Jorge may not have been the greatest pianist,
but he was always my favourite pianist.
William Livingstone
Europe
The first tour, 1935
8 May Amsterdam
10 May The Hague
17 May Berlin
19[?] May Milan
23 May Vienna
31 May London
6 June Paris
“After Curtis, I decided to go to Paris. By this time, I was so sick of schools, and teachers and piano lessons, that I decided to simply live, practise on my own, and listen to a lot of music. I did all this for nine months, then went to London for another month of just living. Finally, the little money I had ran out, and this time, another member of my family came to the rescue.
My eldest brother, Nico, who was a military man, very kindly gave me enough money, to make it possible for me to give a number of recitals in Europe. That's how my concert career began. I played recitals in Amsterdam, the Hague, Paris, London, Berlin, Vienna, Milan.”
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“I should most probably have stayed in Europe. Instead, I chose to return to Curtis. I got it in my head to study conducting. And so I did—with Boris Goldovsky, from whom I learned a great deal, and with Fritz Reiner, from whom I learned nothing. All that Reiner taught me was to memorize a score."
Holland 1935
De Tijd (Dutch newspaper) 8 May 1935
In May 1935, Jorge Bolet made his European debut in Holland. (He had sailed to Europe on 26 January 1935.) There were recitals in Amsterdam in the Kleine Zaal ('Small Hall') of the Concertgebouw (Wednesday, 8 May) and The Hague, in the Diligentia (Friday 10). The reviews were highly encouraging.
​'We are thankful that he did not use his really sensational technical gifts merely to dazzle. In his hands the de Falla Fantasía Bética became something of great musical importance.'
Avondpost, den Haag, 11 May 1935
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'A new star in the musical firmament, a pupil (sic) of Godowsky...a fervid imagination, no trace of nervousness. We hope he will not become one of those brilliant keyboard wonders of today - "Here today, gone tomorrow"- for his musical gifts are too genuine and precious.'
Vaderland, den Haag
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The Nieuwe Rotterdam Courant [9.5.35] described the audience of the Amsterdam recital as 'small but entranced'.
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The concert agent Hungarian-born Dr Géza Kálmán de Koos, Hollandsche Concertdirectie had arranged the bookings for this European tour. When Jorge next returned to Amsterdam (December 1955), he was still represented by the de Koos agency, as he was in 1977 when he came to Britain.
Ten Hovestraat 15, 's-Gravenhage, Amsterdam was the agency address in 1924; Brediusweg 43, Bussum, Holland (in 1969)
'Dutch tenor Jacques Urlus in 1921, two years after the foundation (1919) of the concert office, was the first "victim" of Dr. de Koos' involvement. Over the years, it has become clear to me that this Hungarian has an extremely important page in the book of Dutch music history. It has been said before, and it cannot be repeated often enough: our concert culture would not be what it is if conductor Willem Mengelberg had not put his stamp on it. And on the arable land ploughed by Mengelberg, Géza de Koos has luxuriantly hand sown. He brought Bartok here, Stravinsky, Ravel...'
(W. H. Thijsse, Muziekredacteur, Het Vaderland, writing in 1969)
The Hague's Diligentia is on the Lange Voorhout. In 1805, two halls were built in the building where the Royal Society for Physics met, under the name 'Diligentia'. From 1821, the Royal Society also rented the halls to a new company, Concert in Diligentia, which provided classical concerts. In 1853, the two halls were combined into one hall; the wide and shallow hall that can still be seen in the theatre today.
The Haagsche Courant (11.5.35) was more critical. 'Bolet played Prelude, Chorale et Fugue by Franck, Sonata op. 57 by Beethoven and thirdly a series of works by Chopin, which works he had completely mastered technically, but almost nothing came of an inspired expression (welke werken hij technisch geheel beheerschte, maar van een bezielde uitdrukking kwam zoo goed als niets terecht).
The glory of the sun didn't rise until after the break. Waldesrauschen by Liszt, Cubana and Andaluza by Manuel de Falla and a paraphrase "on themes and waltzes from Johann Strauss' Fledermaus' by Godowsky with almost unplayably edited and inexpressive passages ( "op thema's en walzen uit Johann Strauss' Fledermaus door Godowsky met bijna onspeelbaar-bewerkte en weinig zeggende passages toegespitst). The three encores were the result of the tremendous hurricanes of support that the few audience members unleashed.
'Final reflection: Jorge Bolet is a tip-top virtuoso, so was Liszt, but he added the more important and greater half, and Bolet misses this completely; but what is not, can become [?] (Slot-overweging: Jorge Bolet is een tiptop virtuoos, dat was Liszt ook, maar hij had de belangrijkste en grootste helft er bij en die mist Bolet heel en al; maar wat niet is, kan worden).
In this final reflection, 'The problem is the old Dutch language. It all comes down to the fact that Liszt was a great virtuoso but had also something else to offer. The review mentions that Jorge is a great virtuoso but does not have this "something else" yet, but states that what is not there yet can come in the future (as it did). All this is nonsense of course. Liszt also learnt in live. He did not compose the Sonata when he was 21. After all, when you want to be more than a virtuoso, you have to be one to start with.' (Mattheus Smits)
Paris & Berlin, May 1935
In fact, Jorge seems to have made an earlier appearance than May/June in Paris. (The Cuban government had awarded Jorge a scholarship on 2 March 1934 which would enable him to stay in Paris.)
The New York Herald Paris, Sunday 31 March 1935, announced that JB (a son-in-law of Godowsky [sic]) would be playing that evening at the Students' Atelier, 65 Quai d'Orsay. No doubt this was a chance to try out the repertoire before a bigger audience. Jorge tells Roy Plomley in 1985 that he went backstage to speak to Rachmaninoff after a concert at the Salle Pleyel, the second and final time he met the great Russian (the first time being when Godowsky introduced him after Jorge's Carnegie Hall debut in 1932).
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And then London, Vienna, Madrid, Milan. From memory, without consulting his files, Bolet told journalist A. Ramirez in 1943: the Salle Chopin (Paris), Bechstein-Saal (Berlin), Aeolian Hall (London), the Diligentia Hall (the Hague) , the Conservatorio Verdi (Milan) and in 1936 (Spain) concertos with José María Franco (Madrid), concerts in the Teatro la Comedia; and also in Gijón, Oviedo and Pamplona.
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It is worth noting that the Spanish concerts were in April, 1936, barely three months before the outbreak of the Civil War on 17 July.​​
​​The Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (17 May, 1935), reporting the Berlin début in the Bechsteinsaal, talked of a phenomenal technique but said that everything was guided more by intellect than by emotion. The journal Signale (22 May 1935) reports:
"Jorge Bolet, ein in Berlin bislang noch unbekannter Pianist, gab einen Klavierabend im Bechsteinsaal. Es ist ein Name, den man sich merkt, denn Bolet ist ein hochbeiähigter Vertreter seines Fachs, dessen gepflegtes, gleichsam konzis gefaßtes Klavierspiel Sinn für Architektonik nicht minder auszeichnet als echtes intensives Empfinden. Ungemein sauber und gefeilt und (insbesondere im Piano) von hoher Klangschönheit war seine klar gegliederte und durchdacht auf aufgebaute gebaute aufgebaute Wiedergabe von Cesar Francks Prelude. Choral und Fuge, die den Abend einleitete, innere Lebendigkeit, Temperament und schlichte Beseeltheit gaben der sich anschließenden Interpretation von Beethovens ..Appassionata“ das Gepräge . Werke von Chopin, Liszt, de Falla und Godowsky vervoll vervollständigten ständigten vervollständigten das Program. Es war ein akzentuierter Erfolg."
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Roughly translated: "Jorge Bolet, a hitherto unknown pianist in Berlin, gave a piano recital in the Bechstein Hall. It is a name that you should remember, because Bolet is a highly respected representative of his field, whose well-groomed, concise piano playing is distinguished for a sense of architecture no less than for a real intense feeling. [...] Works by Chopin, Liszt, de Falla and Godowsky completed the programme. It was a notable success."
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The Bechstein-Saal had celebrated its opening with a series of brilliant concerts in October 1892, in which renowned musicians including Hans von Bülow, Joseph Joachim, Johannes Brahms, and Anton Rubinstein performed.
After the Nazis took power in Germany in 1933, they became increasingly engaged in activities involving the persecution of the Jewish and other minority populations. That year Jews were denied the right to hold public office or civil service positions; Jewish immigrants were denaturalized; Jews were denied employment by the press and radio. After Germany publicly announced in May 1935 its rearmament in violation of the Versailles Treaty, Nazi party radicals began more forcibly demanding that Hitler, the party, and the government take more drastic measures against the Jews. On 21 May, the "Defence Law" (Wehrgesetz) is issued and bans Jews from the armed forces by stipulating that only “Aryans” could serve; it also formalises the introduction of the general compulsory military service for “Aryans” from 1 October, 1935.
Vienna & Milan
​Thursday 23 May 1935, Vienna: a "Klavierabend" in the Schubert-Saal of the Wiener Konzerthaus. The programme states that Konzertdirektion was Dr. Artur Hohenberg who died in 1938 aged 51. He had organized, among other things, a South American tour of the Vienna Philharmonic (Das günstige Blatt No. 39 of 28 September 1922) and he also work in film production. Sidelined by the National Socialists, he tried to leave Germany. Finally, in January 1938, Hohenberg committed suicide.
Ticket price was 30 Groschen. Jorge's only other appearance in this venue would be in May 1959. In April 1964, he gave his first concerts in the Grosser Saal of the Musikverein, Vienna with the Wiener Symphoniker under Paul Klecki.​
Milan's Corriere della Sera 21 May 1935 has a report of the recital in the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi.
'The very young Cuban pianist (il giovanissimo pianista Cubano), a particularly persuasive performer in the interpretation of Romantic and virtuosic music, received an exceptional harvest of applause (una eccezionale messe di applausi). His masterly and complete technique and the careful searching for expression that shone above all in that copious part of the programme reserve for the art of Chopin appeared truly worthy of the warm success he received.' Corriere would next carry a report on Bolet in 24 November 1975 of a recital in the very same hall (on the 21st).
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The conservatory was established by a royal decree of 1807 in Milan, capital of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. It opened the following year with premises in the cloisters of the Baroque church of Santa Maria della Passione.
On 3 October 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia. Benito Mussolini's dreams of empire had led him to seek foreign conquests, and after 10 months of preparations, rumours, threats, and hesitations, Italy invaded on that autumn. On the night of 9 May, 1936, he announced to an enormous, expectant crowd around Piazza Venezia in Rome that “in the 14th year of the Fascist era” a great event had been accomplished: Italy had its empire. This moment probably marked the peak of public support for the regime.
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Ethiopia (Abyssinia) was in 1934 one of the few independent states in a European-dominated Africa. A border incident between Ethiopia and Italian Somaliland that December gave Benito Mussolini an excuse to intervene. Rejecting all arbitration offers, the Italians invaded. Under Generals Rodolfo Graziani and Pietro Badoglio, the invading forces steadily pushed back the ill-armed and poorly trained Ethiopian army, taking the capital, Addis Ababa, on 5 May 1936. The nation’s leader, Emperor Haile Selassie, went into exile. In Rome, Mussolini proclaimed Italy’s king Victor Emmanuel III emperor of Ethiopia and appointed Badoglio to rule as viceroy.
London
The Telegraph (1 June 1935) wrote that 'it took Jorge Bolet some little time to reveal his true form. In its earlier stages his playing obviously reflected the strain incidental to so important an occasion. The Franck was unduly melodramatic and there was a too militant assertiveness in the Beethoven,
in the handling of the emotional crises.'
On 31 May 1935 in the Aeolian Hall, 135-7 New Bond Street, London, Jorge made his first appearance in Britain, playing on a Steinway piano (Bechstein and Baldwin would later become his preferred instruments).
His programme included Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata Op.57 in F minor, César Franck’s Prelude, Choral & Fugue and pieces by Chopin.
'Unfaltering control... his powerful fingers enable him to annihilate any technical problems.' The Appassionata was thought occasionally too theatrical but the essential urgency was well suggested, 'though at times, especially in his rather prosaic treatment of the Andante, much of the poetry of the work seemed to vanish'. Liszt's Waldesrauschen ("Forest Murmurs") and the Strauss/Godowsky Fledermaus paraphrase were also included in a programme which 'seldom called for spontaneity, the quality most lacking from Mr Bolet's style'.
The Times 4 June 1935​​
Wilfrid Van Wyck (1904 – 1983, in Woking, Surrey) was a British classical music artists' impresario and manager through his agency, Wilfrid Van Wyck Ltd, based in London
Paris
Jorge gave the same recital a few days later in Paris, at the Salle Chopin, 8 rue Daru, on Thursday 6 June.
'M. Jorge Bolet qui, pour la première fois, vient de solliciter les suffrages du public parisien s'est présenté à lui muni de qualités fort appréciables dès ce premier récital, il a su retenir l'attention, par l'équilibre tout classique de son talent. Il ne cherche point à éblouir ni ne vise aux grands effets; là n'est point sa manière et s'il veut conquérir,c'est par d'autres chemins. Son jeu est clair, sobre, précis; ses doigts tracent
des lignes sonores, fermes et pures, sans bavures ni mollesse inutile, et vivifiées par une belle souplesse rythmique. De Franck a Chopin, de Beethoven à Falla on retrouve dans chacune des interprétations de M. Jorge Bolet cette sobriété qui s'accommoderait fort bien d'un grain de fantaisie.'
Le Semaine à Paris (28 June 1935)
He neither seeks to dazzle nor aims for great effects; that is not his way and if he wants to conquer, it is by other paths. His playing is clear, sober, precise; his fingers trace sound lines, firm and pure, without burrs or unnecessary softness, and enlivened by a beautiful rhythmic flexibility. From Franck to Chopin, from Beethoven to Falla, we find in each of Mr. Jorge Bolet's interpretations this sobriety which would go very well with a grain of fantasy.
Gustave Bret in L'Intransigeant (27.6.1935) wrote that 'Monsieur Jorge Bolet apporte à tout ce qu’il touche une discrétion qui est un mérite d’autant plus appréciable qu’elle ne dissimule nullement une virtuosité insuffisante. Pianiste consciencieux et doué, M. Jorge Bolet n’a pas, comme tant d’autres, à réfréner les élans d’une nature exubérante à l’excès. Il peut sans inconvénients mettre dans ses exécutions un peu plus de chaleur et de spontanéité.'
Mr. Jorge Bolet brings to everything he touches a discretion which is a merit all the more appreciable as it in no way conceals a lack of virtuosity. A conscientious and gifted pianist, Jorge Bolet does not, like so many others, have to curb the impulses of an excessively exuberant nature. He can (however) - without disadvantage - add a little more warmth and spontaneity to his performances.
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Claudio Arrau
The Chilean pianist (whose first appearance in Argentina seems to have been in October 1921 at the Teatro Cervantes) gave a recital at the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires on Saturday 10 August 1935 at 6:00 pm. His programme included Bach Preludes & Fugues, Beethoven: Sonata No.14 Op.27 No.2 (Moonlight), Brahms: Variaciones y fuga sobre un tema de Haendel Op.24. The third sections: Albéniz: Almería & Navarra, De Falla: Danza del molinero & Danza del terror, Debussy: Soirée dans Grenade & Golliwogg's Cake Walk. He gave a further recital at the Teatro Nacional de Comedia - Cervantes on 26 August at 9:30 pm, presented by the Asociación Wagneriana de Buenos Aires (which was to bring Jorge to Buenos Aires in 1955). The evening ended with Stravinsky's Petrushka.
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(Source: arrauhouse.org)
Lessons with Liszt
Moriz Rosenthal
Moriz Rosenthal (1862-1946) - with whom Jorge would briefly study in 1935 while in Europe - was born in Lemberg (L’viv), on the eastern edge of the Austro-Hungarian empire, now a city in Ukraine. He studied with Karol Mikuli, a pupil of Chopin, and later with Franz Liszt, without doubt the most famous pianist of the 19th (or indeed any) century.
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Rosenthal recalled: 'In Tivoli, near Rome. . . I was fortunate to be his only student and to receive daily instruction in the autumn of 1878. Every afternoon I appeared at the Villa d'Este, where I found the master composing either in his study or sometimes on the terrace, where he was gazing forlornly into the blue. The glowing Roman autumn, the picturesque beauty of the area, the Master's noble instruction - all these things blended into an ecstasy which I still feel today.' ​
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Moriz Rosenthal's début was in Vienna in 1876. As Liszt's pupil, he made appearances in St. Petersburg, Paris, and elsewhere. His general education, however, was not neglected, and in 1880 Rosenthal qualified to take the philosophical course at the University of Vienna. Six years later he resumed his career with the piano, achieving brilliant success in Leipzig, and in Boston, where he made his U.S. debut in 1888, and subsequently in England in 1895. His first concert in New York was in Steinway hall near Union Square on 13 November 1888 when among other things he played Liszt's E flat concerto and the Don Juan fantasy. The New York Tribune reported of the success: 'This does not mean that our people have never heard more artistic playing, but primarily that they have never been so amazed and bewildered.'
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In 1928 Rosenthal had spent the early part of the year in America, and he had given a recital at the Curtis Institute on 8 February (which Jorge presumably heard). His first tour of South America was late on in life, in 1934. 'I gave four concerts in Rio de Janeiro, seven in Buenos Aires, and I also played in Rosaria, La Plata, Montevideo, São Paulo and Bahia Blanca. The audiences suffered from a virtual Chopin fanaticism.'
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The sea voyage had taken 21 day on the "Neptunio". In Buenos Aires selbst habe ich im Teatro Colón und im Teatro Cervantes gespielt, von denen das letztere so riesengroß ist, daß man es eigentlich als eine Donquichotterie bezeichnen muß, in diesem kolossalen Raum ein Klavierkonzert abzuhalten. ('In Buenos Aires itself, I played in the Teatro Colon and in the Teatro Cervantes, of which the latter is so gigantic that it really has to be described as a quixoticism to give a piano recital in this colossal space.)
Neues Wiener Journal 25.10.34
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In New York, he lived at the Great Northern Hotel between 56th and 57th Streets (‘neither great nor northern’, he quipped). Rosenthal's last public concert in New York was at Town Hall on 15 November 1941; he died in that city on 3 September 1946.​
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Chopin Waltz Op.64, No.2 in C-sharp minor (Moriz Rosenthal)
29 May 1929, Berlin; Parlophone matrix issued only on Japanese Columbia W228
(A Century of Romantic Chopin: Marston Records)
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Vienna 1935
'Five classes of advanced piano technique,' said Jorge, but he later told friends the lessons were useless. In an interview (during his visit to Tokyo in 1988), he says he offered Liszt's Sonata and Chopin. When he finished one piece, the Master would say, 'That's pretty good, what's next?' Jorge was surprised to hear Rosenthal say of Liszt - while demonstrating at the keyboard - 'What a terrible composer, do you call that a melody?' The younger pianist said that 'I was surprised that an actual pupil of Liszt would criticise his teacher, and I was very shocked because I respected Liszt like a god.'
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Later, intense coaching sessions with Hofmann’s pupil Abram Chasins produced tangible results, and Jorge always acknowledged Chasins’s influence on his playing. Jorge occasionally played Abram Chasins' Fantasy on “Schwanda der Dudelsackpfeiffer” (using a polka from Švanda dudák/ Schwanda the Bagpiper, an opera written in 1926 Czech composer Jaromír Weinberger).
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On 23 May 1935 Jorge gave his first recital in the Kleiner Konzerthaus, Lothringerstrasse, Vienna (with his familiar programme of Franck, de Falla, Beethoven, Liszt, Godowsky). The famous pianist Artur Schnabel was playing on the 28th (Mozart sonata in B flat, K 333, Beethoven Appasionata, Schubert's Sonata in D major D850).
Tales from the Vienna Woods
On Sunday 24 November 1935, Bolet appeared on Austrian radio - a broadcast time of 11.45am - with Theodor Christoph & Wiener Symphoniker and the following:
Renzo Bossi, Le Sagre d'Italia I, "Il palio di Siena": poème symphonique, Op. 39 (1933) (No, I've never heard of it either!), then Tchaikovsky, Konzert für Klavier und Orchester B-Moll, op. 23 and ending with Schumann: Symphonie B-Dur, Nr. 1, op. 38.
(Kleine Volks-Zeitung Vienna, 24 November, 1935)
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Moriz Rosenthal had a concert on Tuesday 26 November in the Schubertsaal. Tickets were available at Leiningenhof. (Kärntner ["Carinthian"] Zeitung 26.11.1935) And in mid-December, he played Liszt's E flat Concerto in a programme that included Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony and a potpourri of melodies (?) from Richard Strauss' 'much-discussed opera' Die Schweigsame Frau. As he is a pupil of Liszt, 'one must speak of Rosenthal's interpretation as authentic. He was given an ovation by the audience.'
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Rosenthal had been teaching a special course in Milan at the Suola Superiore di Musica (director: Maxim Jacobson), Corso Venezia 56, earlier in the year in May 1935.
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Where did Rosenthal live in Vienna? A letter dated 2 June 1924 gives Wien XVIII, Anastasius Grün 38 as his address.
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Rumour had it that Rosenthal was to undergo kidney surgery. But he confirmed that he didn't need an operation, but would only have to undergo a small bloodless procedure. 'He is leaving the sanatorium today and will be embarking upon a concert tour that will include England, Budapest and Rome. Neues Wiener Tagblatt 30 July, 1935
Mr. Van Veen and impresario Dr. De Koos receive Sergei Rachmaninoff and his wife at Hollands Spoor station, The Hague,
13 February 1938
Spain, 1936 then return to the USA
La Voz de Navarra reports on a recital of Friday 28 February, 1936, in the Salón Novedades, Pamplona, Navarra. It quotes Moriz Rosenthal as saying that JB possesses a superb, all-encompassing technique and extraordinary musical gifts. 'Bolet triumphed above all in the Sonata No. 3 by Chopin, which attracted the admiration of the audience, especially in the fourth movement, Presto non troppo.'
There were concerts on 21 & 28 March and 4 April in Madrid. La Voz, Madrid reports that in the Teatro Español 'el genial pianist Jorge Bolet' will perform under the direction of maestro José María Franco. This was Beethoven’s fifth piano concerto, the Emperor: ‘su interpretacion...digna de los grandes artistas’. Bolet is described as an ‘artista bien dotado, con técnica magnifica.’ Also in the programme were Mendelssohn [Fingal’s Cave Overture] and Preludio para un tibor japonés by Julian Bautista (in which the pianist was Aurelio Castrillo). There would now be a gap of 20 years before Jorge would play in Spain again (beginning in Valladolid, Castile y León).
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On 17 May 1936, Bolet boarded the SS Columbus at Cherbourg, France, arriving in New York on the 24th. He is listed as possessing $100 and was aged 21. His US visa was issued in Madrid on 7 May 1936, and his final destination was Philadelphia. His mother, Mrs A Tremoleda, is listed as residing in Vedado, Havana. He had last left the United States on 26 January 1935.
After a summer in Cuba where he gave two piano recitals in Havana, he arrived on the SS Pennsylvania at the Port of New York on 28 September 1936, as a ‘returning USA resident’. He is aged 21 and his address is a friend’s house, M. Barnhouse , 1701 Delancey St., Philadelphia, PA. This is the address of Donald Grey Barnhouse, Senior Pastor of the Tenth Presbyterian Church from 1927-1960. [See next page]
Overtones 1936, the magazine of the Curtis Institute, has the following: 'Summer 1936 fairly teemed with the peregrinations hither and yon of Curtis Institute people bent upon more or less musical pursuits. This year the President (Mary Louise Curtis Bok) herself took to the sea and cruised the Arctic Circle. Looming high amongst professional travels was Dr. [Josef] Hofmann's monumental South American tour. Mr. (Fritz) Reiner conducted opera at Covent Garden in June. Jorge Bolet, Curtis graduate, gave two piano recitals in Havana. Jorge, by the way, is back at The Curtis Institute, studying, this time, conducting.'
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The Jornal do Brasil (RJ), 23 May, 1936 reported that Samuel Chotzinoff of the New York Post had called Hofmann "the greatest pianist of our times". Hofmann was due to play on Saturday, 30 May at the Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro: Bach D’Albert, Gluck, Sgambati, Beethoven Saint-Säens, Chopin, Debussy, Liadoff, Prokofiev and Liszt.
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On 10 July, 1936, his Buenos Aires recital consisted of Bach-d’Albert, Prelude and Fugue in D, Beethoven, Sonata No. 31 Op. 110, Chopin, Sonata No. 2, B-flat Minor, Op. 35, Liszt's “12th Hungarian Rhapsody” and eight encores. There seem to be hopes among the conoscenti that this concert was recorded and might one day turn up.
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Young Jorge Bolet (aged 22) in the Casimir Hall, Curtis Institute (Wednesday, 9 December 1936).
This is a very rare recording. On 9 December, Jorge Bolet, pianist, was "guest" in the Curtis Institute "hour". The programme featured works of Franz Liszt, commemorating the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of the pianist-composer's birth and the fiftieth anniversary of his death. 'Mr. Bolet, who is a graduate in piano under Mr David Saperton, opened the concert with Liszt's Fantasie and Fugue in G minor on a Bach Chorale. Barbara Thorne, soprano, pupil of Miss Harriet van Emden, then sang Es muss ein Wunderbares sein, Du bist wie eine Blume, and Die Lorelei, with Ethel Evans, pupil of Mr Harry Kaufman, at the piano." [Overtones]
Returning to the piano, Mr. Bolet played Liszt's Liebestraum, Waldesrauschen, Valse impromptu, and La Campanella, [in a version with additions by Busoni?] which brought the concert to a conclusion.
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During the years 1936-39 there were concerts in USA, Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Guatemala, Dominican Republic. Bolet’s concerts in Havana were for Pro-Arte Musical, for the Lyceum, the Anfiteatro, Teatro La Comedia and the Auditorium, with the Filarmonica and the Sinfonica.​
Guatemala & Republica Dominicana
'Jorge told me several times that touring South and Central America was difficult. People did not stick always to agreements, many individual countries were politically unstable, travelling was sometimes not reliable - and why should CAMI [Columbia Artists Management] bother, when they could book him elsewhere?' (Mattheus Smits)
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On 6 February 1947, as reported in Cuba papers, Jorge gave recitals in Ciudad Trujillo (present day Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic). La Gaceta (11.2.47, Tampa, Fl.) reports that this was Jorge's Dominican Republic début, on 29 January. This would seem to be in conflict with notices of a tour during 1936-39. See further...
From the early 20th century, Guatemala was ruled by a series of dictators backed by the United States. In 1944, authoritarian leader Jorge Ubico Castañeda (1878 – 1946),was overthrown by a pro-democratic military coup. Ubico, nicknamed Number Five or also Central America's Napoleon, served as the president from 1931 to 1944. Ubico has been described as "one of the most oppressive tyrants Guatemala has ever known" who compared himself to Adolf Hitler. (John Shillington, Grappling with atrocity: Guatemalan theater in the 1990s, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press [2002]). Ubico went into exile to New Orleans in the United States.​
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In the Dominican Republic, from 1930 the dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo ruled until his assassination in 1961. The U.S. government's rule in the the DR had ended in October 1922; General Trujillo was trained by the U.S. Marines during this occupation. This was accompanied by absolute repression and the copious use of murder, torture, and terrorist methods against the opposition. In October 1937, 40,000 Haitian men, women, and children were murdered by Dominican troops along the Haitian-Dominican border under the orders of Trujillo. ( Maria Cristina Fumagalli [2015]. On the Edge: Writing the Border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Liverpool University Press)
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Enrique de Marchena Dujarric (1908–1988) was for many years music critic of Listín Diario, the oldest Dominican newspaper. He was the representative of music agency Sociedad Musical Daniel.