Jorge Bolet Best Ever Review? (Munich)

Hercules

Late November 1966

Herkulessaal, Munich

Chopin, Ballades; Liszt Sonata, Mephisto Waltz (& encores)

Although already 53 years old, Jorge Bolet has only been heard here once before, stepping in for a colleague in an orchestral concert. Now he appeared in the Herkulessaal in his own piano recital, tall, powerful, with a graying mustache.

First impression: A gentleman, a caballero.

Second: Also a nobleman of pianism.

He plays the four Chopin Ballades. Every note that now emerges from the Bechstein, every touch, every pedal stroke, all degrees of an infinitely variable dynamic scale, every slightest tempo change, the crystal-clear, meticulously human and deeply felt technique that rivals the infallibility of a pianola – all this is the result of an extraordinary high culture of pianism.

When one thinks of Bolet's Chopin, one doesn't picture the shivering, coughing composer, threatened by hemorrhages. Jorge Bolet's portrayal of the Ballades is a single, grand, masculine, serious, and mature act of passion.

His playing pulsates with emotion and often arouses (and excites) to the point of rapture, yet it is always a genuine, measured, and masterfully controlled Chopin rendition, possessing the most sensitive understanding and delicacy even for the sometimes effeminate melodies of the great Polish composer. Bolet understands how to let the basses growl softly like dangerous beasts after the sumptuous lyricism. Then, at the respective shifts from the legendary tone to the harshly ballad-like, he pounces like a puma with lightning-fast swipes at the presto agitato, resulting in the most gripping outbursts of unyielding force and grandly pathetic intensity. This consistently convincing Chopin playing, despite its highly personal character, is virtually unparalleled.

The second part was dedicated to Franz Liszt. I thought the great rhapsodist Liszt would have a hard time competing with the elegant Chopin. But I was wrong. With Liszt's rarely heard only sonata, which surpasses all of this titan's other piano works, Bolet conveyed a sense of the immense heights of Liszt's piano artistry. When he literally conjured the thunderous bundles of octaves from his sleeve and, with the incomprehensible skill of a magician, made all the bewildering and enchanting piano subtleties first conceived by Liszt sound, one might have thought that a god Shiva with a multitude of arms and hands must be at work. But it was always only this one, perfectly courteous and modestly smiling, unassuming gentleman in a tailcoat, who accomplished all this and more. For now, following Liszt's monstrous work, came the ultimate in pianistic bravura: the "Mephisto Waltz."

This satanic keyboard dance unleashed such a storm of applause that Bolet had to play a whole third part of Liszt's eccentricities. He played songs! Songs whose purely pianistic rendering Liszt had once helped the song masters achieve great popularity: Schubert's "Wohin?" and "Ständchen," Schumann's "Widmung," and Chopin's "Mädchens Wunsch." This dolcissimo of song lyricism, adapted to the cantabile possibilities of the pianoforte, performed by Bolet with a wonderfully singing touch, has put many a disastrous song performance far in the shade. Anyone who still speaks of the misappropriation of song literature hasn't heard Bolet.

And believe it or not: he also added the enormous Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12 with friendly serenity/ composure.

Edmund Nick, Süddeutsches Zeitung, 1 December 1966