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

Jorge Bolet began his major return to the UK in 1977. Edward Greenfield's review is very complimentary. 17 February 1977, Thursday (he was aged 62) Queen Elizabeth Hall, London Haydn, Sonata in E flat (No.52), Telemann/Reger, Liszt 3 Concert Studies, Don Juan Fantasy Jorge was generous with encores. Chopin: Nocturne in F minor, Op.55 No.1, Moszkowski: La Jongleuse, Op.52 No.4, Chopin/Godowsky: Etude in G-flat major, Op.10 No.5 (Study No.7 in G-flat major), Liszt: Valse-Impromptu, S.213 and Saint-Saëns/Godowsky: The Swan (from Carnival of the Animals). Dr G. de Koos & Co. Management organised the concert - the company had handled JB's first European tour in 1935. Jorge hadn't been completely absent from the UK in the 1970s, cf. March 1973 (Birmingham) Oct/Dec 1974 (London), but these few events had been orchestral concerts. But it was in 1977 that he he was to have a big, possibly his biggest break - with a long-term record contract for a major international label, Decca; this was to bring him the fame he had sought for so long. ​ Edward Greenfield in The Guardian : 'Some years ago they issued records of the legendary pianist Josef Hofmann made from the piano rolls he cut in the 1920s, using the highly sophisticated Duo-Art system. I was sceptical that piano articulation at high speed could ever have been so miraculously clear and even. 'I still wonder whether some touching up was done on the actual rolls, but here was a pianist absurdly under-appreciated in this country who had me believing in the Hofmann legend after all. As Mr Bolet demonstrated over and over again, that miraculous clarity is achievable by human fingers in live performance. (...) It is not often that we have piano-tigers even from across the Atlantic pouncing to such effect.

Another contender for Jorge Bolet's best review... 16-18 November 1980 (Sat/Sun) Orpheum, Vancouver, Canada Brahms Piano Concerto No.2 Vancouver Symphony Orchestra under Kazuyoshi Akiyama. ​ He was replacing Lazar Berman, whose cancellation - due to diplomatic difficulties between the US and USSR due to the invasion of Afghanistan - was announced early on the season. [Of Bolet:] "It was like the substitution of one diamond for another of equal or even greater brilliance." Doug Hughes of The Province: 'Once in a very great while, an experience in the theatre or concert hall can be so transporting that it sends you out into the streets, confused and dizzy, and it takes some time to readjust to reality. There is every reason to suspect that the most, if not all of those who left the Orpheum on Sunday afternoon after Jorge Bolet's performance, felt that way. In my years of concert going, I have heard Brahms 2 played by some highly distinguished artists, among them Dame, Myra, Hess, Solomon, Sir Clifford Curzon, Wilhelm Backhaus, and Rudolf Serkin. I have heard more recordings of it than I can possibly remember. But with Bolet's incredible performance of this towering work on Sunday afternoon, I believe I have now heard it in all its glory, perhaps as close as it is possible to come to the way the composer intended it to be played. There were many things about this performance that were less than technically ideal. Nevertheless, it added up to one of those all to rare instances in which musicianship (bolet, orchestra, conductor) took the lead over mere technique.' ​ (*Bolet had played in Vancouver on Sunday, 1 November 1953, and was advertised for the 1954-55 season. On 12/13 January 1964 he played Beethoven's fourth piano concerto.)

John Crouch, a former Indiana student of JB for 3 years, was interviewed in 1979 (what follows is a mixture of his own words and those of the journalist): 'Bolet is a natural pianist, like a natural athlete. At the peak of what could be called his first career, his manager was scheduling him for 100-120 performances a year, which is one almost every three days. Then, in his mid-50s, Bolet decided to start winding down his performing career and in 1968, accepted a teaching position at Bloomington. Next came a revival in Romantic music. Well, he was soon back on the road with a hectic schedule - careers don't necessarily go like this. He would bop back into town after a string of concerts and give us marathon lessons... he was in and out all the time but he expected us to know our stuff because he knew his. [In referring to Liszt's Totentanz with Boulez (1971) - Andre Watts was ill, and Jorge agreed to substitute at the last minute but he did not know the music] 24 hours later, he had the thing memorised. He played it for his students. It was something it would've taken us six months to learn. It just shows how well the man works under pressure. He has an instant recall of the music he plays, he seems to be able to bring a piece back into his fingers once he's learned it.' The Morning Press, Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania (22 September 1979)

Página web: Clicc Bolet ofreció dos conciertos en la gran ciudad turca —antaño Bizancio, más tarde la legendaria Constantinopla y, desde 1930, oficialmente Estambul—. Los recitales tuvieron lugar los días 21 y 23 de junio, a las 21:30, en el Büyük Salonu (Salón Grande) del Centro Cultural Atatürk. El programa incluyó obras de Mendelssohn; la Sonata n.º 23 en fa menor, Op. 57 de Beethoven, conocida como Appassionata; el Prélude, Choral et Fugue de Franck —citado en turco como Prelüd, Koral ve Füg—; y Réminiscences de Norma de Bellini/Liszt. Aunque Bolet no interpretó a Liszt en la película Song Without End (1960), poseía una presencia escénica que habría resultado plenamente convincente en cualquier filme histórico; uno podía imaginarlo, por ejemplo, en el papel de un virrey de la India durante el Imperio británico. Tras concluir su gira europea, supimos que planeaba realizar un safari fotográfico de quince días por Kenia y Tanzania. El diario Cumhuriyet, el más antiguo de Turquía, publicó un obituario el 31 de octubre de 1990 en el que recordaba con melancolía: «Resultó que, sin saberlo, fuimos testigos de dos de los últimos conciertos de Jorge Bolet, descubierto en Turquía en el otoño de su vida, cuando ofreció dos recitales de piano durante el Festival Internacional de Estambul, en junio de 1988.»

Review of 10 May 1979 recital in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London

¡No lo olvides! Hay una versión más corta de esta página web disponible en español. ¡Haga clic en el enlace! (El orador en el video no es real pero AI) Clases magistrales para BBC Scotland El 27 de febrero de 1983, Jorge interpretó el Concierto para piano n.° 3 de Rachmaninoff en el Usher Hall de Edimburgo, con la BBC Scottish SO y Bryden "Jack" Thomson, un brillante director escocés con una frase ingeniosa. Esto sería transmitido por la televisión de la BBC en el verano de 1983, como culminación de tres programas de clases magistrales sobre el concierto (que presumiblemente fueron grabados aproximadamente al mismo tiempo). En el programa introductorio, JB fue entrevistado por Robin Ray (1934-1998), locutor, actor y músico inglés, famoso entre otras cosas por su conocimiento enciclopédico de los números de Köchel de las obras de Mozart, que expuso en una popular tarde de domingo. panel musical show Face The Music. El tema musical del programa fue la Canción Popular de la suite Façade de Sir William Walton (quien fue invitado al programa en el año de su 70 cumpleaños). El propio Jorge también fue invitado al programa que se emitió el domingo 2 de diciembre de 1984 por la tarde. El papel de la BBC para acercar a Jorge Bolet a un público internacional más amplio fue considerable.

¡No lo olvides! Hay una versión más corta de esta página web disponible en español (aunque todavía está en desarrollo). Por favor, ten en cuenta que no soy hablante nativo de español, así que habrá muchos errores en la traducción. No dudes en enviar correcciones. ¡Haz clic en el enlace! (El orador en el video no es real pero AI)

Recorded in 2019. I've added an audio file (it's too large to upload to a blog post) where a former student speaks about JB and orchestra, and about "retouching" music. LINK (then scroll down to "Liszt Totentanz") Conductor Gary Thor Wedow has led performances with opera companies, orchestras, festivals, and choral organisations throughout North America. Although he has conducted music from many different eras and styles, Wedow specialises in historically-informed performances of operas from the 17 th and 18th centuries. Wedow has been a frequent guest of Boston Lyric Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Portland Opera, and the Amherst Early Music Festival among others. He was for many years associated with New York City Opera, leading the New York premiere of Telemann's Orpheus in 2012. Born in LaPorte, Indiana and now a resident of New York City, he has been a member of the Juilliard School faculty since 1994 where he has led performances of L'incoronazione di Poppea, La finta giardiniera, Ariodante and Don Giovanni. His continued championship of young musicians and singers is exemplified by projects at The Teatro Colón, Wolf Trap Opera, the San Francisco Opera's Merola Program, and the IU Jacobs School of Music, where he studied piano with virtuoso Jorge Bolet before earning his Master of Music degree at the New England Conservatory. Recently, Gary Thor Wedow was on campus to conduct the IU Opera production of Giulio Cesare for the American Handel Society's Festival and Conference. While he was here, he joined Aaron Cain for a conversation in the WFIU studios. (biography correct to 2019)

My trawl through Jorge Bolet's concerts has clarified a number of issues. It looks as if it was in the mid-1970s that he introduced two new and substantial works to his repertoire. I could have missed earlier mentions but it may be that someone can explain how he came to these two works, especially the Reger which has high rarity value. 29 September 1975 Teatro Coliseo, Buenos Aires (Argentina) incl.Chopin's Sonata No. 3 in B minor Op.58 and the Mozart/Liszt Don Juan Fantasy [According to what I have recorded thus far (24.4.2026), it is only now in 1975 that the Mozart/Liszt Don Juan Fantasy begins to appear on programmes.  He was to record it in 1978 for L'oiseau-lyre/Decca] ​​​ 13 October 1975 Jefferson Civic Center, Birmingham, Alabama incl.Chopin, Polonaises in C sharp minor, E flat minor and F sharp minor, Reger/Telemann; Liszt, 3 Concert Etudes & Don Juan Fantasy ​First mention of Reger/Telemann...?

The Mail & Globe, Toronto (April 1975) 17 April 1975; Eaton Auditorium, Toronto, Canada.  [JB's Toronto recital début] Mendelssohn, Chopin, Sonata No.3, Liszt Petrarch + Tannhäuser   'When you consider, he's been playing professionally for more than 40 years, he seems to have taken his time getting up here. But then, as he says "I've been a long time arriving everywhere."'

Michael Steinberg wrote a long and considered review in The Boston Globe (4.8.1974) of Jorge Bolet's Carnegie Hall recording whoch RCA issued in August 1974 Carl Michael Alfred Steinberg (4 October 1928 – 26 July 2009) was an American music critic and author who specialised in classical music. He was best known, according to San Francisco Chronicle music critic Joshua Kosman, for "the illuminating, witty and often deeply personal notes he wrote for the San Francisco Symphony's program booklets, beginning in 1979." He contributed several entries to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, wrote articles for music journals and magazine, notes for CDs, and published a number of books on music, both collected published annotations and new writings. Born in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland). In 1939, Steinberg was among the 10,000 child refugees transported out of Germany via the Kindertransport; he and his mother settled in England.