Makoto Ueno remembers Bolet (2)

Professor Makoto Ueno, Kyoto City Unversity of Arts

Your inquiry made me look back again and think about the Curtis days in the 1980s.

At one time, I felt some doubt about the way JB taught.  My former teacher in Japan criticised me a lot after listening to me at the end of 1984. (I had gone back to Japan for the first time in two and a half years)

At one stage, I obtained permission from JB to study with Mieczysław Horszowski, for several lessons. Bolet was away a lot, of course, concertizing, and once back in town he gave lessons every day, and students had to offer new pieces for every lesson.

And no systematic pedagogy.  I think he was capable of teaching in a methodical way, but he didn’t.

Recalling his instruction, the phrases most often heard were:

Sing!

Never hit the key.  

Press the keys!

Keep the tempo!

Actually “singing beautifully in time” is the most important and essential part of piano playing.

Also, he was quite precise about the length of the notes. Nowadays, especially with younger generation playing brilliant Steinways, people tend to cut notes short more often, releasing notes early and let the notes last with the pedal, so that one gets a sharper and edgier (but not a warm, lasting) sound. Of course this is just a generalisation.

That kind of technique can be used when we need some orchestral effects in wide registers and in hyper-polyphonic pieces, especially in case of bell effects…but not very often with many classical and early romantic works, and seldom with Bolet.

Always, he was well dressed in the lessons , often with brownish suede leather sport jacket with a tie. But I once saw him dressed very casually (of course tidy enough) in the streets. He was walking to a 7-Eleven store, between his apartment and Curtis, wearing jeans and flannel shirt. Also, he was always wearing a Rolex Oyster Perpetual Submariner, which looked very good with him in the lessons.

He played a lot in the lessons instead of talking. In other words, he was an old type of pianist/teacher. He smoked while playing, so that we students often became worried…that the ash would fall down onto the keys or drop onto his trousers.

At the beginning of my four years' training with him, I had to expend so much energy on learning English. Further, getting used to the new environment and everything else was not easy, so my piano lessons suffered and did not go so well for months. I think he was very disappointed at the beginning. But toward the end of the year, when I brought the Chopin fourth Ballade, he was starting to look at me in rather a better way.

In addition to the pieces that I mentioned in the last email, I remember that I took lessons with him on Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy, Chopin's Concerto No. 2, and Polonaise-Fantaisie Op. 61, Grieg's Ballade, Beethoven's Sonatas Op. 2/3 in C, Op. 7 in E flat, Op. 31/1 in G major, Op.31/3 in A flat, Op.90 in E minor, Op.109 in E major. Bartók's Suite, Brahms Op. 117, etc.

Only in the last year did I dare bring Rachmaninoff's 3rd Concerto.

I remember Bolet was present and listening to the lecture which [Romanian conductor Sergiu] Celibidache gave during his visit to Curtis in 1984.

I also remember when I brought a quintet (it was either Schumann or Dvořák), JB was very happy to listen to all the string players and was telling us that all (the) string players are better than (the) pianist(s), implying that my playing was bad compared to their playing! I understand it now.  After the lesson, my friends among the string players were sorry for me...

I would like it very much to be known that I am forever grateful and thankful that I could receive lessons from him during the early very important adolescent years of my life.

When I listen to his recordings now, I am quite overwhelmed by the richness of his music making and his musical expression.

But when I was studying with him, I was so young. And it was almost as if I were a baby absorbing his sound, his touch, and his phrasing, without any conscious knowledge, and without theoretical perception. It was only later that I could sum up what he had given me in those years.

Perhaps especially from 1960s to 80s, he was truly unique and stood alone, when almost all other pianists, with the exception of Arrau, Horowitz, Richter, Gilels, and Michelangeli, and a few others, played in a rather post-war realism and Sachlichkeit.

Also, if you can, please mention that he was extremely happy to listen to the complete Debussy études in the lessons (though the level of my playing was not very high). He loved the pieces.