vyshny Volochyok, Russia in 1874, and a powerful force in the world of American music until his death in Boston on 4 June 1951.
He had taken the young William Kapell under his wing and this made the pianist's career. For Claudia Cassidy of the Chicago Tribune, Jorge ruefully observed, 'Kapell could do no wrong'. Cassidy was extremely influential in the windy city, but her judgement could be considered controversial. She was, for example, unfailingly critical of the great Czech conductor Rafael Kubelík and described Janáček's orchestral work Taras Bulba as ‘trash’. She did not take to Bolet either.
Bolet tells Mach of an incident which can probably be dated to February 1950 (see below). He flew from New York to Havana (while en route to Caracas) to visit his mother and sisters. The Havana Philharmonic performed on Sunday mornings and Koussevitzky conducted one such morning concert. Jorge was a guest of the President of the orchestra Board, Dr. Armando Coro and his wife Margot, who were lifelong friends. (Margot was the daughter of Hubert de Blanck and Pilar Martin y Martin.) Lunch was at a country house outside Havana, and Bolet played for the conductor. The piano was not in very good condition - ‘Pianos don’t last in the tropics'; after the Haydn F minor Variations, Koussevitzky exclaimed, ‘Such polish!’
He made a date at Tanglewood – the summer home of the Boston Symphony in Lennox, Massachusetts - for Bolet to perform Prokofiev’s second concerto, on 4 August. (It was in 1936 that Koussevitzky led the orchestra's first concerts in the Berkshires; he and the players took up annual summer residence at Tanglewood a year later.) Koussevitzky had conducted the second concerto for the composer himself in 1926. But Bolet’s contract was cancelled because the orchestra had engaged Italian conductor Victor de Sabata on that day. And the next year Koussevitzky was dead.
Tanglewood, incidentally, could be delightfully rural. In April 1953, Ross Parmenter reported that, at a Bolet concert with Pierre Monteux and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, there was a ‘feathered intruder’. A bird had got into the fan-shaped Shed. There was drizzle in the late afternoon and the grounds were damp. The concert was good ‘but did not have much colour or warmth’ in the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto.
Serge Koussevitzky even makes it into
an episode of TV's Frasier
3.1 "She's the Boss" aired 19 September 1995. New KACL station manager Kate Costas (wonderfully played by Mercedes Ruehl) has a reputation for being a fearsome perfectionist, and here she clashes with Frasier over the key signature of Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra.
Cuba before the Revolution
Cuba's reputation as an exotic and permissive playground came to light in the 1920s, when the country became a favorite destination for robber barons and bohemians. Scions like the Whitneys and the Biltmores, along with luminaries such as New York City Mayor Jimmy "Beau James" Walker, flocked to Cuba for winter bouts of gambling, horse racing, golfing and country-clubbing. Sugar was Cuba's economic lifeline, but its tropical beauty—and tropical beauties—made American tourism a natural and flowing source of revenue. A 1956 issue of Cabaret Quarterly, a now-defunct tourism magazine, describes Havana as "a mistress of pleasure, the lush and opulent goddess of delights." By the 1950s Cuba was playing host to celebrities like Ava Gardner, Frank Sinatra and Ernest Hemingway. But the advent of cheap flights and hotel deals made the once-exclusive hotspot accessible to American masses. For around $50—a few hundred dollars today—tourists could purchase round-trip tickets from Miami, including hotel, food and entertainment. Big-name acts, beach resorts, bordellos and buffets were all within reach. Cuba was attracting some mafia kingpins, too, such as Meyer Lansky and Santo Trafficante, who were evading a national investigation into organized crime. In Cuba, they could continue their stock trade of gambling, drugs and prostitution, as long as they paid off government officials. The fees, however high, were a small price for an industry that raked in millions of dollars every month. But while tourists eagerly spun the roulette wheel in sexy Havana, a revolution brewed in the less glamorous countryside. The sugar boom that had fueled much of Cuba's economic life was waning, and by the mid-'50s it was clear that expectations had exceeded results. With no reliable economic replacement in sight, Cubans began to feel the squeeze. Poverty, particularly in the provinces, increased. Unlike other Caribbean islands, however, Cuba boasted a large upper-middle class. Cubans had fought vehemently for independence from Spain from the 1860s to the 1890s, but by the 20th century, the country had become beholden economically to the United States. By the late '50s, U.S. financial interests included 90 percent of Cuban mines, 80 percent of its public utilities, 50 percent of its railways, 40 percent of its sugar production and 25 percent of its bank deposits—some $1 billion in total. American influence extended into the cultural realm, as well. Cubans grew accustomed to the luxuries of American life. They drove American cars, owned TVs, watched Hollywood movies and shopped at Woolworth's department store. The youth listened to rock and roll, learned English in school, adopted American baseball and sported American fashions. However - not only was the economy weakening as a result of U.S. influence, but Cubans were also offended by what their country was becoming: a haven for prostitution, brothels and gambling. "Daily life had developed into a relentless degradation," writes Louis Perez - a Cuba historian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - in his 1999 book On Becoming Cuban, "with the complicity of political leaders and public officials who operated at the behest of American interests." In 1957, a group of students fed up with government corruption stormed the National Palace. Many historians consider this a turning point in the revolution. Over the next few years, bursts of violence erupted throughout the city. Bombs exploded in movie theaters and nightclubs. Gunshots rang out. Dead bodies turned up on sidewalks and streets. "There had been an idealization of the [Cuba's] War of Independence and of being a revolutionary," says Uva de Aragon, a Cuban academic now living in Miami. "In this climate, people thought revolution was a solution to problems." Bloody battles ensued between Batista's troops and the rebels in the mountains. Still, Cubans tried to keep some normalcy in their lives, going to school, watching baseball games and taking cha-cha lessons. "It was surreal," says de Aragon. "There was a lot of fear in those last two or three years." Before the Revolution, Natasha Geiling, Smithsonian Magazine, 31 July 2007
1950
1 February, 1950 was the 75th birthday of violinist Fritz Kreisler. Pope Pius XII and President Truman sent messages. There was a dinner at the Ritz Carlton hotel in New York City with a three-tiered cake and 75 candles. Bolet played piano selections, ‘pinch-hitting’ for Claudio Arrau who was unable to make plane connections to get to the dinner on time. (The New York Times, 2.2.50)
The BBC Hebrew Broadcasts included a piano recital by Claudio Arrau (from London?) on 25 January at 8:45 pm, relayed through radios Kol Yerushalaim and Kol Yisrael. This may explain where Arrau was. [The Palestine Post, Jerusalem, 25 Jan 1950]
Fresh from an engagement (3 concerts) in Caracas, Venezuela - mostly likely in the Teatro Municipal, arranged by the Asociación Venezolana de Conciertos [1940]; he had flown back on February 14 - Jorge performed Rachmaninoff 3 with Howard Mitchell in Constitution Hall, Washington DC on Wednesday 15 February 1950. The programme also included Hindemith's Mathis der Maler Symphony. Jorge was covering for Byron Janis who was ill (he had been due to play same concerto). Evening Star 15.2.50
Jorge chose to play the longer, more massive of the two cadenzas in the first movement: you can hear this at 9'52" here.
On his way to Venezuela, JB had stopped off in Havana for a concert with the Havana Philharmonic.
In late April, he was again in Cuba for concerts, and to visit family, as reported on 20 April by Diario de la Marina.
On Sunday, 7 May, 1950, in the Teatro Nacional, Havana, he had performed a programme which included Beethoven's Sonata in D minor ("Tempest"?), Franck, Prelude, Chorale et Fugue & some Mendelssohn, ending with Strauss/Godowsky "El Murciélago"(Fledermaus Waltzes), which Sergio Nicols (Noticias de Hoy 9.5.50) thought was played with "prodigiosa seguridad y bueno gusto", prodigious security and good taste..
On 18 June 1950 there was a concert for the 150th birthday of the city of Washington, DC. Cuba sent Bolet as one of its representatives.
Fifth Gala Sesquicentennial Watergate Concert 11 July, 1950. The Brazilian composer Walter Burle Marx conducted Bolet. Burle Marx was born in São Paulo, 1902 and died in Akron, Ohio, 1990. His Symphony No. 2 (“Brasiliana”) had been written in 1950. 'Burle Marx’s musical background forged an undeniable bond between music tradition and artistic nationalism, which was imperative to the composers of the time. Nonetheless, for the Brazilian modernist movement in the 1920s, Burle Marx’s German training in the 1920s turned out to be an anathema.' (Marcio Spartaco Nigri Landi)
Political
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, after lying low (following clandestine student activities) focused on his university studies, and he graduated as a Doctor of Law in September 1950. He took part in a high school protest in Cienfuegos in November 1950, fighting with police to protest the Education Ministry's ban on student associations; he was arrested and charged for violent conduct, but the magistrate dismissed the charges.
Leycester Coltman, The Real Fidel Castro. New Haven and London: Yale University Press (2003).
Uncle Jorge
David Sierra-Bolet
'He always kept in touch and visited my parents (David's mother being Bolet's sister Hortensia) every time he gave a concert in Miami or Fort Lauderdale, and that was almost every year in the 1970s. My older brother Joel stayed with him in New York City (Washington Square) many times in the 1950s. My brother Jorge and I stayed with him for a couple of days during my Christmas vacation, December 1962. That was a great experience; he lived in Palo Alto, up on the mountain side. I would lay on the floor next to the piano while he practised for hours (I was seventeen years old at the time).
On another occasion, in 1968 or 1969, I stayed with him in Bloomington, Indiana, where he was a piano teacher at the University of Indiana. At that visit he gave me the key to his car and hooked me up with a student who hooked me up with a very pretty, sexy, not too shy, Mid-Western girl. He was always, or rather often, in touch with his mother Adelina and all of his siblings (Maria, Antonio, Alberto, Hortensia and Guillermo). His sister Maria (known as Pepa) lived for many years in Spain and Tangier, where she was exiled by Franco. During that time tio (Uncle) Jorge saw her and I would guess help her. He had a vacation villa in San Sebastian (north coast of Spain).
Samuel Bolet
'My uncle Jorge Bolet was always, naturally, a source of great admiration and pride to the entire extended family. I had the good fortune of attending a vast number (though never enough) of his concerts and recitals wherever I happened to be living at the time (starting in the 1950s in my growing years in Havana, and extending to Dallas, Charlotte, N. Carolina, Miami, and finally Barcelona, a couple of years before his death). Memories? I could share a torrent, even going back to my youth sitting in Havana's Auditorium flanked by grandma, my folks and others applauding the two uncles (Alberto conducting the Filarmonica, and Jorge at the piano).
One unforgettable program featured what few pianists would dare: 3 concertos, back to back! In the first half, a Mozart concerto (no. 22 or 23?), then the Schumann, and -- after the intermission -- Rachmaninoff's no. 3. The standing ovation at the end was short of apotheosic! Walking out of the theatre, my dad turned to his brother: "Ah, Jorge, why didn't you play an encore?" To which the soloist replied: "I just played 3 concertos. What else did they want? For me to cut my veins?" Later the same day my dad and I encountered the orchestra's concertmaster, who happened to live with his family in our same building. His summary of the afternoon's concert? "Jorge is a monster!" To us in the family who loved him beyond his God-given talent at the piano, there will always be much to cherish in his legacy.'
'The Wicked Witch of the Mid-West'
BOLET’S DEBUT SHATTERS QUIET OF LAKE FRONT
'You might as well play a xylophone as a piano so maltreated. Not having heard Mr. Bolet in more legitimate circumstances, I can only tell you that he has a muscular attack, that he plays fast and loud, sometimes with a glittering facility, sometimes with batches of blurs and blotches, and that he gave no evidence of musicianship at all. [...] His Tchaikowsky made me doubt that I ever heard a flashier or cheaper performance of a badgered war horse.'
Of the music critic herself, William Grimes wrote in her obituary (1996): ‘Ms.Cassidy was born in Shawneetown, Illinois, on the Ohio River, where she saw her first theatrical performances on showboats. In 1942 she was hired by The Chicago Tribune as its theater, music and ballet critic, and her "On the Aisle" column soon became a Chicago institution.
‘Ms. Cassidy wrote an energetic, often florid prose, and she took no prisoners. Sometimes referred to as "acidy Cassidy," she hounded the conductors Desire Defauw, Rafael Kubelík and Jean Martinon off the podium of the Chicago Symphony and out of town. Some artists left the city vowing never to return.’
In fairness to Ms Cassidy, here is a spirited defence of her view of Kubelík by David Hurwitz. In essence, the Czech conductor was too young; Chicago was not a Second City and should not get Second Tier conductors. Who was the replacement? Fritz Reiner. As Hurwitz says, '"The Wicked Witch of the Mid-West" is credited with the removal of Kubelik but not with the arrival of Reiner.'
However, this appears to be contradicted by Lionel Salter in the Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians. 'After refusing offers from the BBC (where he was much liked), Kubelík accepted the position of musical director of the Chicago SO, but resigned after three years, having been savagely attacked not, as has often been claimed, for having too limited a repertory but, on the contrary, for introducing too many (about 60) new works, for demanding exhaustive rehearsals and for engaging several black artists.'
Chris Jones (2013) states that her sustained praise for The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams over several columns is credited with rescuing the show from closing in tryouts and propelling it to move on to Broadway success.
Her reviews became more vicious as the years passed, with many raising the concern that she was publishing personal vendettas rather than artistic criticism. Chris Jones is a current critic for the Chicago Tribune and the author of a book that looks back at more than one hundred years of the paper’s criticism. He notes just how hard her blows fell on the actors, directors, conductors, and others for whom she had harsh words. For example, Robert Emmett Keane, who played Captain George Brackett in a 1950 touring performance of South Pacific, fired back at Cassidy following her negative review of the show. 'The reason there are so few plays running in Chicago now … is due entirely to one vitriolic woman,' he said in a speech to the Chicago Drama League. 'She pours sulfuric acid over every new show which is brought to Chicago, and she scares away from the city management of every decent show which is produced in New York each season.'
“The day a critic settles for second best, the public will get the third rate.” — Claudia Cassidy
You hear Claudia Cassidy speak in the link below (30 November 1966) of the New York City Ballet in Paris. She refers to "The Pied Piper", a ballet with choreography by Jerome Robbins and music by Aaron Copland- his Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra, with Harp and Piano (1948). Its premiere was on 4 December, 1951, New York City. In 1952 The Company makes its debut in continental Europe with a five-month tour, participating in several major festivals. Cities visited are Barcelona, Paris, Florence, Lausanne, Zurich, The Hague, London, Edinburgh, and Berlin.
Did Jorge perform in October at the Teatro Colón, Bogotá (Colombia)?
A recital on Friday, 3 November in Fort Worth, Texas included Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes (one of the big works which Bolet never recorded) and Weinberger/Chasins’ Schwanda the Bagpiper polka. In a review by George Anson, he is described as ‘definitely one of the few real piano masters of today. The audience was highly enthusiastic but much too small. Such piano mastery rates a packed house.’
El Paso Herald Post (Texas), 1 Nov 1950 announces a recital on Tuesday 7 November 1950 at the Victoria Theater, Ciudad Juárez, a city in the Mexican state of Chihuahua (it lies on the Rio Grande river, south of El Paso, Texas).
15 November 1950, Fine Arts Auditorium, Natchitoches (Louisiana). Established in 1714 by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis as part of French Louisiana, the community was named after the indigenous Natchitoches people. Jorge's recital included Chopin's Barcarolle, Schumann's Symphonic Etudes and the Schwanda Fantasy. 'That guy hits more keys with one hand than I can with both hands and a foot,' Sherrod Towns NSC music department director remarked of Jorge Bolet, during the first presentation of the Natchitoches-Northwestern Concert Association in the Fine Arts Auditorium Wednesday night' (The Current Sauce, Northwestern State University of Louisiana)
Tex Compton is listed as sailing from Los Angeles to Honolulu, Hawaii on 13 October 1950 on the SS Lurline, due to arrive on the 18th.
Thus runs the headline in The Chicago Tribune, 16 July 1950.
Claudia Cassidy, the harpy of the newspaper, scourge of the Windy City's arts scene, wrote: ‘Jorge Bolet, the Cuban pianist, could have been charged with assault and battery of Tchaikowsky’s B Flat Minor Concerto last night, with a footnote on circumstantial evidence and extenuating circumstances.
'For Mr. Bolet, who happens to be the only pianist I know with a small black moustache, was making his Chicago debut in the lake front bandshell with Nicolai Malko and the Grant Park Symphony orchestra, and he may not have been fully aware of the catastrophic results of the Grant Park habit of thrusting two microphones into the protesting throat of the piano. So fortified, he made a terrific clatter, and an audience estimated at 16,000 responded with some whoops of glee.'
1951
There were concerts in Cuba on 4/5 February 1951 with the Havana Philharmonic under Jean Morel. The 1950-51 season also included recitals in Cienfuegos (?in the Teatro Tomás Terry) and Santa Clara. (The Romanian conductor Sergiu Celibidache had been in Cuba 21/22 January.)
The New York Times 5 March 1951 reports his first appearance (and seventh in this hall) with the New York Philharmonic on Saturday 3 March in what was rapidly becoming one of his his signature concertos, Prokofiev 2 under Dimitri Mitropoulos (Stravinsky’s ballet Petrushka and Mozart / Suite from Idomeneo, K.366 [arr. Busoni, Ferruccio] were also on the programme). ‘It was a rugged massive example of piano playing in which the concerto gave Señor Bolet a workout. He gave the piano a workout...’
From this time there is a very detailed article in the Mifflinburg Telegraph (Pennsylvania), 15 March 1951, which is rich in background information (indeed it was the first proper article I found on Google newspaper archive in 2009). It is centred around Bolet presenting a ‘brilliant concert’ in the Davis Gymnasium, Lewsiburg at 8.15pm. The programme included Norman Dello Joio’s Sonata No. 3 and Abram Chasins’ raucous Schwanda the Bagpiper fantasy. ‘Up until now I have been called a Cuban pianist and rightfully so but at present that appendage is a bit outdated, for I am an American citizen and proud of it!’
Bolet had recently [actually in October 1943!] been awarded Cuba’s highest distinction, the Order of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes.
Alberto Bolet, Havana Philharmonic
Mr. and Mrs. Alberto Bolet, Los Angeles, 1932 (UCLA Digital Library Collections)
In 1948 Alberto Bolet, Jorge's eldest brother, was asked to head the Ballet Español de Ana Maria, with which he toured all over South America for three years. It was a high-profile organisation: the sets of one of its productions, Rodolfo Halffter's La madrugada del Panadero, were designed by no less a figure than Salvador Dali. His experience with the Ballet Español, and his energetic concurrent work with the Havana Chamber Orchestra, gave Bolet the stepping-stone to his most important appointment to date when, in 1951, he became music director of the Havana Philharmonic, a post he held until January 1959. During those years the orchestra was revived by Bolet and a few other strugglers after it had been on the verge of disbanding because of dissension and lack of money.
He worked with numerous symphonies including the Cape Town and Durban Symphonies in South Africa, and the Long Beach Symphony in California.
During that period he gave concerts with some of the leading soloists of the day: his brother Jorge, of course, but also including Jascha Heifetz, Jose Iturbi, Andre Kostelanetz, Victoria de los Angeles, Andres Segovia, Pilar Lorengar, Alicia de Larrocha and Nicanor Zabaleta. His repertoire liberally embraced contemporary composers, many of whom became friends, Stravinsky, Ginastera and Villa-Lobos among them; and he made a particular point of presenting modern Cuban music, not least that of Edgardo Martín, Julian Orbón and Aurelio de la Vega, whose Overtura a una Farsa Seria later became one of Bolet's handful of recordings.
'He made a houseful of fast friends!'
There was an important recital on 3 April 1951 in Carnegie Hall. After this, his 8th performance in the hall, Bolet was not to perform in the city for the next five years (4 December 1956).
H. Taubman (in The New York Times the next day) declared that Bolet commanded one of the most formidable techniques in the business. He played the Tempest Sonata Op31/2 of Beethoven and Schumann’s Concerto without orchestra Op. 14 etc. ‘In spite of all the gifts of virtuosity, Mr Bolet did not provide the musical satisfactions that should come from a pianist of his attainments. There were deficiencies in imagination and sensitivity. For no reason, he lingered over some passages, made rhythmic alterations...’ Manuel de Falla's (1876—1946) Piezas españolas: 2. "Cubana" & 4. "Andaluza" (composed c. 1906-1908) also slipped into the programme.
On 14 April, 1951 Douglas Watt in The New Yorker had discussed Jorge's playing: 'Bolet, a tall, strongly built, well groomed man played a long and taxing program. He displayed a sound technique but for some reason his playing lacked excitement. There was a sameness about his approach to the various works that made it doubly wearisome. I was most curious about a quality of tone he repeatedly produced; it was the kind of dead tone that I usually associate with piano recordings. I don't know how, or why, he produced it.’
On 29 July there was a summer concert with the Chautauqua SO under Franco Autori. Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2 was Bolet’s big piece and the programme also included Frederick Picket’s Variations on a theme ‘Go down Moses’. The Chautauqua Institution was a 750-acre educational centre beside Chautauqua Lake in south-western New York State.
Sunday afternoon, 5 August 1951 at Tanglewood. Guarnieri, Second Symphony "Uirapuru" - an Amazonian bird - (1945), Prokofiev, Second Piano Concerto, Mussorgsky/Ravel, Pictures at an Exhibition. Boston Symphony under Brazilian maestro Eleazar de Carvalho, with whom Jorge would perform often (he took part in the festival organised by de Carvalho in the mountains of Brazil in the 1970s at Campos do Jordão, a festival Carvalho had modelled after this rural Tanglewood).
Mozart Camargo Guarnieri (1907 – 1993) was a Brazilian composer, born in Tietê, São Paulo, the son of a Sicilian immigrant. His compositions received significant recognition in the United States during the 1940s, leading to conducting opportunities in major American cities; in 1942 he received the first prize of the Philadelphia Free Library Fleischer Music Collection for his Violin Concerto. A key figure in the Brazilian national school, he is regarded by some as the most important Brazilian composer after Heitor Villa-Lobos, Guarnieri was awarded the Gabriela Mistral Prize shortly before his death. His works include: Pedro Malazarte (comic opera in one act, libretto by Mário de Andrade, premiered with great success in May 1952 at the Theatro Municipal, Rio de Janeiro, six symphonies and six piano concertos.
'The two symphonies of 1944 are among his best works and, together with the third (1952), they typify his individual style: nationalist but anti-exotic in its stylization of folk elements, and technically refined, particularly in development procedures and form.' (Gerard Béhague).
'He shares something of the motoric drive and enthusiasm for counterpoint of Honegger, the folk-inspired melodic character of Bartók, and the plain-spoken directness of Copland.' (David Hurwitz) The first dance of Tres Dansas para Orquestra (1941) is "Dansa Brasileira" (originally composed for piano in 1928), which is his best-known and most-recorded piece outside South America.
Sunday 11 November 1951, Twilight Concert with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. JB was guest of honour at a cocktail party on the Monday afterwards; the hosts were old friends of the pianist, Mr and Mrs Realino McCann. They entertained at their new home Whirlaway, 2440 Byrnes Road. Other special guests were Mrs Richard Compton and Mrs Eula Carpenter, both of St Louis Mo., and Mr Tex Compton of New York.
21 November 1951 Consistory, Bloomington, Illinois recital
Photo: McLean County Museum of History
The Chicago Tribune notes that Miss Frances Hooper entertained Jorge at dinner at her Evanston home on the night of Friday 7 December 1951 after his performances with the Chicago Symphony on Thursday evening and Friday afternoon. She had met him when she recently visited Dallas, Texas.
St Louis Despatch 18 December 1951
Kirkwood, Missouri. Mrs Richard J. Compton, 9 Adams Lane, is entertaining her son, Houston Compton, and Jorge Bolet, Cuban-born musician. Both men now live in New York. The three will go to Shreveport, Louisiana, at the end of the week for a family reunion over the Christmas holidays. They will be with Mrs. Compton's daughter, Mrs. David Cummings, and her family. Also planning to be in Shreveport are another of Mrs. Compton’s daughters, Mrs. J. W. Barnwell, her husband and two children from Natchez, Miss. Mr. Bolet’s mother is expected from her home in Havana.
Saturday 29 December 1951 : Jorge makes debut with San Antonio Symphony in Rachmaninov's Paganini Variations, under Victor Alessandro. Respighi's delightful suite The Birds was on the programme (also Smetana, Bartered Bride, 3 dances)
San Antonio Light, 30 Dec 1951 (San Antonio, Texas) records a warm reception on his debut. 'He made a houseful of fast friends!'
