Jorge Bolet en español: sitio web

Unraveling the Misconceptions: 5 Things They Get Wrong About Jorge Bolet

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Did Jorge Bolet play Chopin as well as he did Liszt? A video uploaded to YouTube, hence the bit about "comments" at the end

"What?! He had no connection with Jorge, as far as I know." No, but my interest in Latin America includes not only Jorge Bolet (who actually played in Peru though only once, in 1984), but also the Peruvian Nobel Prize author (and former Presidential candidate) Mario Vargas Llosa, who died on 13 April 2025. Here's a little video I made as a tribute to him.

Saturday, 14 November 1981: recital in Kobacker Hall, Bowling Green State University, Ohio (Mendelssohn, Schumann Fantasy , Schubert/Liszt Lieder , Mephisto  waltz).  'His immense virtuosity, experience and sheer intelligence all concentrate on the music's lyricism. Take the Mendelssohn fantasy as an example. It has gossamer wings and must be played as if a feather touches the keys, and Mr Bolet succeeded in doing just so. He gave the Schubert/Liszt transcriptions an iridescence that was just astonishing.' It is noted that had played with the Toledo Orchestra in 1957,'67 and '74. Toledo Blade  16.11.81. In a masterclass the preceding Friday afternoon, Jorge stated that - with regard to audiences worldwide - , 'The most demonstrative are the Germans.  If they love you, marvellous, if they don't, God help you.  I've always been well-received in Germany'. And of piano lessons as a young boy, 'My sister said I accomplished in two months what it took most students two years to accomplish'. The Bowling Green News,  (17.11 81)

A name you don't hear in Jorge's usual biography! Jorge had begun piano lessons with sister Maria.   (He said in an interview in 1943 that he was seven years old at the time.). At age four, he had been attacking the piano keys so enthusiastically that one day he literally broke a hammer. 'After that he was consigned to an imaginary keyboard—specifically, the living room sofa—and his cherished pastime was banging out scales and octaves on a slab of overstuffed mohair, supplying whatever sound effects he could with his squeaky little boy soprano voice.' (James Lyons,  Musical America , December 1954) Maria soon entrusted Jorge - aged 10 - to Attilio M. de Vitalís but he died within a few months on 16 December 1925 in his sixty-ninth year. Professor de Vitalis was survived by his wife, four sons and three daughters. ( Diario de la Marina 20.6.1929;  Musical America ,  26.12.1925)  Attilio de Vitalis had advertised lessons November to May 1923/4 when he was residing in Lens Court, Calle 6, Vedado, Havana; he seems to have been previously based at the Morristown School, New Jersey and in New York, where he was Secretary and treasurer of the Composers' Music Corporation, 14 East 48th Street NYC in 1919. Born in Russia c.1856?  ( Diario  25.11.1923 etc.)

An interview with the Leidsch Dagblad  (5 December, 1983) became quite animated. There was a big feature, with Charles van der Leeuw interviewing. 'I played under Eduard van Beinum in Chicago - that man could do the impossible. We played Rachmaninoff third concerto and there was only one rehearsal. The day before he came to me and said he'd like to go through it with me because he'd never conducted the piece before. The performance was as fantastic as one could ever hope to hear. Unfortunately he died a short time afterwards [April 1959].'  Asked about Minimalism, he says he's not himself heard of Philip Glass or Steve Reich (whose now legendary Music for 18 Musicians was composed in 1976).  'I remember my homeland as a paradise, why would I want to see it again, now that it has become a hell?'  When the interviewer apologises for asking whether he is exaggerating, Jorge replies: 'Have you ever been in a Communist country? I was in Poland for a month. I met the most wonderful people, they are so wonderful. But in secret, they tell you how they really are, it made my heart bleed.  In Cuba, everyone is just a prisoner and living like a prisoner - that's what I call hell.' Jorge claims that the tales of massacres under Batista were grossly exaggerated. [ Moordpartijen onder Batista, dat ist allemaal schromelijk overdreven ] When questioned about the role of an artist in society, he replied that the artist only has to do what he needs to do to gain a large audience. 'He should not poke his nose into other things. At least that is what I think for myself what I think, and believe has nothing to do with my work.'

Jorge Bolet recalled by a Spanish friend from a meeting in 1981; I believe the friend to be Ramón Rodamiláns Vellido (Spanish, with English subtitles)

Very interesting section added, after I found an article by JB in Etude, November 1951. Once you are on your way, artistic abstractions become merged with time schedules and possible emergencies. You can't count on practising. Your pianistic equipment must be in such condition that you can play without practising. The average tour covers about three concerts a week, in different towns, some near each other, some not. You move by train, by bus, by car, by plane. If all goes well, you may have half a day in a new town before you play. But don't count on it. I remember the time I was due to arrive in New Orleans at 7 A.M., after having played the night before. At 8 o'clock I was to entrain at a different station for the town where I was to play the same night. My train was late, we got in at 8:15 A.M. instead of at 7, and the connection was lost. The next train to my town went the following morning. That meant scouting over town for other connections. At the third station I tried, I found a bus that left at 2:30, reaching my town at 7 P.M. That left time enough at either end, and turned out to be one of the easier hops. Another time, after three days of constant travel, I got into Temple, Texas, at 2 o'clock on a Sunday afternoon. My itinerary called for a recital at 8:15 that night, so I looked forward to a good nap. At the station, I was met by three very worried members of the concert committee. It seems there had been an error in typing - my recital was at 3:15, not 8:15. In the 70 minutes between stepping off the train and on to the platform, I shook off the idea of a nap and did the following :- drove to the hotel; checked in: unpacked my afternoon clothes; found there was no pressing service at that time; hung my things in the bathroom for an emergency steaming; drove to the concert hall ; saw to the lights; placed the piano; tried it; washed the keys (I always do this myself); rushed back to the hotel; swallowed a sandwich and a cup of coffee; showered, shaved, and changed to my freshly steamed clothes; went back to the hall; slid into the stage door at 3:12; and walked out to the platform at 3:15, conscious of the need to give my best efforts. … Air travel cuts distance, but weather is another thing, as I learned the time I flew from Houston to Shreveport, to be met by friends who were to drive me to the town - two hours distant - of my evening recital. I went to sleep on the plane. On awakening, I was told that Shreveport had suddenly become fog-bound, our plane had not been able to land, and we were at that moment approaching Little Rock. The moment we got there, I arranged for a car to take me back to Shreveport and then telephoned the concert committee my change of plan. This done, word came that the Shreveport airport was clearing and that an afternoon flight out of Detroit would stop at Little Rock and take me back to my destination. I was worried about the time and decided this would be quicker than going by car. So I again telephoned the committee my second change of plan.In time, the Detroit plane was announced - 45 minutes late- then an hour late - then 90 minutes late. I reached Shreveport at 6:15. My friends were waiting for me, I shaved, changed, and ate in the car, and reached the hall in time to appear according to schedule.

All Jorge Bolet's recordings for the company from 1977-1990, including Chopin Nocturnes and Berceuse, never before issued, have appeared in a boxed set this November 2024.

I had occasion to look again at some reviews of one of my favourite Bolet discs. Volume 6 of the Decca Liszt series came out in August 1985. It had been recorded on 19-22 October 1983 in Kingsway Hall, London, when Jorge set down Liszt's Années de pèlerinage: Venezia e Napoli S162, Les Jeux d’eau à la Villa d’Este S163/4, Ballade No.2 in B minor S171 and Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude S173/3.  Wolfgang Dömling in Die Welt (10 December) stated that in an expansive piece such as Bénédiction, Jorge's grand seigneurial gestures and lyrical cantabile captivated the listener in the music's wide-ranging melodic arches, and he was able to turn everything that was virtuosic into poetry (alles Virtuose in Poesie zu transzendieren). In the same month, Gramophone's David Fanning commented on Bolet's 'spaciousness in the tone itself' - a more crucial and rarer quality - and said that tempos were judged simply in order to allow each note to speak with maximum eloquence. 'To Bénédiction he brings an embracing warmth and natural grandeur perfectly matched to the sentiments of the poem. His pedalling and rubato are marvels of discretion. The rippling arpeggios of Les Jeux d’eau à la Villa d’Este are brilliantly articulated, rather than impressionistically shaded - Bolet seems unconcerned with its supposed influence on Debussy and Ravel - but in its own terms the interpretation is flawless, and it is crowned in a rich, expensive climax. [But] where Bolet fulminates impressively in the opening of the Ballade, Ervin Nyiregyházi (1903-1987) is positively volcanic.  In short, Bolet sets no great store by the feverish, possessed quality of a certain tradition of Liszt playing.  What he offers instead is nobility, an unforced sense of scale, a warm and consoling lyricism usually suggestive of Schumann, and on LP scarcely less than CD, the most gorgeous piano sound.'