I've been looking at The Rhodesia Herald in the British Library. Quite a hard-hitting, critical review. Having now to get used to reading microfilm, which I've only used a few times before.
The Rhodesia Herald (13 February) had a short article expressing surprise that TWO visiting pianists should be giving recitals within 7 days of each other. 'Most promoters would try to avoid such near-clashes if possible.' (Israeli pianist Joseph Kalichstein was the other.) This is actually advertised as Jorge’s second visit to Rhodesia, the first presumably being in 1964. There was ‘no violent rush for tickets’ for Jorge’s concert (which had been arranged by the Salisbury Arts Council) and the author wondered: ‘Surely Salisbury is not being so churlish as to hold Mr Bolet’s birth against him?’ This is in reference to Cuban intervention in Angola, which began on 5 November 1975, when Cuba sent combat troops (apparently one-tenth of its army) in support of the communist-aligned People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA).
Jorge's recital was on Saturday 14 February, Valentine’s Day, in the Harry Margolis Hall; it was an all-Chopin programme (Etudes Op.25 and the four Ballades). The newspaper wondered whether Kalichstein’s programme, being more varied (Brahms, Schubert, Chopin and Bartok), was the more tempting
Monday's Herald (16th) carried a trenchant review by Rhys Lewis, one of the more hard-hitting Jorge has received. ‘It was, I think, Cortot who observed that Chopin’s Studies are as inaccessible to the musician without virtuosity as they are to the virtuoso without musicianship. The key lies in a fine balance between that exultation in the new-found resources of the piano that Chopin so clearly felt, and their depth of poetic expression.
'To these decibel-assaulted ears, Jorge Bolet did not find that balance. There was plenty of evidence of a big technique, but where soft, light and even playing was called for, we were treated to lumpy phrasing, rhythmic squareness, tonal monotony and a bravera splashiness that, to those of us whose delight in the music's wonders is still undulled, were a travesty. The four Ballades fared rather better. But in responding too generously to every passing change of mood and every minute inner textural detail which he held up for our inspection, Mr Bolet lost the work’s larger design. It was an instructive evening if only that it proved that the accretions of tradition in performing Chopin are far from dead. But in the event, one couldn't help regretting that those who sit in power over whom and what we are to hear…had not chosen the programme Bolet had given in Carnegie Hall two years ago. Far from suffering as I fear Chopin did, Liszt, Busoni and Tausig transcriptions gloriously find their raison d’etre in this particular type of playing.’