Jorge Bolet. Timeline

1914

Born Havana, Cuba on 15 November to Antonio Bolet Valdés and Adelina Tremoleda de la Paz. He was the fifth of six children.

c.1925/1926

Aged about nine or ten, Jorge played in the old-fashioned salon in Havana of Mrs Amelia Solberg de Hoskinson.

1926

13 August: first of two benefit concerts for the young Jorge in the Teatro Principal de la Comedia (organised by Maria Jones de Castro)

1927

4 September: second of two benefit concerts for the young Jorge in the Gran Teatro Nacional, Havana. Organised by Amelia Solberg de Hoskinson.

16 September: Jorge sails with his sister Maria Josefa (aged 23) on the SS Governor Cobb to the U.S.A.

27 September/ 6 October 1927: two auditions for the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia.

1927-1934

Jorge is taught at Curtis by David Saperton (1889-1970), son-in-law of the pianist-composer Leopold Godowsky

1928

28 February. Moriz Rosenthal (a pupil of Liszt) gives a recital at Curtis which Jorge probably heard.

1932

29 January. Seventeen-year-old Jorge performs the first movement of Tchaikovsky's B-flat minor concerto with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra under Fritz Reiner at Carnegie Hall, New York City.

1932/33

A few sessions in New York with Leopold Godowsky; Jorge played the composer’s music which he had worked on with Saperton (Java Suite, Fledermaus, Künstlerleben, arrangements of Chopin études, Passacaglia…)

1933-34

Attends The Stony Brook School, Long Island.

1934

16 April. Graduation recital in Casimir Hall, Curtis.

9 June 1934. Graduation from The Stony Brook School,

August/September: concerts in Havana, often with brother Alberto

1935

March. JB stays in Paris, France. He has a stipend from the Cuban government. His eldest brother Nico finances a European tour.

European début (aged 20)

8 May, Kleine Zaal ('Small Hall') of the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam

Followed by den Haag/The Hague, Berlin, Milan, Vienna, London and Paris

(Late 1935)

5 lessons with Moriz Rosenthal (legendary pianist, pupil of Franz Liszt) in Vienna

1935-1936

Concerts in Spain (Pamplona, Gijón, Oviedo, Madrid etc.)

May. Returns to the USA. Resides (?) with the family of Reverend Donald Barnhouse in Philadelphia.

September. Havana, Cuba

9 December. First known recordings of JB (radio broadcast from the Curtis Institute)

1936-39

During the years 1936-39 there were concerts in the USA, Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Guatemala, Dominican Republic. Bolet’s concerts in Havana were for Pro-Arte Musical, for the Lyceum, the Anfiteatro, Teatro La Comedia and the Auditorio, with Havana's Filarmónica and Sinfónica.

1937

27 October. Naumburg Prize recital, Town Hall, New York City

1938

February. Academy of Music, Philadelphia. JB’s début with Philadelphia Orchestra/ Eugene Ormandy. (Rachmaninoff, Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op.30​)

1939

22 December. CMZ and COX radio stations (Havana, Cuba) broadcast Liszt's first concerto with Alberto Bolet and the Orquesta Sinfónica de la CMZ. Billed as JB’s"debut radiofónica" (but see December 1936)

Early 1940s

Raymond Fayette Stover (1894-1979) is a friend and manager. JB’s connection with him may run from the late 1930s to c.1946

At some stage in these years, JB meets Houston Larimore 'Tex' Compton (1910-1980), who was to be his life-partner until the latter’s death in December 1980.

1940

Assistant to Rudolf Serkin, Head of the Piano Department at Curtis

29 October. Hofmann Award recital, Town Hall, NYC. (Aged 25 yrs 11 months)

1941

31 December. Recital at the Presidential Palace, Havana, 'after which he is to be decorated, we hear, by President Colonel Batista, no less'.

1942

12 January. Auditorio, Havana (Manuel de Falla, Noches en los jardines de España) with Havana Philharmonic/ Massimo Freccia (for this Italian conductor see also January 1950)

1943

12 April. Havana. Rachmaninoff 3 with Erich Kleiber

October (?). JB is awarded the Order of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, a high Cuban distinction.

November. During the early stages of World War II, Jorge Bolet was seconded to the Cuban Embassy in Washington as Assistant Military Attaché .

16 December. Constitution Hall, Washington DC. Impromptu recital, as Sigmund Romberg's train hadn't arrived.

1944

A Washington DC diplomatic list for May 1944 notes that while he was at the Cuba Embassy, Jorge lived at Dorchester House - a giant apartment building, 2480, 16th Street, N.W., at 16th and Kalorama.

April. Andre Mertens and Horace J. Parmelee, heads of the Haensel & Jones division of Columbia Concerts, announce the addition of three new artists, including Lt. Jorge Bolet, Cuban pianist.

14 April. Pan American Day, Hall of the Americas, Washington DC. JB plays Schubert and Latin-American music

8 May. Tilghman High School, Paducah, Kentucky. JB fills in for his pianistic idol Josef Hofmann, who cancelled.

4 November. Teatro Nacional, Havana. Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto No. 1 in B♭ minor, Op. 23 with Erich Leinsdorf in aid of victims of a cyclone.

December. Political change in Cuba finally rendered Jorge Bolet’s military commission at the Washington embassy void.

The President, Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar’s (1940-44) handpicked successor, Carlos Saladrigas Zayas had been defeated in the election of 1 June 1944 and Batista was succeeded by Ramón Grau San Martín (‘his bitter, bitter enemy’, as JB once said), who secured a massive popular victory. Dr Grau San Martín, a physician, took office on 10 October.

1945

January/February. Inducted into the U.S. Army. Training at Camp Croft (Spartanburg, South Carolina) and Fort Benning (Columbus, Georgia)

The date of enlistment is given as 31 January, 1945 in Baltimore Maryland.

17 March. Spartanburg, South Carolina: Jorge Bolet becomes a US citizen.

1946

Early months. Sent to Tokyo, Japan as part of the U.S. Occupation.

24 May. Ernie Pyle Theatre, Tokyo (*now the Tokyo Takarazuka Theatre, Yurakucho, Chiyoda ward). Recital by Hungarian violinist Fery Lorant and Jorge Bolet.

31 July. Hibiya Hall, Tokyo. Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18. Nippon [later NHK] Philharmonic/ Józef Rosenstock

August. Ernie Pyle Theatre. JB conducted performances of The Mikado

September. JB is discharged from the Army. He is flown back from Japan at the request of Columbia Concerts.

22 September-December. Tour of Mexico, Central America, the West Indies and South America.

1947

29 January. Recital in the Teatro Capitolio, Ciudad Trujillo (present day Santo Domingo), Dominican Republic

April/May (?). Latin American tour ‘which took him as far south as Guatemala and included a ten-week radio engagement in Mexico City.’

1948

April. JB touring in Cuba (Havana, Cienfuegos, Santa Clara, Camagüey [?]).

JB seems to have been engaged to give concerts in Bogotá, Colombia during an Inter-American conference in April 1948 but these had to be cancelled due to the political situation.

July. Mexico (?)

1949

c.25 March. Syria Mosque, Pittsburgh. JB replaces Vladimir Horowitz ["a slight indisposition"], for two of three performances of Rachmaninoff's third concerto.

Pittsburgh Symphony/ Lorin Maazel or Vladimir Bakaleinikoff.

Late 1940s.

JB credits work with pianist Abram Chasins for helping his artistic development.

JB has described tough times in the late 1940s/50s, years when he was grateful for the many friends who supported him in these ‘ghastly lean years… These were ‘terrible years... great struggle...half-starvation’.

1950

10 January. Municipal Auditorium, New Orleans, Louisiana. Prokofiev, Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 16. New Orleans Symphony & Massimo Freccia. JB's first public performance of the concerto.

1951/52

'This year Mr Bolet is playing the greatest number of concerts of any pianist with Columbia Artists - 75 in one season.' The Star-News, Wilmington, North Carolina (20 February, 1952). In August 1953, a newspaper announced: JB has travelled 45,000 miles, giving 67 concerts in 38 states during the last 12 months.

1952

10 March. Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar seizes power in Cuba in a military coup. Declaring himself president, Batista cancels the planned presidential elections.

1953

February. Teatro Municipal, Caracas, Venezuela. Concerts in honour of José Martí (b.1853), who is considered a Cuban national hero because of his role in the liberation of his country from Spain. The famous Cuban author Alejo Carpentier (1904-1980) wrote a review in El Nacional.

April. JB records Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor Op. 16 with the Cincinnati SO under Thor Johnson.

26 July. Fidel Castro initiates an attack on the Moncada Barracks, a military garrison outside Santiago de Cuba, Oriente. Castro's plan emulated those of the 19th-century Cuban independence fighters who had raided Spanish barracks; Castro saw himself as the heir to independence leader José Martí. In the end Castro ordered a retreat. Batista's government proclaims martial law,

1954

April. JB was one of five American musicians invited for a four-week visit to West Germany as guests of the Federal Republic. While in Germany, Bolet appeared as soloist with the Berlin Philharmonic. Europe for the next 6 weeks, according to newspapers. First return to Europe since his 1935 début?

1955

May/June. A tour of Brazil and Argentina, 18 concerts being mentioned. Confirmed: Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Buenos Aires.

In Buenos Aires in May 1955 there were massive riots. Roman Catholicism was being disestablished. A massacre took place on 16 June 1955. Thirty aircraft from the Argentine Navy and Air Force strafed Plaza de Mayo in the largest aerial bombing ever on the Argentine mainland. The attack targeted the adjacent Casa Rosada ("The Pink House"), the official seat of government, while a large crowd of protestors gathered to demonstrate support for President Juan Perón. The action was to be the first step in an eventually aborted coup d'état.

In Cuba (1955), bombings and violent demonstrations led to a crackdown on dissent, with Castro and brother Raúl fleeing the country to evade arrest.

1955

November/December. European tour (cf. 1935, 1954) incl. Denmark, Sweden Holland, Britain.

*18 December (aged 41). Royal Festival Hall, London: recital

1956

2 December. Fidel Castro and the 26th of July Movement rebels land on Cuban soil with the intention of starting a revolution. Met by heavy Batista defences, nearly everyone in the Movement is killed, with merely a handful escaping, including Castro, his brother Raúl, and Che Guevara. For the next two years, Castro continues guerrilla attacks and succeeds in gaining large numbers of volunteers.

1957

Random bombings and other sabotage are commonplace across the island of Cuba, and the régime becomes more ruthless in its attempts to retain political control.

1958

25, 26 November. Constitution Hall, Washington DC. John LaMontaine, Piano Concerto (première). National Symphony/Howard Mitchell

2 December. Auditorium, Havana: recital for Pro-Arte. Schubert's B flat major sonata D960 makes a rare appearance on JB’s programmes. His last concert in Cuba?

By 1958, perceiving that Batista was absolutely discredited among Cubans of every political affiliation and class, the United States finally imposed an arms embargo against him. In May 1958, his army failed in a final offensive against the guerrillas and began losing territory.

On 31 December, New Year’s Eve, Fulgencio Batista flees Cuba with a few of his closest supporters, leaving revolutionary forces free to take control of the capital.

1959

9 January. A victorious Fidel Castro reached Havana. JB never returned to Cuba.

Promotional material states that JB has an annual European tour (England, Germany, Holland) in January/February 1959 and in America during March/May. ​​​

January/February. London, Amsterdam, Delft, The Hague, Berlin, Hamburg…

May. First appearance in Norway.