L'Oiseau-Lyre
DECCA - on their L'Oiseau-Lyre label - had actually made an earlier recording of Bolet playing Liszt in 1978 (as well as the Chopin/Godowsky disc the previous year). The LP containing the Mozart/Liszt Don Juan fantasy & the concert études gained the Grand Prix from the Liszt Society of Budapest in 1980.
In March 1980, Bolet had set down Reger’s Telemann variations for DECCA alongside the much more famous Brahms-Handel ones. Max Harrison in Gramophone November 1981 wrote:
‘Though probably a less central contribution to twentieth-century piano music than his Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Bach, Op. 81 of ten years earlier, Reger's Telemann set is a magnificent work. The quickest way to dispel any surviving notions of Reger's supposed turgidity is to hear Bolet in, say, the first half-dozen variations. Written at the beginning of the First World War and premiered at the Leipzig Gewandhaus on March 14th, 1915 by Frida Kwast-Hodapp, it was the composer's last major solo piano work and is in some ways even more monumental in effect than the Bach set. Bolet responds extremely well to this aspect of the music's character, all of its musical and pianistic problems are vanquished and the score is presented absolutely at full strength, cumulatively being quite overwhelming... Indeed, though Bolet conveys great energy in his performance, he is careful not to play anything too fast; this is most important, so as to allow subtleties of harmony and motivic working to register. The Handel Variations is a rather too obvious choice in that Reger is less like Brahms than is usually supposed, but it is a fine experience to hear Bolet in this work. Altogether, his fierce clarity and decisiveness make this the catalogue's best current version of the Brahms.’
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'The greatest JB recording most people have never heard of, much less listened to.' Alexander Arsov
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And then, from 1981 onwards (in various halls throughout London), Bolet began his series of recordings (initially of music by Liszt) for the DECCA Company, one of the biggest recording labels around. He had finally met a recording company that treated him as he deserved. It turns out that he actually recorded what became Vol. 2 (Schubert songs in arrangements by Liszt) first of all, in November 1981.
*And as a scholarly footnote, the song Lebe Wohl, S.563/1 had in fact been misattributed to Schubert at the time of Liszt's transcription; it was actually composed by August Heinrich von Weyrauch.
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'The extraordinarily beautiful singing lines are never distorted or rushed, yet the drama of Die Forelle is there, and the climax of Auf dem Wasser zu Singen is built with subtlety and insight impossible to surpass. (...) Note, for instance, the superb command of the very difficult melodic lines of Der Lindenbaum or 'Aufenthalt', to say nothing of the fierce storm in the former or the haunting end of the latter - can you hear the quietly sung words? - Brausender Wald/ Mein Aufenthalt. (...)
'One can only fantasize what wonders Bolet might have achieved with the famous 'Ständchen' (the one on the Rellstab's text, not the one on the German translation of Shakespeare which is actually included here: 'Horch, Horch, die Lerch'), the sad 'Gute Nacht', the haunting 'Der Wanderer' (on von Lübeck's text), the charming 'Liebesbotschaft', the desolate 'Der Leiermann', the poignant 'Du bist die Ruh', the grand paraphrase of 'Ave Maria' and many, many more. Alas, it was not to be. We should be grateful for what Jorge Bolet did record of Schubert's songs, and this disc is just about all of it; there are early recordings (1969) of 'Die Forelle' or 'Horch, Horch, die Lerch' for Ensayo which are, of course, more dashing than the late ones, but certainly not more compelling.'
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Alexander Arsov, "Jorge Bolet's finest late recording, hands down", Amazon review (June 2011)
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​Paul Turok, The New York Times, in a generally favourable short review, amusingly adds: 'But he seems insensitive to the moods indicated by the texts of some of the livelier originals: he harkens to a bellowing lark, and rather than ''sing on the water'' appears to battle a tidal wave.'
DECCA
Then came Vol. 1 (which was the first to be issued in April 1983) with some of his "calling card" pieces: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12, Rigoletto paraphrase, Mephisto Waltz, La Campanella and so on in February and September of 1982.
The B minor Sonata, Grand Galop Chromatique, the Valse Impromptu - the latter two uneasy but delightful bedfellows to the (allegedly) Faustian drama of the Sonata - and the Liebesträume were also set down in September 1982.
Gramophone interview (March 1983)
Jorge was accorded an interview with the influential Classical magazine, Gramophone's Andrew Keener.
'At that moment, Decca producer Peter Wadland came into the hall, and the conversation turned to the more immediate matter of Liszt. "What does that project cover? Wow! Shall we tell him, or do you think it'll scare him?" Appropriately scared, I learnt that the planned followup to the first disc of concert studies and Reminiscences de Don Juan (L'Oiseau-Lyre DSL041, 11/79—nla) includes Schubert song transcriptions, operatic paraphrases, the Sonata, Liebestràume, the Hungarian Rhapsodies and the Italian Annees de pelérinage (faint panic; "There's still all of Switzerland to do!").
Two more of the Decca team joined us and, evidently considering four pairs of ears sufficient an audience, Bolet sent the opening pages of "Spozalizio" (Annèes de pelèrinage), followed by the Johann Strauss II/ Godowsky Fledermaus (the latter piece studied with Godowsky himself during Bolet's Curtis days), out into the spaces of Kingsway Hall. The appetite was duly whetted."
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Maurice Aronson, who served as pianist Leopold Godowsky's assistant, told of Josef Hofmann "learning" Godowsky's Fledermaus transcription. Godowsky and Hofmann met in Berlin in 1900, becoming life-long friends. Hofmann would visit Godowsky's studio and sit open-mouthed while Godowsky was working out Fledermaus. Hofmann's father finally ran into Godowsky and asked, "What have you done to Josef? He sits home all day and plays Strauss waltzes." A week or so later, Hofmann visited Godowsky and played the entire transcription, note for note. Hofmann had never seen the music; in fact, Godowsky had not yet written it down. (See Harold C. Schonberg, in his book The Great Pianists, pp.386-387, who reminds us that "Godowsky's Fledermaus is one of the most fantastic, resourceful and complicated stunts ever written for the piano."
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It would be at least 10 years after that 1983 interview that I finally got to hear Bolet playing the Fledermaus paraphrase, in a tape sent from the International Piano Archive, Maryland. Everything nowadays is available at a couple of clicks of the keyboard!
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Rachmaninov's third Piano Concerto in D minor - another staple of Jorge's repertoire - was recorded in September 1982 with London Symphony Orchestra and charismatic Hungarian conductor Ivan Fischer. There was also a broadcast on BBC Scotland from Edinburgh’s Usher Hall with Bryden Thompson conducting, in conjunction with masterclasses.
‘Though always immersed in Rachmaninov's music, I have found it difficult to come to terms with this interpretation, and perhaps have not completely done so yet. Certainly, although a great admirer of Bolet, I find it disappointing. A greatly superior (digital) recording is one of the attractions of the new Decca, and at countless points it highlights Bolet's absolute command of this work's myriad pianistic complexities. Yet the whole possesses far less character than most of his readings. The soloist's tremendous entry in the Adagio, for example, is beautifully played but does not have the impact created by Wild and Ashkenazy. In this movement the drift into the poco piu mosso is finely judged, the finale's central scherzando is executed with great pianistic acuity, and there are other interesting features.’ Max Harrison, Gramophone [9/83]
On 8-11 March 1983 in Kingsway Hall, London Jorge set down Volume 5 of his Liszt series, a disc which would be an award winner when it was issued in September 1984: Années de pèlerinage : Suisse S160
​Pr: Peter Wadland Eng: John Pellowe. It was thought by some (including me) that Jorge had specifically learned the music for this recording, but - as later became evident - he had already recorded selections 1-6 in Berlin in the 1960s, omitting only the final three pieces: Eglogue (Eclogue), Le mal du pays (Homesickness) and Les cloches de Genève: Nocturne (The Bells of Geneva: Nocturne). The recording was made on 15 March 1963 in the Siemens villa, Berlin-Lankwitz .
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One particular gem is Au lac de Wallenstadt (At Lake Wallenstadt). Liszt's caption is from Lord Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (Canto III, stanza 85): "Thy contrasted lake / With the wild world I dwell in is a thing / Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake / Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring." In her Mémoires, Liszt's mistress and traveling companion of the time, Marie d'Agoult, recalls their time by Lake Wallenstadt, writing, "Franz wrote for me there a melancholy harmony, imitative of the sigh of the waves and the cadence of oars, which I have never been able to hear without weeping."
Franz Liszt (22 October, 1811 – 31 July, 1886)
Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude
Harmonies poétiques et religieuses ("Poetic and Religious Harmonies"), S.173, is a cycle of piano pieces written by Franz Liszt at WoroniÅ„ce (Voronivtsi, the Polish-Ukrainian country estate of Liszt’s mistress Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein) in 1847, and published in 1853.
The pieces are inspired by the poetry of Alphonse de Lamartine, as was Liszt’s symphonic poem Les Préludes.
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With Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude ("The Blessing of God in Solitude") we encounter one of Liszt’s most important masterpieces. Prefaced by Lamartine (beginning ‘Whence comes, O God, this peace which overwhelms me? / Whence comes its faith with which my heart overflows?’), this music is at once voluptuous and profoundly serene, its sustained tranquility capturing a world of mystical contemplation that is almost unique in nineteenth-century piano music; only Beethoven in his final years achieved something similar, as, much later, did Franck and Messiaen (notably in Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus). The work unfolds a straightforward tertiary structure, with an added coda whose sublime simplicity and overwhelming power remind us of the closing section of Liszt’s B minor Sonata. Here Liszt shows that, like Beethoven, he was capable of achieving the most elevated effect with the greatest simplicity of utterance. Confounding popular and banal stereotypes, this work reveals Liszt at his most intimately confidential. ‘Go tell your sins to the piano’, the Pope once exclaimed to the composer; we are perpetually grateful that Liszt’s soul was so generously and movingly confessional. (Tim Parry)
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