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Two reviews of the first Jorge Bolet concert I ever heard. At that time, I travelled up from Oxford for the evening and went backstage (of course) afterwards. I remembered being surprised to see him smoking (!) and he had a huge black overcoat/cape lying on a table, every inch the dapper gentleman from a past age.

A recording which is often forgotten is one Jorge went into the studio to set down on 29 February - 2 March,1980 in Kingsway Hall, London: BRAHMS Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel Op.24 REGER Variations & Fugue on a Theme of Telemann Op.134 (It was issued on LP in November 1981) ​ 'The circumstances of the recording of the Reger and Brahms were a different cup of tea [from the 2 previous recordings Chopin & Godowsky (1977) & Liszt (1978). As it was clear that all future recordings from Jorge would now be released on the Decca label [rather than on L'Oiseau-lyre], a lot of important Decca people passed by during the session. Also important journalists and critics showed up to get information. This made the Reger a hell of a job for Jorge who did not like variations put together by fixing takes. According to Jorge, there was also music in the silence as one variation moved into the next. Some of the variations took a lot of time e.g. the one with broken octaves in both hands (Variation 21]. Jorge told me - actually whispering, rather - that he had got bored with hearing the key of B flat all the time. Everybody in the crew feared the recording could not be finished within the reserved time, but everyone was completely flabbergasted that the recording of the Brahms was all done in the remaining last afternoon! As we all know by now, the Reger is landmark in recorded pianism!' [Mattheus Smits] LINK (at 21'56") The Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Telemann, Op.134 Reger wrote the set in just eight days, between August 8 and 15, 1914. The variations are dedicated to the Dutch-German pianist and pedagogue James Kwast. The premiere was given about half a year later, on March 14, 1915, in Berlin by Frieda Kwast-Hodapp. The work was published by Simrock in 1914. Reger used the minuet from the “Minuet and Trio” in Telemann’s Tafelmusik in B-flat Major as the theme, which he found in Riemann’s Anleitung zum Generalbaβ-Spielen. The resemblance to Brahms’s Händel Variations is immediately apparent considering the choice of a Baroque dance as theme, the identical key (B-flat major), the similar number of variations (23 and 25), and the concluding fugues. There is a footnote in later editions, starting with the 1942 edition of Peters, which indicates the origin of the theme as the “Menuett aus der Tafelmusik in B dur (Denkmäler Deutscher Tonkunst Bd. 61/62).” This footnote does not appear in the first edition and the 1928 edition of Peters. However, Reger used the minuet as it is given as an exercise in Riemann’s Anleitung zum Generalbaβ-Spielen. Riemann provides just the melody and a figured bass. There are several differences between Telemann’s original version and Riemann’s which indicate that Reger used the theme from Riemann’s treatise. (Christian Peter Bohnenstengel, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2007)

Syracuse Herald-Journal, 1 February 1980

I hadn't realised Jorge Bolet had performed in Finland and while looking into it, I came across a film from Finnish television. Here he is in the Royal Albert Hall, London, 1 June 1978, before a performance of Liszt - speaking about Finnish conductor Paavo Berglund, whom he first met during his first tour of Australia in 1965. (YLE, Finnish Broadcasting Company, 1979) So this is Jorge one year after he was appointed Head of Curtis and after he recorded his first disc with Decca/L'Oiseau-lyre (Chopin-Godowsky), and two years after he returned to Japan.

On 30 June 1969, Jorge Bolet gave a performance at Bloomington, Indiana, where he had just started teaching. He played Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 30. Ralph Vaughan William's glorious Symphony No. 5 in D major was the other item on the programme. On the Palexa CD that came out, Charles Webb is assumed to be the conductor. Several discographies list him as being on the podium. However, The Indianapolis Star  (25.6.1969) mentions that the conductor will be Wolfgang Vacano, and the review by The Herald-Times critic Zola P. Levitt (1.7.1969) lists him as the conductor of the evening, with "one of the largest audiences ever assembled in the IU Auditorium".  Wolfgang Vacano (1906, Köln/Cologne -1985): in 1939, he had gone to South America and worked as a conductor at the opera houses of Santiago, Montevideo, La Plata, and finally at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. From 1951 until his retirement in 1977, Vacano was a professor at Indiana University Bloomington, where he taught conducting and led opera workshops.

Santa Fe New Mexican, 6 March 1959. The paintings in his Washington Square New York address.

"Jorge had in mind to play Godowsky's Johann Strauss Künstlerleben  at his forthcoming 75th birthday tour as grande finale.  Jorge played this piece on several occasions for me telling me: this is a work in progress, no! a lot of work in progress! He had played a lot of Godowsky for me when I was staying with him in Bloomington. We went to Butler University where he kept his scores and could use his Baldwin SD 10 (in his apartment he had a small grand which he never touched). While I turned pages he played the Passacaglia , most parts of the Java suite, Künstlerleben , Fledermaus  and parts from Triakontameron . All the time I was thinking  why I am turning pages ? He knows the music!  Unfortunately, his 75th birthday tour never happened." [Mattheus Smits] Jorge learned this piece and played it to Leopold Godowsky in New York City in the early 1930s, while still at Curtis. The performance record is sparse. On Thursday, 3 August 1939 in the Anfiteatro, Havana, in a concert the initiative for which came from the municipal mayor Dr Antonio Beruff Mendieta (1901-1952), who devoted much time to cultural and educational matters, he programmed it - this being one of only two references I've found thus far (the other being 26 March 1940 at Curtis). Jorge also mentions the piece in an interview with David Dubal, when he says that David Saperton was probably quite pleased that he [Bolet] - perhaps unlike other students - could handle Godowsky's music.

Mattheus Smits has sent me this memory of the recording sessions on 3/4 October 1977. Jorge and Tex had serious doubts about signing this contract due to bad experiences with recording companies in the past (RCA and VOX). We owe it to Peter Wadland that the contract was signed. For the scores of the music, Peter could find the Études in a library, but for the Waltzes Jorge had to send him his copies. Also Jorge's choice of the Bechstein was not an easy task for Peter Wadland and his crew. I remember arriving very early in Kingsway Hall (Jorge and Tex where not there yet) and finding them playing on the Bechstein, loud and soft and banging, and constantly moving microphones. As always, Jorge and Tex showed up on time.The crew were completely surprised to see Jorge and Tex properly dressed in three-piece suits and ties! (They themselves were dressed in jeans and sneakers.) After the normal welcome protocol, Jorge was asked to play something so that adjustments could be made for recording settings. In a split second Jorge dashed into an overwhelming Chopin/Godowsky No.1! A moment I will never forget. To set all the recording levels and microphones took much time. The crew really had difficulties with the Bechstein which was of course different from the Steinway which they regularly used, and for which they knew the sound parameters. Jorge was asked to play at all kinds of volumes and tempi. For lunch we went to an nearby Dutch pancake restaurant (this has nothing to do with my nationality). Only after lunch were the first 'takes' made. As it became clear that Peter Wadland was sometimes getting lost in some scores of the études (he was used to a different kind of music), Jorge asked me to stay with him in the recording room to help him out. The recording was interrupted many times by important people coming in. The photographer, Bryce Morrison, Alastair Londonderry [9th Marquess of Londonderry], Jeremy Nicolas, colleagues of the crew etc. When the recording days were over, Jorge and Tex presented to all crew members an exclusive pen set and Peter Wadland presented me with a copy of the Chopin/Godowsky waltzes, which were the copies he got from Jorge, but now filled with all his markings for takes and take numbers. A treasure in my library!

A newspaper amusingly reported a few of the pianist's pet hates: playing strange pianos, especially upright pianos in high schools, non-mixing bathroom taps (faucets), Rossini, peanut butter, mint in any form including toothpaste, Berlioz.  The High Point Enterprise, North Carolina, 24 February 1954 Full disclosure: I like both Rossini and Berlioz. Mattheus Smits, a friend of JB, has told me: "Jorge knew the translation of 'onions' in many languages. When ordering meals in Germany, he always said 'ohne Zwiebel'!"

First Hand Records is issuing a 3 CD set of Jorge Bolet's Ambassador Auditorium Recitals (Pasadena) 1981 and 1986 in autumn 2026, and for the cover they've chosen a photograph spotted on this website: Wilhelm Fröling's photo of JB in Paris (1988), kindly provided by Mathias Donderer with the agreement of the photographers family. Due for release 3 July 2026 In the Los Angeles Times (13 November 1981), Daniel Cariaga reviewed the first recital. Jorge Bolet reminded us once again that old-fashioned, many-faceted pianistic virtuosity is a life's work as well as an apparently vanishing art. Also, that he is one of the handful of elder keyboard statesmen still practising that art. The programme offered all the authority one has come to expect from a Bolet performance, the total integrated with impeccable taste, sovereign technique and poetic insight. Here were massive sonorities, flying fingers, purling trills, velvet tone and, rarest of all, genuine, bona-fide , honest-to-God legato octaves - all in the service of musical communication. The Mendelssohn sonata had lucidity as well as the deepest kind of suavity; Schumann's Fantasy accumulated power and intensity with no loss of tone-quality, intimacy or tension. The five Liszt transcriptions found Bolet unraveling abundant intricacies while spinning long-breathed songs; his way with the "Mephisto" Waltz seemed bigger than life because he commands a dynamic palette wider and more faceted than other pianists; part of this is resource, but imagination and intellect are involved, too.

JORGE BOLET – The Ambassador Auditorium Recitals, Pasadena, California, USA, 1981 and 1986 (3CD) This is the first release of Bolet’s two recitals recorded at the Ambassador Auditorium, California. Transferred and remastered in high resolution. Due out in autumn 2026 LINK 1 NOVEMBER 1981 Felix MENDELSSOHN (1809–1847) 1–3. Fantasia in F sharp minor, Op. 28, ‘Sonate éccossaise’ (1833) Robert SCHUMANN (1810–1856) 4–6. Fantasy in C major, Op. 17 (1838) interval Franz LISZT (1811–1886) Schubert Song Transcriptions 7. 12 Lieder, S558: No. 2. Auf dem Wasser zu singen (1838) 8. 6 Müllerlieder, S565: No. 2. Der Müller und der Bach (1846) 9. Winterreise, S561: No. 7. Der Lindenbaum (1839) 10. Schwanengesang, S560: No. 3. Aufenthalt (1839) 11. 12 Lieder, S558: No. 4: Erlkönig (1838) CD2 LISZT 1. Der Tanz in der Dorfschenke, S514, ‘Mephisto Waltz No. 1’ (1861) Encores: Frédéric CHOPIN (1810–1849) 2. Nocturne No. 5 in F sharp major, Op. 15, No. 2 (1832) Abram CHASINS (1903–1987) Preludes, Book 3, Op. 12 (1928) 3. No. 2 in E flat Minor 4. No. 3 in B flat Minor Moritz MOSZKOWSKI (1854–1925) 5. La Jongleuse, Op. 52, No. 4 (pub. 1894) CHOPIN 6. Nocturne No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 9 (1832) 3 DECEMBER 1986 Edvard GRIEG (1843–1907) 7. Ballade in G minor, Op. 24 (1876) Johannes BRAHMS (1833–1897) 8–11. 4 Ballades, Op. 10 (1854) CD3 LISZT 1. Ballade No. 2 in B minor, S171 (1853) Interval CHOPIN 4 Ballades 2. Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23 (1835) 3. Ballade No. 2 in F Major, Op. 38 (1839) 4. Ballade No. 3 in A flat Major, Op. 47 (1841) 5. Ballade No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 52 (1843) Encores: Georges BIZET (1838–1875) L’Arlésienne Suite No. 1 (1872) 6. III. Adagietto (arr. 1927, Leopold GODOWSKY, 1870–1938) CHOPIN Etudes, Op. 25 (1837) 7. No. 1 in A flat major, ‘Harp Study’ 8. No. 2 in F minor 24 bit, 96kHz high resolution transfers by Kabir Hermon from open reel tapes 24 bit, 96kHz high resolution remastering by John Croft (Chiaro Audio) Booklet notes by Jonathan Summers Recordings released with approval from the estate of Jorge Bolet

Another very fine photo provided by Mathias Donderer: Paris, 1988 The photographer was Wilhelm Fröling.