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Hollywood
1960s
Song Without End, 1960
Whenever the name of Jorge Bolet is mentioned, someone may (in the past, at least) have recalled that he provided the piano playing (he was described as the ‘piano ghost’) for Dirk Bogarde in the biopic about the life of Franz Liszt. Indeed this may be the only thing about Bolet that was recalled. It was a tremendously big ‘break’ for him but it did not lead at the time to greater things. Jorge expressed his own view about it in October 1984 in an interview with Associated Press's Mary Campbell, as reported in Alaska's Fairbanks Daily Miner.
"I think it did more harm than whatever good I got out of it. Naturally it brought my name to many people who are not regular concert goers, but there is also a prevalent belief amongst the musical world that if you do anything in Hollywood, you've 'gone Hollywood'. You've become a second José Iturbi."
José Iturbi Báguena (1895 – 1980) was a Spanish, classically-trained pianist born in Valencia who appeared in several Hollywood films of the 1940s. He actually conducted Jorge on a few occasions, some in Spain, others in the U.S.A.
A Tale of Two Cities (1958)
In Britain?
Albert McGrigor has written that ‘although Peter Wadland [Bolet's DECCA/London producer] states that the pianist gave his first solo recital in England since the 1950s at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in 1976, Bolet had, in fact, played in England throughout the 1960s, both in recital and with orchestra.’
Gramophone, May 1991. (A search of the Concertography on this website illustrates this.)
CDs of Jorge Bolet’s (West) Berlin recordings and concert recordings have been issued on Audite. The third and final volume - of recordings made between 1961 and 1974 - 'focuses on the recordings made by the Sender Freies Berlin, at the Haus des Rundfunks (Masurenallee, in the Berlin district of Charlottenburg) in 1957, after the withdrawal of the Soviet Kommandatura. On the other side of the cultural-political consequences of the Cold War, which saw many American musicians travel to Berlin, it is amazing to note Bolet’s continued presence in the concert schedule and radio programmes of the divided city; on 7 April 1954 he appeared in a “Concert with five American soloists” under the baton of Arthur Rother at the newly opened concert hall of the Hochschule für Musik, performing Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.' (Wolfgang Rathert)
One year after Song Without End, in 1961, Bogarde was to star in a very different film - indeed a very different film from any that he had done before - Victim, ‘a drum-tight thriller with a neat twist in the tail’.
‘It carried an ‘X’ certificate, which to the fans of its star, Dirk Bogarde, seemed decidedly odd. His reputation as the idol, not just of the Rank Organisation’s flagship cinema but of all the country’s Odeons, had been based largely on performances as Dr Simon Sparrow and Sydney Carton, and in other undemanding fare...’ (John Coldstream, The Spectator, 3 September 2011).
A mixed blessing
Song without end, subtitled The story of Franz Liszt (1960) was a biographical film romance made by Columbia Pictures. It was directed by Charles Vidor, who died during the shooting of the picture and was replaced by George Cukor.
Its USA premiere was on 11 August 1960 in New York City followed by Finland 14 October 1960 and Denmark 17 January 1961. Bolet has given many interviews about the experience, for example to to Murray Schumach, The New York Times, 8 January, 1960.
In an interview with Elyse Mach, he said, ‘It was a beautiful film, I thought. I’m glad I had the opportunity to contribute what I did. As I told Dean Elder at the time, my career had been slow and hard in coming. And even today it might surprise you to hear or read what many musicians, critics, and pianists, possibly, say. For example, ‘”Bolet – oh – well, yes; he’s got good fingers but so what?” ’
Van Cliburn (born in Louisiana, 1934 and educated at Julliard) had been the first choice for the studio, Columbia Pictures: he was the pianist of the hour. The first International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958 had been an event designed to demonstrate Soviet cultural superiority during the Cold War, on the heels of that country's technological victory with the Sputnik launch in October 1957. Cliburn's performance in the finale on 13 April earned him a standing ovation lasting eight minutes. When it was time to announce a winner, the judges were obliged to ask permission of the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to give first prize to an American. 'Is he the best? Khrushchev asked. 'Then give him the prize!' Cliburn returned home to a ticker-tape parade in New York City, the only time the honour has been accorded a classical musician.
But Abram Chasins (1903-87; composer, pianist - who had studied with Hofmann at Curtis, 1931 - , music broadcaster, radio executive and author) recommended Bolet. His response about Cliburn was, ‘Well, I think he might be a good choice if you’re prepared to wait three years until he learns the repertoire.’
‘Doing the soundtrack was a real plum, and I owe a great deal to Abram Chasins for my doing it. I had previously done quite a bit of work with him. He sort of took me in a time when he thought something had to be done about my playing. And indeed he really sort of turned my playing around, so to speak, but that’s another story.’ Bolet worked for close on four years with Chasins.
Bolet ultimately described his role in the movie as a mixed blessing. Although it brought his name into the limelight and got him more engagements, there were those who now dismissed him as a ‘Hollywood pianist’. (Farhan Malik)
You can hear Abram Chasins speak about Cliburn here (begins at 40'25")
New Zealand's Evening Post - an afternoon daily newspaper published in Wellington from 8 February, 1865, until 6 July, 2002 - has an article on the film (11 March 1961).
'When William Goetz, the producer of "Song Without End" first approached me [JB] with the idea of portraying musically the great Franz Liszt , I must confess I received the suggestion with mixed feelings.
'Naturally, I was enthusiastic at the opportunity to play the music of a man who had always been my artistic idol, but the offer had its terrifying quality.
I would have to play as the greatest pianist who ever lived had played, a task which could serve to make me only more aware of my own limitations. And yet I could not bring myself to turn down such an opportunity! I decided to accept.
'After some deliberation, I decided that in order to play like this man, I must first fully understand the emotions and thoughts which possessed him when he composed and performed his works. Thus, I embarked upon an ambitious reading programme designed to steep myself in as much of Liszt as possible — his music, his loves, his life, his times. I practically haunted the libraries and bookshops in a one-man campaign to completely absorb myself in the man, as much as the music. No college student ever crammed more for an examination!
'In addition to his prolific writing and performing, Liszt was one of the greatest teachers in musical history, and I had the great personal advantage in my endeavours of having studied in my youth in Vienna under Moritz Rosenthal, who had been a pupil of Liszt. I also spent many worthwhile hours in Weimar atthe Liszt Museum, which contains his manuscripts, his personal correspondence, his music salon perfectly preserved as it was in his lifetime — in short, everything that was his life. At last I felt that I was ready and I began recording the sound-track of the picture. One immediate problem which I faced concerned the particular dramatic scene in which the musical piece was being performed. For example, was he before a dazzling audienee of the crowned heads of Europe? In a ballroom, or perhaps in an intimate salon, as was the popular fashion in his day? In his studio attempting to polish and perfect a certain piece? Or in the villa of his beloved Carolyne? And yet, to balance this problem I also had-to remember that Liszt was, in the final analysis, still Liszt, no matter where he performed, and that even when he played the compositions of other giants of music, he was first, last and always himself.
'A difficult technical problem concerned the fact that everything I played was being simultaneously recorded on three separate sound-tracks. I had always to keep in mind that every flaw, no matter how seemingly insignificant, would be magnified a thousandfold. The most minute error in the playing meant a retake was necessary. And so it should be! Those five weeks in which I attempted to feel as Liszt felt, think as Liszt thought, and play as Liszt played, were equal in musical benefit to me to five years of concert playing.'
Dirk Bogarde and Liszt
Sir Dirk Bogarde - born Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde (1921 – 1999) - was a distinguished British actor with some Flemish background. Initially a matinée idol in films such as Doctor in the House (1954) for the Rank Organisation, he later acted in art house films, evolving from "heartthrob to icon of edginess".
His tormentor (whose task it was to make him look like a pianist on film) was Victor Allen, a fifty-five year old pianist, graduate of the Julliard School and a brilliant interpreter of Brahms. More than eighty minutes of music had to be learned at the dummy keyboard, then synchronised for the camera with the pre-recorded playing of Bolet and the Los Angeles Philharmonic (conducted by Morris Stoloff). For three weeks they toiled as fellow perfectionists, with Victor a hard taskmaster given to strong language.
[J. Coldstream, Dirk Bogarde, 246f.]
From an interview for ABC FIlm Review (June 1959) with John Key:
And now, this being the eve of his journey in search of international fame, I was eager to have his impressions on the film in which he was going to play Franz Liszt, pianist of prodigious virtuosity, composer of the famous Hungarian Rhapsodies, Liebestraumes and other passionate works, man of violent emotions, adored by Europe’s loveliest women, worshipped by a million “fans.” It sounded a plum of a part, but practically unplayable, I’d have thought.
“Aren’t you scared at the prospect?” I asked him.
“Not in the least,” he replied, calmly and confidently. “Liszt is within my range. I’m looking forward to it enormously. I’m only terrified at the technical aspect of playing the piano.”
“Can you play?”
“A little, but that won’t be enough for Liszt, will it! I shall spend my first month or so practising the actual music I’ll be seen playing in the picture. The sound-track will be recorded by the Cuban pianist Jorge Bolet, one of the finest Liszt exponents in the world. They also tell me I shall have an orchestra of 185 players!”
“I remember you played the piano once before on the screen. It was in one of the Somerset Maugham stories… what was it called?”
“The Alien Corn in the film Quartet. Ten, eleven years ago. Lord! I’m an old man.”
“Wasn’t Eileen Joyce doing the sound-track on that occasion?”
“Yes, she coached me for it. Liszt is a splendid opportunity for me, demanding displays of arrogance, sentimentality, humour, rage (we never get enough of that, I think). It will be a marathon performance, I can promise you. The first script was as thick as the London A to K Telephone Directory, but I can’t see the film running five hours. It will be cut, considerably. We shall make it in America, Italy, Austria, Germany. I’m tremendously excited at the thought of playing in Vienna and Munich, where Liszt himself played. All frightfully romantic! You know what he was with the ladies! We cannot possibly include even a quarter of them. I must be content with a Hungarian Countess and a Russian Princess, I believe. Teenagers, by the way, are going to love it. Liszt was anything but square… when you think of the fans he had following him everywhere!”
Of the heroine in the film, Bogarde biographer John Coldstream has written that the actress said to her first American interviewer: ‘My friends call me Cap. You may call me Capucine.' 'It means nasturtium, and it was the name under which this glacially beautiful creature, born Germaine Lefebvre in Toulon, had modelled for Dior and Givenchy. By the time the producer William Goetz took his four-and-a-half-million-dollar gamble by casting her opposite Dirk as the Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein, she had never made a film or appeared on a stage, but her English was pretty good.’
When Bogarde was the castaway on the BBC’s long-running radio programme Desert Island Discs, broadcast on Monday 28 September, 1964, his third choice of music was: Franz Liszt, Piano Concerto No 1 in E Flat / Hungarian Fantasy with Jorge Bolet & Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under Morris Stoloff. When he was invited back onto the show in December 1989, he chose Liszt's Piano Concerto again, but played this time by Lazar Berman!
Spring 1960
In February 1960, Jorge performed Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor with the New Orleans Philharmonic under Alexander Hilsberg in Louisiana. They had rehearsed it the previous November and in response to a question during an interview with Ruth Lafranz - "What does it take to be a concert pianist?" - Jorge had replied: 'It takes talent - you must have that. But it also takes the patience of Job, the strength of an elephant, the cunning of a fox and the tenacity of an ant.'
Alexander Hilsberg (real name, Hillersberg) was a Polish-born American violinist, conductor, and teacher who was born in Warsaw (Poland) 24 April, 1897 and who died in Camden, Maine U.S.A. in August 1961. He had studied violin with Leopold Auer (the teacher of Mischa Elman, Jascha Heifetz, Efrem Zimbalist, and Nathan Milstein) at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in Russia. In 1923 he emigrated to the U.S. and became a naturalised citizen. He was made a violinist (1926), concertmaster (1931), and associate conductor (1945) of the Philadelphia Orchestra; he also taught at the Curtis Inst. of Music (1927-53). From 1952 to 1960 he was conductor of the New Orleans Philharmonic.
7, 8 (at 2pm) January 1960
Philharmonic Auditorium, Los Angeles
Rachmaninoff, Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini
Los Angeles PO Alfred Wallenstein, conductor [The concert also included Ned Rorem's third symphony]
'A giant in physique Bolet is also an artistic giant. He played with an intimacy so delicate, so refined that one was led into the inner sanctum of the composer's intent.'
There was a private party for the press corps organised by film producer William Goetz in connection with the release of the film "Song Without Words". One studio official recalled how an unseen artist (presumably Jorge Bolet) - also a great one - once stole another Columbia picture. That, of course, was the late Al Jolson, who sang for the sound track of his own life story as portrayed on the screen by Larry Parks.
On 9 February 1960, in the Granada Theatre, Santa Barbara, California, Jorge is advertised as playing Boris Blacher, Concertante Musik Op.10 (1937) with the Los Angeles PO under the German maestro Eugen Jochum (1902 – 1987), best known for his interpretations of the symphonies of Anton Bruckner and Johannes Brahms. This is very curious, as there's no mention of this work before or since in his repertoire. As it does not have a piano part and Bolet is not mentioned in the review of the concert, it is a mistake - but an intriguing one.
Blacher was born when his parents (of German-Estonian and Russian backgrounds) were living within a Russian-speaking community in the Manchurian town of Niuzhuang (Chinese: 牛庄镇). He spent his first years in China and in the Asian parts of Russia, and in 1919, he eventually came to live in Harbin. In 1922 he went to Berlin where he began to study first architecture, mathematics, and then music at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik.
A recital early in the year took Jorge to an attractive, warmer clime. On Friday 19 Feb 1960 he was in the Charlotte Amalie High School auditorium on the island of St. Thomas, United States Virgin Islands.
3/4 March 1960 - the second date an afternoon performance - at the San Francisco Opera House, with the orchestra under Enrique Jorda. After the overture to Rossini's Signor Bruschino and Debussy's Nocturnes, Jorge played two works, the concerto by John La Montaine and Liszt's first concerto. The concert ended with Haydn's "Farewell" Symphony, No.45 in F# minor. The San Francisco Chronicle decribed the La Montaine as 'well-intentioned music but feeble in substance and significance'. 'While all the cannonading (of Jorge Bolet) is going on, it makes you wonder how he would sound in Mozart.'
Jorge began a European tour in March 1960, seemingly beginning in Norway. He was back again in Europe in May, and once more in December, returning to California for Christmas.
On Saturday, 26 March 1960 in the Festival Hall, London, with Royal Philharmonic and Anatole Fistoulari: Jorge played Rachmaninoff's second concerto (other works included Dvorak's fifth symphony; overture to The Merry Wives of Windsor by Nicolai). Jorge was presented by S. A. Gorlinsky, Sandor Alexander Gorlinsky (1908–1990), a prominent London-based theatrical impresario, music promoter, and managing agent who coordinated major opera, ballet, and theatre productions through the mid-20th century.
Sunday, 15 May 1960, West Berlin, Berliner Symphonisches Orchester, conducted by Carl August Bünte (1925-2018), Beethoven's “Emperor” in Beethoven-Zyklus. Bünte had studied conducting from 1946 to 1949 in the master class of Sergiu Celibidache at the International Music Institute Berlin. At this stage, Berlin was divided into four sectors, but no Wall as yet. (Shortly after midnight on 13 August, 1961, East German soldiers would begin laying down barbed wire and bricks as a barrier between Soviet-controlled East Berlin and the democratic western section of the city.)
Monday 3 September 1960: in the Mexican newspaper El Informador (29.9.60), Gil Blas notes that Donn-Alexandre Feder (b.1935), a student of composer Vincent Persichetti and of the Cuban Jorge Bolet will give a recital in the Paraninfo of the University of Guadalajara. Persichetti was on staff at Juilliard for over forty years from 1947; his students included the Finnish Einojuhani Rautavaara, whom no less a figure than Jean Sibelius had recommend for a scholarship to study in Manhattan.
21 November 1960
Carnegie Hall, New York City
Liszt Piano Concerto in E flat [+ Prokofiev, Symphony No. 5 in B flat; William Schuman (present in the audience), New England Triptych
National Symphony/Howard Mitchell
'Mr. Bolet is a pianist with an extraordinarily strong technique and in recent years he has developed the power to produce a massive tone. Thus, from the viewpoint of virtuosity, the performance was a pleasure to hear. The sheer command of the instrument was impressive and the flashier parts were brilliantly executed. There was considerable lyricism, too, in the gentler passages. But yet one got a strong impression of movie music. Perhaps this was merely the power of suggestion. Perhaps it was because of the nature of the Liszt work itself. Or: perhaps it was due to Mr. Mitchell's somewhat theatrical accompaniment, which in the final chords succeeded in drowning out even Mr. Bolet. At all events, it was a performance that was more notable for show than for penetration.' (Ross Parmenter)
1960 Norway
The 1960s newspapers show quite a lot of concerts of Jorge in Norway. On Friday, 18 March 1960 he was in Oslo, with Oslo Philharmonic and Odd Grünner-Hegge for Rachmaninoff's Paganini Variations. Reviewer Erling Westher said that the variations do not rise as high in terms of quality as those of Brahms, but that it is an elegant and refined work. Jorge impressed a lot with his confident, dazzling performance; the stormy excitement ("den stormende begeistring") of the audience when he finished was well deserved. Edvard Fliflet Bræins' Konsert-Ouverture opened the evening; Fartein Valen's Nenia and Beethoven's Eroica symphony also featured. (Arbeiderbladet 21.3.60).
The Fredriksstad Blad newspaper announced that Bolet would visit their city on Monday 21 March. In a review the day after, it said that there were only about 100 people in the Library, but they got to hear piano playing that has not been heard before in the city. 'You have to go all the way back to Ignaz Friedmann.' *There follows a mini tirade about the state of classical music in Norway. Chopin's 4 Ballades, Mozart's Sonata in D (K.576), Liszt, La Campanella, Un Sospiro, Rigoletto paraphrase were also on the menu. 'The audience's enthusiasm knew no bounds... Yesterday's concert was the best solo recital we've heard since 1945. We can only hope it will be possible to hear him again.'
The Lofoten Post 20.4.60 reports that the Rachmaninoff was broadcast on the radio that evening. There was a further radio concert on Sunday 27 November 1960 with orchestra under Øivin Fjeldstad, following a broadcast of the famous Finnish novel (as a play?) Seven Brothers by Aleksis Kivi. (Seitsemän veljestä (1873) is widely regarded as the first significant novel written in Finnish)
Jorge arrived back in New York on 29 March 1960. He returned again from Europe on 16 May, boarding a KLM Royal Dutch flight in Amsterdam headed to New York.
Ignacy/Ignaz Friedman (1882-1948) - mentioned in the Fredriksstad Blad review above - was born and raised in Podgórze, now a district of Krakow – his birthplace exists at the Kalwaryjska str. 22. Poland. Much has been written about his peerless interpretations of Chopin in particular. Jorge Bolet has said that he didn't dare perform the mazurkas because of Friedman! In his youth, Friedman used to go with his father to dances organised in villages near Krakow. And it was this experience that determined the style of his mazurka performances - a peasant style, not a courtly salon style. (Friedman himself said this in an interview, according to a YouTuber).
'One of the most beloved recording series of the 78-rpm era [the main set being recorded in September 1930 at Westminster Central Hall, London]. Friedman's Chopin Mazurkas are little marvels of personality, rhythmic freedom, orchestral voicing, and folk-like temperament which have charmed, amused, intrigued, and amazed piano people for generations. (Christian Johansson)
More information: Allan Evans. Ignaz Friedman: Romantic Master Pianist. Indiana University Press (2009)
December 1960 in Europe
In an interview with the Dutch newspaper de Telegraaf on 1 December 1960, we are told that 'for a few days, the American-Cuban pianist Jorge Bolet has been in Amsterdam for a short holiday to rest from a tiring tour he has been making in the Scandinavian countries in recent weeks. Despite his busy schedule, he still hopes to find time to celebrate Christmas in his quiet country house in the town of Los Altos Hills in California. "Actually, I would like to perform in Russia, although I do not agree with their principles," says Jorge Bolet , "the Russians are by nature a very musical people, so that seems to me a delightful audience to play for. Moreover, as a musician you are very much en vogue in America these days when you have had success in Russia." He will, however, tour Poland in the course of the following year, where he will perform in about ten cities, including Warsaw. [...] Originally it was the intention that he would only be heard on the film Song Without End. However, when Jorge Bolet met the man who would play the role of Liszt in the film, Dirk Bogarde, in London and they had dinner together somewhere, they noticed that their hands looked very much alike.'
Svenska Dagbladet 18 December 1960 reports that Jorge had flown to Sweden from Paris. 'At Saturday's rehearsal for the SvD [Svenska Dagbladet, a Swedish newspaper] Opera Festival [in Stockholm's Royal Theatre on Sunday afternoon, 19th], Cuban world pianist Jorge Bolet poured grandiose cascades of tones out towards Sixten Ehrling, the court band and director Göran Gentele (hovkapellet och regissör GG). The Hungarian Fantasy cannot be interpreted in a more fiery way. Mr. Bolet and Ehrling met for the first time in Oslo two weeks ago. It is possible that they will meet again in England in March. Both have concerts there. But before that, Mr. Bolet, now an American citizen, has 25 concerts in various parts of the USA during the late winter. He then appears almost every other day!
"I'm not completely new to Stockholm, I played in the Konserthuset in 1955, says Mr. Bolet and knocks out the ash on his cigarette. I can say the day if necessary, because I was woken up at 7am with coffee on the bed by a wonderful Lucia. Luckily I was warned, he smiles. You are not human at that time of day." He found the acoustics in the Opera extraordinary. We should be proud of our court chapel, he added very firmly. Mr. Bolet will now rush up to Swedish Radio for a recording, which listeners will enjoy in the New Year, according to reports. On Monday morning he flies to his home in California via Copenhagen.
Among 3 hours of festive entertainment, the famous Swedish tenor Set Svanhom (1904-1964) sang the Grail aria from Wagner's Lohengrin. Two years previously, he had sung Loge in the famous Decca "Das Rheingold" which had been recorded in the Sofiensaal, Vienna, 1958, conducted by Georg Solti.
Towards the Cuban Missile Crisis 1961
In 1961, Bolet recorded a Chopin recital for the Everest label. This was a drastic year in Cuban-American relations. The United States wanted Fidel Castro out of power. In one attempt to overthrow Castro, the U.S. sponsored the failed incursion of Cuban-exiles into Cuba in April 1961 (the Bay of Pigs Invasion). In 1962, Cuba was the centre of world focus when the U.S. discovered the construction sites of Soviet nuclear missiles. The struggle that ensued between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the Cuban Missile Crisis, brought the world the closest it ever came to nuclear war.
'A year later, American reconnaissance planes discovered Soviet missiles on their way to sites in Cuba. The world was suddenly staring into the abyss of all-out nuclear war. "A series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western hemisphere," warned President John F Kennedy.'
(BBC New website)
'The missile crisis of October 1962 sealed the hostility. Khrushchev’s move into Cuba – introducing nuclear weapons (other than US ones) into an area of the world where the Monroe doctrine was held to prevail – was widely regarded as destabilising, although the Soviet Union itself had US nuclear missiles on its borders, notably in Turkey. Khrushchev was forced to withdraw his missiles after days of global tension, although not before he had received a tacit promise from the Americans that there would be no further attempts to invade Cuba.' Richard Gott, Guardian, 26 November 1962
'The world survived, thanks to Kennedy’s firm handling of the crisis, and Khrushchev’s willingness to step back from Armageddon by removing the missiles in return for an American promise not to invade Cuba. Castro, however, was disgusted by the Russian climb-down, and still more by the failure of Khrushchev even to consult him.' The Telegraph
In the San Mateo Times (California), 6 Jan 1961, Jorge is said to be a permanent resident of Los Altos, a city in Santa Clara County, California (possibly from 1960?).
In this year (November/December 1960?) Bolet received an unusual signal honour from the Royal Danish Orchestra Copenhagen, Det Kongelige Kapel. The orchestra traces its origins back to 1448 and the Trumpet Corps at the royal court of King Christian I, and thus has claims to be the oldest orchestra in the world.
'By centuries of tradition, the brass section play a fanfare for artists of whom they approve.' Paderewski, Rachmaninov, and Edwin Fischer have all enjoyed this honour. Jorge was confused while taking his bows after Beethoven's 4th concerto, and walked off-stage, only then to be told what had happened. 'Yes indeed, I believe it's called a "tush" - a free improvised fanfare/fantasia with its roots in the orchestra's foundation as a trumpet corps. These days the whole orchestra plays it.' Andrew Mellor (2023)
Jorge told The State Times (Baton Rouge) 4 March, 1961 that he would not comment on the Cuban situation, but added that 80% of his family were in Cuba. They include his father, mother, two brothers and numerous nieces and nephews.
Arriving for a recital on 16 March 1961 in Salt Lake City, Utah, Jorge told reporters for the Deseret News at the airport that attendance at his concerts has increased 60% since the movie "Song without end".
Liszt's piano: Weimar/Berlin, March 1961
24 March, 1961: Beethoven 4 and Liszt's Hungarian Fantasy with the LSO and Charles Mackerras in the Festival Hall, London. The music critic of The Times had - in a spirit of tired resignation - anticipated a routine concert (Beethoven's fifth, with Liszt as an uneasy bedfellow - the orchestral Mephisto waltz and 14th Hungarian Rhapsody completed the programme). 'But Mackerras's interpretations tingled with vitality and had a winning freshness from start to finish. Interpretive conviction was also the quality that made Mr Bolet's performance so satisfying. This progressed logically from intimacy in the first movement through quiet assertion in the second to dominance in the third.'
Donald Mitchell/Daily Telegraph: 'The ease of his playing is matched by an unusual grace which manifests itself most obviously in the delicacy of his touch. Thus Liszt's familiar virtuoso piece enjoyed a refined performance from the pianist that is the only rarely met with. But one was not sure that a little more steely glitter and glare would not have been welcome. A muted Liszt is something of a contradiction. So, too, is a muted Beethoven. Here his silky fluency, attractive though it was as pianism, stripped the music of its character. Silvery scales and textures, as pretty as those of a musical box do not convey the composer's authentic voice.'
Wednesday, 25 (or 29?) March 1961, Berlin: Liszt recital, Hochschule für Musik, Charlottenbug (under Heinicke Konzert Direktion). Funerailles, Sonata, 7 Transcendental Etudes
We are only months away from The Wall; shortly after midnight on 13 August, East German soldiers began laying down barbed wire and bricks as a barrier between Soviet-controlled East Berlin and the democratic western section of the city.
Jorge played encores on an old Bechstein from Weimar, on which Liszt himself played. An evening with Bolet is almost as exciting as a Hitchcock movie. This pianist possesses a hypnotic power over his audience. Only David Oistrakh received the sort of ovation this audience gave Mr Bolet, calling him again and again to the stage for more than half an hour after the concert. (Tagespiegel 31.3.1961)
The Kansas City Star (27 March): the pianist said today (27th) that the East German (DDR) authorities have lent him a piano that one belonged to Liszt for his Berlin recital. It was 90 years old and normally in Weimar, but in West Berlin for repairs. Jorge would play a few short numbers on it. Reported widely, e.g. Dutch newspaper Ons Noorden 29/3/61
Perhaps it was in March that JB recorded - beautifully - some Spanish music in Köln/Cologne (WDR Funkhaus Saal 2 ):
ISAAC ALBÉNIZ (1860-1909) Iberia Book 1 No.1 Evocación, MANUEL DE FALLA (1876-1946), Andaluza (Cuatro Pièces espagnoles No.4), JOAQUÍN NIN (1879-1949), Danza Ibérica (En Sevilla una noche de Mayo), JOAQUÍN TURINA (1882-1949), Sevilla Op.2: II. Le Jeudi Saint à Minuit.
11 April 1961: Magyar Szó,a Hungarian newspaper, announces - LISZT'S PIANO ON THE PODIUM AGAIN This year, the whole world is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of Ferenc Liszt, the immortal Hungarian composer. A large-scale concert is being organised in West Berlin, where American pianist Jorge Bolet will perform. The special feature of the evening will be that the American artist will play Liszt's piano. This relic instrument has been kept in Weimar for 90 years, where Liszt spent many years. Liszt's piano will first be thoroughly repaired so that it will not be damaged when its strings ring out under expert hands at the Liszt concert in Berlin.
Sunday 16 April 1961, 2:30pm on BBC Home Service Basic. A concerto with the BBC Scottish Orchestra conducted by Norman Del Mar.
A report by Henry S. Humphreys in the Musical Courier for May 1961 refers to a performance in Cincinnati (April/May). 'I remembered the Israeli pianist’s sensitive Liszt interpretation when Jorge Bolet hammered out the same composer’s Hungarian Fantasia a few weeks later. Bolet takes each piano number by assault; it never seems to occur to him that there are some types of music which must be wooed and won like a frail lady in a Spenserian idyll. Of what use is digital supersonic speed when the “heart” of the music is encased in icicles?' Humphreys' reviews in general suggest he is not a fan.
On 1 May 1961 a concert in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam with his brother Alberto and the Rotterdam Philharmonic. 'Pianist van superklasse...is een virtuoos met fabuleuse kracht.' No need to translate the Dutch of the Nieuwe Schiedamsche Courant, 2.5.61. Bolet performed both Liszt 1 and Brahms 2 (and there were additional orchestral items by Weber and Manuel de Falla).
'Fireworks in the Concertgebouw. We don't know how things went with the open-air fireworks on Queen's Day, but they were in excellent order in the Main Hall of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Thanks to the American instrumentalist Jorge Bolet, who performed Brahms' Second Piano Concerto and Liszt's First Piano Concerto with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. There are no technical obstacles for this devilish artist (duivelskunstenaar): he masters the most difficult passages with such virtuosity, with a coolly calculated accuracy, that it is a joy to listen to his sparkling, thundering performances. It goes without saying that Liszt is better served than Brahms by this attitude.' (Algemeen Handelsblad)
18 May, Royal Festival Hall, London with the LSO and Colin Davis: Beethoven's Emperor Concerto (Prometheus overture, Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony and Wagner's Siegfried Idyll). Oslo and Berlin were also dates on his European tour, together with Poland. The Times critic, who'd reviewed 24 March, anticipated another great performance and he was not disappointed. 'The opening rhetorical flourishes had their fair share of wrong notes which ruffled his poise for a moment or two, but he went on thereafter to seek deep into the heart of the work and illuminate many of its facets: to the grand gestures and heroic statements on the one hand he brought strength of tone and and interpretative perception that saw all the details placed firmly and inevitably in the broad formal scheme; to the inward and reflective paragraphs on the other hand, he measured out tonal refinement in plenty and ensured, in addition, that each paragraph in itself stood in precisely its right contrast to the work's more boldly assertive elements.'
In an entry to his diary for Friday 19 May, the well-known British actor and comedian Kenneth Williams (1926-88) wrote: 'Evening show outrageous because of Tex Compton who brought along Jorge Bolet, the famous pianist and their laughter caused a sensation in the theatre. It was so outrageous, half the cast went up with it.'
The show was One Over the Eight, a comedy revue which had opened on 5 April, 1961 at the Duke of York's Theatre, London.. It was written by Peter Cook (Harold Pinter, no less, was credited with additional material for the Stratford-upon-Avon opening 31 January, but not the West End). The Evening News described the show as "Scandalously funny".
Williams was one of the main ensemble in 26 of the 31 Carry On films, and appeared in many British television programmes and radio comedies, including series with Tony Hancock and Kenneth Horne, as well as being a regular panellist on BBC Radio 4's comedy panel show Just a Minute from its second series in 1968 until his death 20 years later. Williams was fondly regarded in the entertainment industry; in his private life, however, he suffered from depression.
On 22 February 2014—on what would have been Williams' 88th birthday—an English Heritage blue plaque was unveiled at Farley Court off Marylebone Road, London, where Williams lived between 1963 and 1970. Speaking at the ceremony, his Carry On co-star Barbara Windsor said: 'Kenny was a one-off, a true original". (The Osnaburgh Street block of flats in which Williams lived from 1972 was demolished in 2007.)
Jorge began a historic tour of Poland, behind the Iron Curtain, on 26 May 1961 (see next page).
Gershwin on television
3 February 1961
JB's television debut, on the Bell Telephone Hour, playing Rhapsody in Blue
Paul Whiteman, the dean of American jazz maestros, had conducted the concert on February 12, 1924, at which the Rhapsody was first played, with Gershwin as soloist.
The Hartford Courant observes that it is rather surprising this is his first television appearance, since he is one of the best known and most admired concert artists and has recently become "hot".
In interview Bolet said that he was looking forward to Poland, but "I'd also like to play in Russia sometime because the people there too are very musical, and also because it's a funny thing - you can... have the greatest success anywhere in the world and nobody cares. But just let anyone be a success in Moscow, and it makes the front page of The New York Times."
Most likely, Jorge is referring to Van Cliburn. Van Cliburn’s victory at the 1958 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow was a watershed moment in the Cold War. His success was indeed a front-page story for The New York Times, and he remains the only classical musician ever to receive a ticker-tape parade in New York City.
In June 1960, in the Belock Recording Studio, Bayside (Long Island), New York, Jorge had made studio recordings for Everest Records:
Liszt: Piano Concerto No.1 in E-flat major, S.124 and Fantasy on Hungarian Folk Songs for Piano & Orchestra, S.123
Robert Irving / Symphony of the Air
– Everest SDBR 3062
Liszt: Piano Sonata in B minor, S.178, Funérailles, S.173 No.7 (from Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses) and Mephisto Waltz No.1, S.514 (Der Tanz in der Dorfschenke)
And in 1961 - [month unknown], also in the Belock Recording Studio, Bayside (Long Island), New York:
– Everest Records
Chopin: Polonaise in A-flat major, Op.53, Waltz in D-flat major, Op.64 No.1 (Minute Waltz), Impromptu No.4 in C-sharp minor, Op.66 (Fantaisie-Impromptu), Nocturne in E-flat major, Op.9 No.2, Etude in C minor, Op.10 No.12, Polonaise in A major, Op.40 No.1, Etude in E major, Op.10 No.3, Waltz in C-sharp minor, Op.64 No.2, Prelude in D-flat major, Op.28 No.15, Etude in G-flat major, Op.10 No.5
(Details from Christian Johansson)
Michael Glover has offered some comments on a recording of Bolet's, never reissued since 1961, the rare and long-overlooked Colpix LP CP 415 which 'preserves a Jorge Bolet whom the commercial studio very seldom if ever caught'. CP 415 was issued separately from the soundtrack of the Liszt film (for which JB recorded the music, Colpix CP-506), in mono only, and appears never to have been reissued. 'The two discs carry different performances. CP 415 is not a selection of soundtrack takes from the Hollywood sessions restored to their full lengths, but a separate commercial recording made expressly for Colpix.
'The evidence points to New York, probably between June and late November 1960, although neither date nor studio has been documented. Colpix was Columbia Pictures’ New York-based record division.
Glover highlights the curious history of JB's omission of the repeated octaves - a splendid Lisztian effect - at bars 75-82 of the Rigoletto paraphrase. He makes precisely the same cut in his live Tanglewood performance of 4 August 1964 (the second of three encores after the twelve Transcendental Études).
Chopin's Scherzo No. 2 in B flat minor Op. 31 is also on the LP. 'The sleeve of CP 415 credits the work, strikingly, to ‘Chopin - Siloti’ - a formulation that makes Alexander Siloti (1863-1945) appear almost as co-author or arranger, rather than merely the editor whose performing text was used; and it is set in the very form used two tracks earlier for ‘Paganini - Liszt’. Siloti had studied with Liszt at Weimar from 1883 until Liszt’s death in 1886 and was among the pianists seated in Josef Hofmann’s box at Carnegie Hall when the teenage Bolet made his first New York appearance in 1931. An edition of the Scherzo by Siloti does indeed exist - now included in ‘The Alexander Siloti Collection: Editions, Transcriptions and Arrangements for Piano Solo’ (Carl Fischer, 2003) - and it bears the peculiarly suggestive subtitle ‘Revised in accordance with Franz Liszt’s traditions by Alexander Siloti’. The unusually prominent attribution on CP 415 is therefore all the more intriguing in the context of a record tied to a Liszt film, even though the work is not, in any conventional sense, a Siloti arrangement.' (Michael Glover). Mattheus Smits, who knew Jorge well, has written that this 'shows Jorge always respected other editions and the so-called Urtext was not necessarily the "Holy Grail"for Jorge.'
Alberto Ginastera (1916--1983)
Jorge had a few smaller works of Ginastera in his repertoire, but not a piano concerto.
Ginastera was born in Buenos Aires to a Catalan father and an Italian mother. He studied at the Williams Conservatory in Buenos Aires, graduating in 1938. After a visit to the United States in 1945–47, where he studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood, he returned to Buenos Aires. In 1968 Ginastera moved back to the United States, and in 1970 to Europe. He died in Geneva, Switzerland, at the age of 67 and was buried in the Cimetière des Rois there.
According to his memoirs, Abbey Simon had got to know Ginastera well when he visited Buenos Aires. 'He offered me the first performance of a very complicated and difficult piano concerto.' But that would mean taking a year off and doing nothing else. 'Then he offered it to Bolet who said the same thing. Then he offered it to a Brazilian pianist who learned it and played it in six weeks. But Martins was young [21 years old at the time].'
In an interview Jorge Bolet praised Ginastera’s Piano Concerto and John Corigliano’s Piano Concerto – ‘a truly marvellous, wonderful work’ (Elyse Mach p.35). In the late 1950s he was performing quite regularly Ginastera's sonata (1952), though the music did not impress Chicago's highly opinionated music critic Claudia Cassidy in 1957 when Jorge performed it - but then again, she described Janeček's Taras Bulba as trash.
Jorge possessed a score of the concerto, arranged for two pianos (Buenos Aires: Barry, 1964). It was inscribed to Jorge Bolet by the composer himself, Alberto Ginastera, dated 1965. Some markings and fingerings in pencil.
Reviewing a 2016 performance by the pianist Sergio Tiempo and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times called the concerto 'a work of brutalist, magical realism' and wrote, 'There are atmospheric and percussive moments when the score sounds slightly too much like Argentine Bartók, but there are also unusual evocations of eerie rain-forest weirdness and great thundering percussive romps. The massive solo part, fearlessly played by Sergio Tiempo, ranges from hauntingly jazzy bits to great bursts of keyboard color that the Venezuelan pianist seemed born to reveal.'
Ginastera's opera Bomarzo, set to a Spanish libretto by Manuel Mujica Laínez, based on his 1962 novel about the 16th-century Italian eccentric Pier Francesco Orsini, had its world premiere at the Opera Society of Washington D.C., on 19 May 1967. The work had been scheduled for its first performance in Argentina on 4 August 1967 at the Teatro Colón, but the Argentine de facto president, Juan Carlos Onganía, had banned the production, objecting to the sexual content of the story. The first performance in Argentina did not occur until 1972, with the composer in attendance.
His Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 28 was completed in 1961. It was first performed by the pianist João Carlos Martins and the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Howard Mitchell in Washington, D.C., on 22 April, 1961. 'It exemplifies Ginastera's art of contained fury, alternating urban frenzy and rural mystery.' Alex Ross, The New Yorker, April 2016