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Hollywood
The Silver Screen
1960s
Song Without End, 1960
Whenever the name of Jorge Bolet is mentioned, someone may remember 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 is recalled. It was a tremendously big ‘break’ for him but it did not lead at the time to greater things. JB expressed his own view about it in October 1984 in an interview with AP's Mary Campbell, 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.
A Tale of Two Cities (1958)
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. (He had also appeared in the Festival Hall London in November 1974.)
'This third and final volume of Jorge Bolet’s (West) Berlin recordings and concert recordings made between 1961 and 1974 - which have now been released on Audite - 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")
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. 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.'
Hilsberg (real name, Hillersberg) was a Polish-born American violinist, conductor, and teacher; b. Warsaw, 24 April, 1897; d. Camden, Maine, 10 Aug., 1961. He studied violin with Leopold Auer (the teacher of Mischa Elman, Jascha Heifetz, Efrem Zimbalist, and Nathan Milstein) at the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
In 1923 he emigrated to the U.S. and became a naturalized citizen. He was made a violinist (1926), concertmaster (1931), and assoc. conductor (1945) of the Philadelphia Orch.; he also taught at the Curtis Inst. of Music (1927-53). From 1952 to 1960 he was conductor of the New Orleans Phil.
A recital early in the year took Bolet to an attractive, warmer clime. On Friday 19 Feb 1960 he was in the Charlotte Amalie High School auditorium in the Virgin Islands. (This is hardly groundbreaking news, but I have affection for this detail, because it was one of the very first that I came upon when I discovered in 2009 that you could find out quite a bit from the Google archive of world newspapers.)
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 concertos, the La Montaine and Liszt 1. 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 JB) is going on, it makes you wonder how he would sound in Mozart.'
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.
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 above video - 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)
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.
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 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)
28 February, 1961: Liszt, Concerto No. 1 and Hungarian Fantasy with the Kansas City Philharmonic & Schwieger, in observance of the 150 anniversary of Liszt’s birth [1811] and the 75th anniversary of his death [1886]
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.
Tuesday, 7 March 1961, South Junior High, Fort Dodge, Iowa, 8:15pm, probably amidst rain and snow (to judge from The Daily Freeman Journal, 3.3.61) The area had been hit by 'a terrific sleet and ice storm' such as they had not seen for a long time - 'it will live long in the memory of Hamilton County residents'. Perhaps JB had to cancel, as there's no review in the Journal.
20 March, 1961, Amsterdam recital
24 March, Berlin recital (Chopin programme)
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.
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. Oslo and Berlin were also dates on his European tour, together with Poland.
In an entry to his diary for Friday 19 May, 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 opened on 5 April, 1961. It was written by Peter Cook (Harold Pinter was credited with additional material for the Stratford-upon-Avon opening 31 January, but not the West End). The Evening News said it was "Scandalously funny". It was performed at the Duke of York's Theatre, London.
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.)
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)
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.
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