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Poland
Behind the Iron Curtain, 1961
1961 Kraków (Poland)
From 26 May to 19 June, 1961 Jorge made his first trip behind the Iron Curtain, to Poland where he gave 10 concerts in six major cities starting in Kraków on the 26th. There were eight concerto dates with orchestra and two solo recitals. During the trip, he played on one of Chopin's pianos. US President John F. Kennedy had called culture and the arts 'the great democrat' among men and nations.
The opera singer Martina Arroyo toured Poland in 1962 and received an enthusiastic welcome in Szczecin, Poznan, Koszalin, Olsztyn, Bydgoslca, Wroclow, and Rzeszow.
Behind the Iron Curtain
On 11th May, Echo Krakowa announced Jorge's tour. It said that the first concerts were in Kraków on Friday/Saturday 26 & 27, after the pianist had played in Spain, West and East (GDR) Germany, Norway and Holland. This would imply that he has already slipped behind the Iron Curtain.
Dziennik Polski (26 May 1961) - above - advertised a concert that evening in the Filharmonia Krakowska with Jorge playing two concertos, Mozart K491 [= No.24] and Beethoven No. 3 (both in C minor) with Andrzej Markowski and the Orkiestra Filharmonii Krakowskiej. Jorge once told Alicia de Larrocha that this was his favourite Mozart concerto; there would be a Norwegian radio broadcast with the Trondheim Kammerorkester and Zubin Mehta in March 1962. The conductor Markowski had composed the score for Milcząca Gwiazda ('The Silent Star/First Spaceship on Venus'), a 1960 East German/Polish colour science fiction film based on the 1951 science fiction novel The Astronauts by Polish science fiction writer Stanisław Lem.
A review in Echo Krakowa (27/28 May) commented on the novelty of not one but two concertos in one evening. Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale was also heard for the first time in Krakow. 'There was no exaggeration in the praise already heaped on Bolet in the Western hemisphere. A distinct tendency towards lyricism; he played the two concertos in a somewhat Romantic way. More lyricism than inner fervour and dynamics. The insatiable and ruthless/demanding music lovers of Krakow required that the American played encores, though not all of yesterday's listeners had enough artistic and listening energy left to stay until the end of a very long evening.' (Polish text below)
The conductor's daughter Małgorzata Markowska remembers (August 2024): 'Composers visited us, including Luigi Nono, Krzysztof Penderecki, Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, Wojciech Kilar, and of course the Lutosławski family. Jorge Bolet, a brilliant pianist, visited us. It is indeed difficult to list them all.'
A note in the Dutch newspaper Twentsch dagblad Tubantia (26 May 1961) says that Henri Arends, conductor of the Noorhollands Filharmonisch Orkest, has departed for Poland to conduct the Silesian Philharmonic in a programme of Hendrik Andriessen, Roussel, Mozart and Richard Strauss, with Jorge Bolet as soloist (Mozart).
Friday, 2 June, Katowice, Sokolska Street, 7pm: with the Silesian Philharmonic Orchestra [Orkiestra Symfoniczna Filharmonii Śląskiej] and Henri Arends; notice in Trybuna Robotnicza for that day. 60 km north by road would take Jorge to Bielsko.
Saturday/Sunday 3/4 June 1961: Bielsko-Biała, in the Sala Pod Orlem (Eagle Hall) with Henri Arends of Holland and the Silesian Philharmonic (advert from the Trybuna Robotnicza, "Workers' Tribune" below).
A popular slogan calls Bielsko "Little Vienna". The programme was: Hendrik Andriessen - Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Kuhnau, WA Mozart - Piano Concerto No.20 in D minor KV 466, Albert Roussel - Suite in F major op. 33, R. Strauss - Symphonic poem "Don Juan" op. 20.
Tuesday, 6 June 1961 in Szczecin: piano recital (image below from the Kurier Szczeciński). 'The wonderful virtuoso musician Jorge Bolet will perform his second guest recital today at the Philharmonic Hall.'
Works by Beethoven, Haydn and Franck, and then in the second half Liszt, 'including the captivating Spanish Rhapsody'. Located near the Baltic Sea and the German border, Szczecin is a major seaport and Poland's seventh-largest city. It is also surrounded by dense forests, shrubland and heaths, chiefly the Wkrzańska Heath shared with Germany (Ueckermünde).
9-10 June, 1961: Liszt A major Concerto in Gdańsk, an important shipbuilding and trade port since the Middle Ages on the northern Baltic coast, with Gerd Puls (1927-2013, GDR) - conductor, and the Symphony Orchestra of the Baltic State Opera and Philharmonic (Orkiestra Symfoniczna Państwowej Opery i Filharmonii Bałtyckiej). See panel below.
12 June: recital in Jelenia Góra; in the theatre hall of the Klub KWADRAT (Cooperative Club) at 7pm, 'the outstanding pianist Jorge Bolet will perform' [Nowiny Jeleniogórskie, 1-7 June]. Jelenia is a historic city in southwestern Poland, within the historical region of Lower Silesia; it is close to the Karkonosze mountain range running along the Polish-Czech border. It is 558km south on the road from Gdańsk.
On 16 and 17 June, 'the outstanding American pianist came to Warsaw for concerts'. Stolica: warszawski tygodnik ilustrowany/ Capital: Warsaw illustrated weekly R.16, no. 25 (18 June, 1961). With the Warsaw Philharmonic under Georges Sebastian, he played Liszt's Concerto No. 2, sandwiched in between Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G minor and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 in F minor.
Both Godowsky and Hofmann, each an important influence on Jorge's life as a musician, had Polish origins. Josef Casimir [Józef Kazimierz] Hofmann, the first Director of Curtis and for whom Bolet played on occasion, had been born in Kraków on 20 Jan 1876. His mother, Matylda, sang in light operas at the Kraków Theatre, where her husband was conductor.
On a later trip (to Warsaw: 19/20 October, 1984, during which when he stayed at the US embassy, unless that was in 1961), it was said that Jorge disliked travelling in Poland during the communist regime, and that he and partner Tex Compton insisted on leaving the country on the last flight out on the night of the concert. He was unnerved by the constant and very unsubtle surveillance. Mattheus Smits, who knew Jorge, has told me that both Jorge and Tex 'were convinced that the strong surveillance in Poland was the result of the fact that the government knew Jorge had been a military man in the past and might be a spy!' As Tex Compton had died in 1980, this being 'spooked' in all likelihood refers to the 1961 tour, unless there was another one in the 1970s; furthermore, 1961 - during the early years of the Cold War - would be closer to the time when Jorge served in the US army.
Jerzy Parzyński (1929-1994) – lawyer, music critic, journalist, scoutmaster; son a famous opera singer Janina Tisserant-Parzyńska. He began studies at the Jagiellonian University, Kraków - one of the oldest universities in the world - in the fields of law and musicology, completing both courses in 1952. For 40 years he provided legal advice at Echo Krakowa. Together with a group of Krakow scouts, he participated (6 September 1984) in a scout pilgrimage to the summer residence of John Paul II in Castel Gandolfo , which ended with a scout campfire, during which the Pope delivered a talk to the gathered scouts.
Gdańsk, June 1961
Dziennik Bałtycki, 8 June 1961 announces Jorge Bolet in Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 2 in A major on Friday/Saturday (9/10), along with Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture, Brahms's Variations on a theme of Haydn and Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet.
Dziennik bałtycki ("Baltic Journal") 12 January 1961 had reported on the [concert agency] Pagart conference and the topic of the Sopot Summer Festival. 'The proposals presented by Pagart are not final, but we can already lift the veil of secrecy: an Italian opera may come [Donizetti's Rita was performed], Charles Aznavour and Jacques Brel, and pianist Jorge Bolet.' Jorge's conductor Gerd Puls was also directing Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus [„Zemsta nietoperza”] on 14/15 June with the visiting Volkstheater Rostock, GDR.
In 1361 Gdańsk had become a member of the Hanseatic League and served as Poland's principal seaport. Lech Wałęsa (b.1943), a Gdańsk shipyard electrician by trade, won the 1990 election and became the first democratically elected president of Poland since 1926 and the first-ever Polish president elected by popular vote. He had been leader of the Solidarity movement and led a successful pro-democratic effort, which in 1989 ended Communist rule in Poland and ushered in the end of the Cold War.
Politics in Poland
In June 1956, workers in the industrial city of Poznań went on strike, in what became known as 1956 Poznań protests. Voices began to be raised in the Party and among the intellectuals calling for wider reforms of the Stalinist system. Eventually, power shifted towards Władysław Gomułka, who became party leader for a second time (1956 to 1970). Hardline Stalinists were removed from power and many Soviet officers serving in the Polish Army were dismissed. This marked the end of the Stalinist era.
Gomułka was initially very popular for his reforms; his seeking a "Polish way to socialism"; and giving rise to the period known as "Polish thaw". During the 1960s, however, he became more rigid and authoritarian—afraid of destabilising the system, he was not inclined to introduce or permit changes. In the 1960s he supported the persecution of the Catholic Church, and the anti-communist opposition.
1961 was a tense and dramatic time in the Warsaw Pact countries (Soviet Union, East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Albania). Reuters reported for The New York Times that on Sunday, 13 August, East Germany closed the border early today between East and West Berlin. ‘The quietness of East Berlin's deserted streets was shattered in the early hours of the morning by the screaming of police sirens as police cars, motorcycles and truckloads of police sped through the city.’ The measures were directed at stopping the flow of refugees from East to West through West Berlin. The flow of refugees has recently been reaching 1,700 daily.
The Polish papers (and not just them, of course) are filled with details of the trial of Adolf Eichmann which began on 11 April 1961. In March 1960 he has been tracked down by Mossad to a residence at Calle Garibaldi 14, Buenos Aires. He was subsequently kidnapped and, dressed in the uniform of the airline El Al (Israel's flag carrier) and made drunk, flown out of Argentina. The Mossad agents gave the impression that Eichmann had been out drinking. After a stopover in Dakar on the west coast of Africa, Eichmann arrived in Israel on 22 May.
The Israeli government initially denied involvement in the abduction, claiming he had been taken by Jewish volunteers. On 23 May, 1960, Ben Gurion announced in the Knesset that Eichmann had been captured with the government's blessing. Eichmann was hanged on 1 June 1962 at Ramla Prison.
Innocent Sorcerers (Polish: Niewinni czarodzieje), a 1960 Polish psychological romantic drama film directed by Andrzej Wajda, and starring Tadeusz Łomnicki and Krystyna Stypułkowska finally hit the Szczecin cinemas during Jorge Bolet's visit, 4 months after the national premiere. The film was awarded a Diploma of Merit at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 1961. In Poland however, though well received by the audience, Innocent Sorcerers was met with criticism from both the then communist authorities and the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, since its release the film has garnered acclaim from film critics, similarly to its worldwide reception to date. American filmmaker Martin Scorsese recognised Innocent Sorcerers as one of the masterpieces of Polish cinema and in 2013 he selected it for screening in the United States, Canada and United Kingdom as part of the Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema festival of Polish films.
On 9-14 June, a Polish delegation headed by the First Secretary Władysław Gomułka and Premier Joseph Cyrankiewicz paid a friendship visit to and participated in the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Mongolian Peoples Republic.
Bolet's account of his Polish trip
Jorge was interviewed about his trip "Behind the Iron Curtain with Jorge Bolet," for Musical America, Vol. 81, October, 1961:
'Few press releases exceed in dullness those originating from the other side of the Iron Curtain. Which is why we pricked up our ears recently when Jorge Bolet dropped in to give us a first-hand report on Poland, where he recently completed a month-long tour (10 concerts in 26 days). One of the few un-ANTA-sponsored ventures of its kind - 'strictly commercial,' says Bolet—the tour was booked through Pagart (address: Senatorska 13, Warsaw), Poland’s counterpart to Russia’s Goskontsert, and included Cracow, Warsaw, Stettin, (Szczecin), Gdansk (formerly Danzig), Katowice, Bielsko, Jelenia-Góra, and a few other cities en route.
'In Warsaw, where he played the Liszt A major Concerto (No. 2) under visiting conductor Georges Sebastian [= 16/17 June], Bolet was accorded a standing ovation. Restrictions on movements within the borders of the country have been eased, and highway checkpoints no longer interrupt one’s journey between towns.
'His student-conducted tour of the University of Warsaw campus, Bolet assured us, would have been unthinkable in the past, when such East-West fraternization was officially frowned upon. At only one hotel was he required to show his Pagart identification. Bolet informed us that visiting artists’ fees are accommodatingly low, so that it is no problem whatever to comply with the stipulation that all Polish-earned money be spent within the country.
Bolet was quite disappointed when he received no reply to a letter he wrote to the society of Polish composers before the tour, requesting to meet the country’s leading composers and musicians. However, he did meet, and greatly admired, Andrzej Markowski, a member of the society who is also the conductor of the Cracow Philharmonic, with whom Bolet played Mozart's and Beethoven’s C minor Piano Concertos. Markowski, as a matter of fact, was one of the few who were able to reciprocate Bolet’s hospitality by inviting him to be his guest at his home. The Poles simply don’t have enough money (zlotys) to entertain, and if invited too often as your guest, will gracefully refuse in order to avoid embarrassment.
'The Polish people are wonderfully friendly,' says Bolet, 'with a tremendous sense of humor, a passionate love of music, and a great enthusiasm for jazz. The countryside is beautiful, too. In fact, the mountains of southern Poland reminded me of the New England Hills.' —Warren Cox
At this time, 'the opportunistic and technologically innovative Everest label issued [Bolet's] first stereo recordings—two Liszt LPs to slipstream behind the publicity for the Liszt movie, plus a Chopin album, prompted by Bolet’s having played a recital in Warsaw on a restored piano once owned by Chopin. His Everest recordings were respectfully received, but into the mid-1960s, the label’s gradual down-pricing marketing strategy reinforced the prevailing stereotype that Jorge Bolet was an artist of the second rank.' (Francis Crociata, notes to Marston Records Bolet volume 2)
Jorge told The Advocate, (Baton Rouge, Louisiana) 7.2.1961: 'Since I am being paid handsomely for my work there and I'm not allowed to take out one red cent of currency, I am going to have the pleasure of trying to spend the equivalent of $10,000 in three weeks on art works and sables.'
1961 continued
A day after Jorge's return from Poland, Tuesday 20 June, Kenneth Williams [*see 19 May, previous page] wrote in his diary: 'The show evening went very well and Jorge Bolet & Tex Compton were out front again, and they took Sheila [Hancock] and me to The Ivy. They gave us copies of Jorge Bolet's Liszt recordings. It was extremely kind of them.' Jorge and Tex were lodged at The Cavendish Hotel, Jermyn Street, located in the heart of luxury Mayfair & Piccadilly.
A feature article in La Nación (San José, Costa Rica), 27 December 1961 states that Jorge's automobile, during six seasons, has covered more than 200,000 miles, the equivalent of a journey to the moon. His home is in Los Altos, California but he maintains a small apartment in New York City. His dog is called Baldwin.
Tuesday, 1 August 1961, Red Rocks Festival, Denver Colorado: concerto with Denver Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Saul Caston. 'A double attraction also featuring David Abel, the exciting young violinist.' (The Rocky Mountain News, 9 June, 1961) In the event, due to inclement rainy weather, the concert - postponed to the next night - was eventually cancelled. Earl Wild was slated for 8 August with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops.
'If you think of Red Rocks Park as just a beautiful place to see a concert, think again! All around you are 738 total acres of deer, dinosaurs, pines and prairie, geological wonders and spectacular vistas. At 6,450 feet above sea level, Red Rocks Park is a unique transitional zone where the Great Plains meet the Rocky Mountains. The land on which Red Rocks Amphitheatre resides is the traditional territory of the Ute, Cheyenne and Arapahoe Peoples.' The amphitheatre opened in 1941.
'Famed Cuban pianist Jorge Bolet visited Aspen Wednesday , Aug. 2—but as a vacationist not as a performer. Bolet is a personal friend of his host , Mrs. Howard Schory , who is managing the Agate Lodge.' The Aspen Times, 4 August 1961
El Adelantado de Segovia (27.10.1961) praised a recital ( late August?) which Jorge gave in West Berlin, on the 150th anniversary of Liszt's birth, commenting on his sovereign virtuosity and on the injustice of believing that the composer wrote salon music. Between 1949 and 1961, around three million citizens of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) travelled through Berlin to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). For the GDR, the failure of the planned economy imposed by Moscow, coupled with the flight of its workers and trafficking of goods between East and West, posed a major economic problem. The decision was taken to build a Wall. Work began in the early hours of 13 August 1961. The newspaper mentioned the unusual nature of a two week arts festival in the Western sector at that time of tension. (The Berlin Wall fell on 9 November, 1989, marking the end of decades of division and the beginning of a new era of unity and freedom.)
On the afternoon of Sunday 17 and the evening of Monday 18, September, 1961 in Bergen, Norway, Jorge performed two Liszt works with conductor Carl Garaguly: the Concerto for piano and orchestra no. 2 in A major and the Hungarian Fantasy. Janacek's Sinfonietta completed the programme. (The 150th anniversary of the composer's birth was being celebrated.) 'You could hardly hope to find a better ambassador for Liszt', but the music was regarded as a bit boring by August Bolstad, music critic of Bergens Arbeiderblad. One had to admire technical sovereignty but one would like to hear Bolet in something less extroverted ("mindre utadvendt")
On Thursday, 21 September, in Atlantic Hall, Stavanger, there was a recital which including Grieg's Ballade, of course (and might be regarded as carrying coals to Newcastle!) Interestingly, Jorge appears to have recorded Mozart's Piano Concerto, C minor, KV 491 with Trondheim Kammerorkester and Zubin Mehta, for this was broadcast in March 1962.
Friday, 22 September 1961, recital in Haugesund, Norway. 'He has given several concerts for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. There was there for great anticipation in the air when the pianist stepped onto the stage and an almost full hall welcome to him.' His masterful, powerful playing in Beethoven's Appassionata put the old grand piano's performance to a severe test. Isn't it about time that we get a concert grand piano that can keep up?' Haugesunds Avis 23.9.61. And of course he performed Grieg's Ballade Op.24 in G minor. An ancient melody, probably from the 16th century, is the basis for the Ballade, which was written in winter and spring 1875/76, in the months following the composer's parents’ deaths. It is often interpreted as an attempt to surmount this difficult period, something most impressively audible in the chromatically-descending bass-line that permeates the piece. The Ballade is considered to be Grieg’s most important piece for piano and is most certainly his most personal composition, even though he himself never performed it in public.
(Despite being a fairly young town, the areas surrounding Haugesund were lands of power during the Viking Age. Harald Fairhair [Old Norse: Haraldr Hárfagri] c. AD 850 – c. 932 was the first king of Norway. He had his home in Avaldsnes, only 5 miles/8km from the present town.)
A week earlier, the Norwegian newspaper Haugesunds Avis tells us that Jorge was one of the principal adjudicators in the Trondheim Competition in the spring of 1961. Her Royal Highness Princess Astrid, the second daughter of King Olav V, presided.
24 September 1961 Royal Festival Hall, London with the London Symphony Orchestra.
On 2 October, 1961, in the Haus des Rundfunks, Berlin, Jorge recorded Grieg's Ballade and Debussy's Images pour Piano II
I. Cloches à travers les feuilles
II. Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut
III. Poissons d’or (Goldfish) & Masques (Très vif et fantasque)
Kenneth Williams & Jorge Bolet
One week before its West End run, it was playing in the 'English Siberia', Blackpool (Christopher Stevens writes). 'This gay, trivial and frequently tedious little extravaganza', wrote Clive Barnes of the London show, 'seems as old and dated as last year's calendar, but Williams triumphantly rose above his material in a positive feat of levitation. With his ice-cold face and tortured vowels, he was a delight.' But it drew packed houses. He was invited on to Desert Island Discs by Roy Plomley
Brahms in Birmingham, England
On Thursday, 5 October 1961 in Birmingham Town Hall, England (the Lord Mayor was present), Jorge played Brahms 2 with the CBSO under Hugo Rignold. Berlioz's dashing overture Le Corsair and Debussy's Images formed the remainder of the concert. Hector Berlioz had originally called his piece Overture of the Tower of Nice, after a recent trip to the city in 1844. He later toyed with the idea of calling it Le Corsaire rouge (from Fenimore Cooper’s novel The Red Rover), but we do not know if the new name was meant to convey any precise associations or was merely evocative of sea music in a general way. Berlioz had also long been an admirer of the works of Byron; he relates for example in his Memoirs how he read and admired Byron’s The Corsair at St Peter’s in Rome in 1831.
'Between Corsair and Images reared the formidable Teutonic bulk of Brahms's B flat major Piano Concerto. Very few pianists are really equal to its arduous four-movement course; but Jorge Bolet, new to Birmingham, is one of them. He has both the technical and the intellectual stamina. I am not sure that he liked the piano very much. He seemed to have some difficulty, during the first two movements, in coming to terms with the bigger tone, which sometimes clanged unduly. Also, in these movements, the orchestra did not invariably supply that veneer of tonal beauty which is desirable to brighten what is here and there, decidedly stodgy scoring. But the slow movement (with a lovely cello solo by Oliver Vella) and the joyous finale were beautifully done by all concerned.' (Birmingham Daily Post 6.10.61)
Friday, 6 October 1961, a recital in Arnhem, Holland at the Musis Sacrum.
Tuesday, 10 October at the 4th Coventry Festival, Warwickshire, England: JB performs Beethoven 4 with Josef Krips & the London Philharmonic; there were also the 5th and 8th symphonies. 'There was a full house. Whether it was the attraction of the conductor, Josef Krips, the pianist, Jorge Bolet; the orchestra, the London Philharmonic, or of the composer himself which made it so easy to fill the Coventry Theatre it is hard to say. Possibly the composer, for there can be no more powerful magnet. Yes, the Fourth concerto again! But last night provided a conclusive reason why this work is likely to drop out of the festival programme for some time to come: the performance was so distinguished that no-one would want to risk the inevitable comparison. Instead of the feminine pleading so common in interpretations of the concerto, there was a masculine persuasiveness, delivered with brilliance and unvaried beauty of piano tone. Pianist and conductor who were perfectly ad idem—a most thrilling feature-- provided a taut rhythmic framework which supported the whole edifice from the most powerful striding passages to the gentle ejaculations in the second movement. Josef Krips, a master of orchestral control, had found a worthy partner and how potently they enjoyed their identity of outlook and grip on the work.' (Coventry Evening Telegraph)
(The opening concert on 9th had featured Benno Moiseiwitsch playing Rachmaninoff's Paganini Variations with the City of Birmingham SO under Hugo Rignold.). Born in Odessa, the famous pianist Moiseiwitsch (1890-1963) - who settled in England and took British citizenship in 1937 - was much admired by Bolet, who chose his recording of the Scherzo from Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream (transcribed by Rachmaninoff) as one of his eight BBC Desert Island Discs in 1985.
17 October 1961 Peabody Conservatory of Music , Baltimore, Candlelight Concert
19 October 1961: Alberto Bolet arrives in Australia to complete the 1961 concerts of the Sydney Symphony following the death of its regular conductor [Nicolai Malko, 1883 – 23 June 1961], reports Variety magazine (25.10.61) At the St Petersburg Conservatory, Malko's teachers had included Rimsky-Korsakov, Glazunov and Lyadov. In 1951 he premiered Denmark composer Vagn Holmboe's 7th Symphony with the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra. The Russian conductor had moved swiftly from Britain to Australia in 1956, to take up the post of Chief Conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra following the hurried departure of Sir Eugene Goossens.
Claudio Arrau/Nikolai Malko: Beethoven "Emperor", Sydney Town Hall 1957
This concert was the first ever ABC televised orchestral broadcast, transmitted live from direct from the Town Hall on 20 June 1957.
In the early 1950s, Goossens had met Rosaleen Norton, the so-called "Witch of Kings Cross", a bohemian area of Sydney. Norton was known as an artist of the grotesque and for her interest in the occult and erotica, which Goossens secretly shared. They conducted an intense affair, exchanging a number of passionate letters. In early 1956, Goossens visited Europe, unaware that Sydney police were already in possession of his letters to Norton and photographs of her occult activities, which had been stolen from her flat by Sydney Sun reporter Joe Morris, who had infiltrated her supposed "coven". When Goossens returned to Australia on 9 March 1956, he was detained at Sydney Airport, following a tip-off by informants in London; his bags were searched by Customs officials, who found a large amount of what was then considered pornographic material (800 erotic photographs, some film and ritual masks). Although he was not immediately arrested or charged, Goossens naively agreed to attend a police interview a few days later, where he was confronted with photographs of Norton's "ceremonies" and his letters. Faced with the evidence of his affair with Norton – which left him open to the serious charge of "scandalous conduct" – Goossens was forced to plead guilty to the pornography charges. He paid a fine of £100; more significantly, the scandal ruined his reputation and forced him to resign from his positions. He returned to England in disgrace.
Wednesday, 25 October, 1961 at 8:30pm in Carnegie Hall.
César Franck (1822—1890), Prélude, aria et final (1886-1887),
Liszt's Sonata, and the Mephisto Waltz
Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 23 in F Minor, Op. 57, Appassionata
30 October 1961, Norfolk, Virgina, with the Norfolk Symphony and Edgar Schenkman
22 November 1961: Greenwood, Mississippi, recital
28/30 Nov 1961 Birmingham SO/Arthur Winograd; Birmingham, Alabama
4/5 December 1961: Waukesha, Wisconsin: with the Waukesha Symphony Orchestra
13 December 1961: recital in Kalispell, a city in northwest Montana. 'It’s a gateway to vast Glacier National Park, with its peaks, alpine trails and wildlife like grizzly bears.' The recital included Grieg's Ballade, Franck's Prelude, Aria and Finale, Beethoven's Appassionata and a Liszt group. 'In our opinion, he reached his peak in the Beethoven; we felt our artist whipped through this extremely difficult sonata with zest of a teenager but with the skill of a master that he is...Something to be long remembered)'
(Lucille Richarson in a very enthusiastic review for The Daily Inter Lake)
'A limited number of full and partial scholarships will be awarded to qualified performers for the special four day seminar in advanced piano under Jorge Bolet, which will be held Dec. 27 to 30 at Music and Arts Institute, 2622 Jackson street, San Francisco. Letters of application should be directed immediately to the college, listing previous study, musical experience, and repertoire prepared for performance. Candidates will be informed of auditions which will be held before the opening of the seminar in San Francisco.' The Monitor (17.11.61)
The First Van Cliburn Competition 1962
Bolet served as a judge during the first 1962 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. It was held 24 September - 7 October in the Ed Landreth Auditorium, Texas Christian University, Forth Worth. One fellow judge happened to be Rudolph Ganz, the pianist whom Jorge had heard in Havana as a five year old boy. Ralph Votapek (born 1939 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) won, Russian pianist Nikolai Petrov came second, and Cécile Ousset was fourth.
'The EMI Classics recordings of Cécile Ousset (b. 1936), spanning the years between 1982 and 1991, would mark her third and most prestigious recording collaboration, launching her, at age forty-six, into the international limelight. Indeed, recognition did not come easily to this grand dame of the piano, who, at the age of fourteen, obtained her prize at the Paris Conservatoire under the tutelage of Marcel Ciampi and began the gruelling rounds at major competitions shortly after: Geneva, Long-Thibaud, Queen Elisabeth and Busoni, as well as the inaugural edition of the Van Cliburn. As a young female pianist, doors remained firmly shut, even with the support of the great Arthur Rubinstein, who personally invested in Ousset’s early career after witnessing her performance at the Long-Thibaud competition. Her rise to international renown came primarily in the 1970s, notably through her recordings for the German Eterna label as well as for Decca France. The year 1982 marked the release of her first solo recording with EMI, a vivid programme pairing Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition with Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit.' (EMI Warner)
On the Cliburn programme booklet, Jorge's address is listed as: 27466 Black Mountain Road, Los Altos Hills, California.
1 February 1962, Oil City, Pennsylvania. Jorge Bolet 'uttered not one word during the performance. His audience will have an opportunity to hear him this morning sometime between 11 and 11:30 am when he broadcasts a greeting to people of this area and congratulates Oil City on its community concert which brings fine music to this community.' Oil City Derrick (2 Feb 1962)
Wednesday, 28 February 1962: Twichell Auditorium, Spartanburg, South Carolina USA, including Grieg's Ballade. Jeanne A. Houpt of the Spartanburg Herald (2.3.62), astounded by "Un Sospiro", described Jorge as 'an expert perhaps unmatched in the performance of Liszt. In an amazing display of technical virtuosity, Jorge Bolet delighted an audience of hundreds'. In Franck's Prelude, Aria and Final, 'with a near reverence for each melodic tone, cushioned against an intricately, balanced accompaniment, the artist showed a great depth of feeling that was never quite apparent in the remainder of the programme'. Jorge had made an appearance that morning (10:30am) at Hadley Music Company to meet local music teachers and musicians. (Spartanburg was formed in 1785, after a deal was made with the Cherokee in 1753, and was named after a local militia called the Spartan Regiment in the American Revolutionary War. It was on 17 March 1945 in this same Spartanburg, South Carolina that Jorge had sworn an oath of renunciation and allegiance, thus becoming a United States citizen.)
"De tien vingers van deze duivelskunstenaar..."
The ten fingers of this devilish artist...
On Tuesday 20 March 1962, there was an Amsterdam recital in the Grote Zaal of the Concertgebouw. It was billed as a Liszt recital to celebrate 150th anniversary of the composer's birth, though he was born 22 October 1811.
Holland, 1962
A Dutch critic Cas Wichers was to say in 1987 that 'the Cuban-American pianist Jorge Bolet has been a familiar face on the Dutch music stages for over thirty years'.
Algemeen Handelsblad (21.3.1962) has a headline of "Aseptische Virtuositeit"/"Sterile Virtuosity".
The Grote Zaal was three-quarters empty. 'His playing sounded as fabulously well-groomed as one rarely hears on our stage. His playing is crystal clear, both the jeu perlé and the furious speed of the martellato passages. The ten fingers of this devilish artist appear to exert a different degree of force on the keys at the same time: unique, this muscular control that creates a perfect profiling of the note image — eerily clean in relation to each other. This perfectionism is geared to playing with sounds: the less expression is hidden behind the notes, the more satisfying the results.' (De tien vingers van deze duivelskunstenaar blijken op hetzelfde moment elk een andere graad van kracht uit te oefenen op de toetsen: uniek, deze spierbeheersing waardoor een volmaakte profilering van het notenbeeld ontstaat — griezelig rein van onderlin ge verhouding. Dit perfectionisme is ingesteld op het spel met klanken: hoe minder expressie achter de noten schuilgaat, des te meer bevredigen de resultaten.)
In Liszt's Sonata in B minor, 'the psychic connection between the violent and the sweet episodes is missing; the grip on the whole is lost. (De psychische verbinding tussen de hevige en de lieflijke episoden ontbreekt) Remarkably, the same thing happens with a very short piece like Funerailles, which is performed without the required obsessive tension and only causes false alarm.'
Best were the Transcendental Etudes (though he played them in a different order, and not all of them). 'In these six (out of twelve) Etudes, Jorge Bolet performed miracles from a technical point of view. But his playing seemed not to make people hot or cold.'
Jorge no doubt met up with Sidney Foster who played in the Kleine Zaal that same Tuesday evening (to a similarly empty hall and an unenthusiastic review in De Telegraaf).
Some Liszt Transcendental Etudes were recorded on 22 March, 1962 in RIAS Funkhaus, Berlin, Studio 7.
More engagements in Holland follow.
28 March 1962 with Rotterdam Philharmonic under André Rieu in the Rivièrahal.
1 April (Sunday), a recital in the Diligentia, The Hague
12 April (Thursday), a recital in the hall of the Rijnhotel, Rotterdam, including Chopin's Sonata No. 3 in B minor Op.58, Beethoven's Appassionata and Liszt's Mephisto Waltz.
De Rotterdammer (14.4.62) noted that the scherzo (the 2nd movement) of the Chopin was so incredibly fast that the clarity of the passagework was jeopardised, but otherwise the Sonata was on a high level.
6th Gulbenkian Festival of Music, Lisbon, Portugal (May 1962). On the 19th, Jorge played in the inaugural concert with the Orquestra Sinfonica da Emissora Nacional/ Paul Paray in the Coliseu: Liszt's second concerto (in which he achieved a "triunfo grande" according to Ritmo XXXII Número 327 [1/6/1962]). He also gave a Liszt recital in Setúbal, 31 miles outside Lisbon. Dr Francisco Curt Lange (German musicologist, Montevideo, Uruguay) gave lectures on development of serious Brazilian music; there was an exhibition of baroque music manuscripts found in Minas Gerais. The Anglo-Portuguese News, 12 May 1962.
Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian (1869 – 1955) was a British-Armenian businessman and philanthropist, by whose bequest a cultural Foundation was set up in 1956.
Wednesday 25 July, 1962 Red Rocks Music Festival, Denver, Colorado. The pianist 'has won a loyal Denver following on previous appearances here' The Rocky Mountain News, 13 July, 1962 (*see under August 1955). 'The brilliant Cuban-American pianist will be the guest star in a free public concert at Red Rocks Theater by the Denver Symphony Orchestra. Johnny Green, popular band leader and composer of hit tunes, will be guest conductor of the concert at 8.30 p m. Sponsored by the Denver Recreation Department, it will be the summer’'s only public performance at Red Rocks by the Denver Symphony.'
In August, it was announced that 'Jorge Bolet, world celebrated pianist, will conduct an Advanced Piano Seminar 9 August - 13 September, open to the public as well as performers at the Music and Arts Institute, 2622 Jackson Street, San Francisco. A total of six sessions, three in the morning and three in the evening, will be open. Bolet also will be available for a limited number of private lessons.
Mill Valley Record, 1 August, 1962
Claudio Arrau had an eight-week tour of Australia (over July-August-September 1962) with the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC).
Solo début in the Royal Festival Hall
On Tuesday, 29 May 1962, Jorge Bolet performed a big programme of Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 57, Appassionata, Liszt’s B minor sonata and Chopin’s Third Sonata in London.
He ‘held his audience enthralled’ but things were ‘less happy’ in the Chopin where he missed ‘some of the lyrical exuberance of the opening movement and the lightness of the scherzo, though it was taken at a breathtaking speed... In short, the playing was magnificent but it was not quite Chopin’.
The previous evening another Latin American, Chilean maestro Claudio Arrau had played a programme which included Brahms/Handel Variations and Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit.
This detail conflicts with the superbly researched arrauhouse.org which states that there was an International Celebrity Recital by Claudio Arrau at the Royal Festival Hall, London, on Wednesday 6 June at 8 pm, with Arrau performing:
Mozart: Sonata in D, K.576
Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op.24
Debussy: Twelve Préludes, Book I
Liszt: Études d'exécution transcendante -
No.11 in D flat Harmonies du soir
No.10 in F minor
'[Bolet's] London recital debut at Royal Festival Hall in 1962 was an unqualified triumph, though it unaccountably did not lead to his return until another decade had passed. His letter to his manager at Columbia Artists was a mixture of triumph and desperation: “I hope these [reviews] please you! I know they will. I really can’t do any better. Everyone here is extremely happy and I believe things will really start happening for me in Europe. Maybe the U.S. will discover me over here one of these days!"' (Francis Crociata) But see 24 September 1961 for a possible previous appearance at the RFH.
On 4 September, 1961: Los Altos Hills, California (private recording): Grieg: Ballade in G minor (in the form of Variations on a Norwegian Folk Song), Op.24; Beethoven: Piano Sonata No.23 in F minor, Op.57 (Appassionata) – 'This is a private home recording of Bolet playing either just for himself, or for a small group of friends.' (Christian Johansson)
On 14 and 16 October 1962, JB was in Hawaii, playing with the Honolulu Symphony under Hans Schwieger at the McKinley Auditorium: Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op.58. German-born Schwieger had settled in the U.S. in 1938; became a naturalised American citizen in 1944. (*See further under 17 Nov 1959)
25th Anniversary Concert
22 October 1962 recital Community Concert Association; Hattiesburg, Mississippi
26 October, Tarrytown-on-Hudson, a village in the town of Greenburgh in Westchester County, New York. (The Native American Weckquaesgeek tribe, who were closely related to the Wappinger Confederacy and further related to the Mohicans, lived in the area prior to European settlement. The village's name may come from the Dutch tarwe, meaning "wheat". Writer Washington Irving described Tarrytown in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" [1820] and the Ellery Queen novel The Dragon's Teeth is set primarily in there.)
JB celebrated his Carnegie Hall 25th Anniversary Concert on Wednesday, 31 October, 1962 with Beethoven Sonata No. 31 Op.110, Chopin's 3rd Sonata Op. 58 in B minor, Brahms, Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24 (1861) and Godowsky, Symphonische Metamorphosen Johann Strauss'cher Themen: 2. Die Fledermaus (1907)
Tuesday 6 November 1962: Brahms 2 with the National Symphony under Howard Mitchell in Constitution Hall, Washington DC. 'Celebrating his 25th year as a performing artist, his 9th appearance as guest artist with this orchestra. Playing a steely-voiced Baldwin of tremendous power, he gave the work a reading that was both impetuous and poetic. Most of the difficult passages in the concerto flowed from his fingers with effortless ease. He did have a bit of difficulty getting things well launched and the opening movement had a fair share of rough spots." The evening had begun with Vaughan Williams' Partita, 'a lovely work lightly touched with the gentle magic of the British master's best work'. (Irving Lowens, Evening Star 7.11.62)
10 November 1962 Parkersburg, West Virginia: Community Association recital
25 November, Medford, Oregon: Civic Music Association
29 November, Lawrence University Memorial Chapel, Appleton, Wisconsin
In November, Jorge was back in London, recording items for BBC Television (16 November): Albéniz, Isaac, Book II - Iberia Suite No. 3 in F-Sharp Minor, B. 47 'Triana'; Chopin, Frédéric, Berceuse in D-Flat Major, Op. 57; Liszt, Franz Grand Galop Chromatique in E-Flat Major, S. 219. The programme was (probably) first broadcast on Monday, 24 June 1963. He had also appeared in Music in Camera on Thursday 4 May 1961, 21:15 on BBC Television.
2, 4 December 1962, Buffalo Philharmonic (New York State) and Josef Krips: Wolf – Italian Serenade; Liszt – Piano Concerto No.2 in A major; Bruckner – Symphony No.4 in E-flat major “Romantic”