What is "Jorge Bolet" in Japanese?

In 1983, I was in the audience of a masterclass in what was then called the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland). The pianist David Wilde was in charge of proceedings. I recall he wore a dark blue double-breasted suit jacket. Born 1935 in Manchester, as a boy he had studied with Solomon and his pupil Franz Reizenstein, who had also studied composition with Hindemith and Vaughan Williams. Wilde shared with cellist Jacqueline du Pré the honour of opening the BBC's second TV Channel (BBC2) in the north of England with Sir John Barbirolli and the Hallé Orchestra in 1962. Wilde was Professor of Piano at the Music Academy in Hannover from 1981 to 2000, and since his return to the UK in 2001 has been visiting professor in Keyboard Studies at the University of Edinburgh. I recall to this day number of things about that masterclass. One young lady played Ginastera's Danzas Argentinas Op.2 and in the slow middle dance, Wilde asked her to play it again with less caution; he wanted a bold sound, of the gauchos etc. He mentioned Artur Schnabel's guiding principle: "Safety last". "Let's hear it again with a few healthy wrong notes!" said Wilde. Then a student played the Mephisto Waltz. I knew probably nothing about Liszt at that time, and I think I had subscribed to the view that he was all flash and no substance. But I was genuinely beguiled by the music, and especially by Wilde's description of it: violins tuning up, a dance in a village inn, the song of the nightingale (those amazing repeated notes trilling away) etc. As luck would have it, I had just been reading in Gramophone magazine the review by Max Harrison -which you'll find on this website- about someone called "the legendary Cuban-American pianist". I had never heard of him, though I did vaguely recall a photograph from publicity in 1978 of his Chopin/Godowsky LP, and that still remains one of my favourite photographs of Bolet. Soon after that masterclass, on a Friday evening, I bought volume one of the new Decca series of Liszt in the HMV shop in Union Street, Glasgow, took it home down to the Ayrshire coast (I was a university student at the time, not studying music) and listened to it; and by the Saturday morning, I was hooked.

One of the very last recordings Jorge Bolet made (of Chopin's Berceuse). In November 2024, Donald Manildi wrote in the International Piano magazine: "Included as disc 26 is a CD of previously unreleased performances that stem from Bolet’s final recording sessions in San Francisco (February 1990). There are seven Chopin Nocturnes and the Berceuse; they require special comment. It is unclear whether Bolet approved these performances for release. He was not in good health at the time (he underwent brain surgery a short time afterwards) and the playing throughout is leisurely in the extreme. This ruminative quality imparts an unmistakably valedictory air to the proceedings, and despite the abundant surface beauty we sense that Bolet was not fully engaged. Moreover, the disc is plagued with an assortment of sonic problems as the result of what is obviously a cassette source transferred with noise-reduction mis-tracking. There are recurring tiny dropouts and other anomalies in the piano image, which lacks the characteristic refinement of Bolet’s other solo recordings. In addition, the pitch is slightly flat throughout. It would have been preferable to search for the original source material and prepare a clean remastering. Instead we have a regrettable missed opportunity." As I have most of the discs in the set, I haven't bought this complete boxed set, so this is a chance for me to hear. And I thought you might like to hear too.

Jorge Bolet en español: sitio web

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

Got any questions? Let "Jorge Bolet AI Chat" answer them for you! This is a promotional video for YouTube. You will find the (red-coloured) AI Chat link on this website in the bottom left-hand corner of every screen page.

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)