Check the relevant page for more detail on the orchestral concert on Thursday 22nd. On Tuesday 27 October, Die Burger reported on Saturday evening's recital at Green Point, when Jorge played Beethoven's Sonata No.31 in A flat, Op.110 and the Liszt Transcendental Etudes. ​ 'Bolet's musical gifts command the highest respect. He has technical finger skills that are strongly reminiscent of Horowitz, and he has the appearance, muscular strength and endurance of a Springbok rugby forward. He has complete control over an immense range of pitches and dynamic levels, from the thunderous fortissimo to the whispering pianissimo. ​ 'He is a man of intelligence that explains his approach and interpretation of the music he performs. He is sober and matter-of-fact. 'In his playing, nothing is exaggerated: he performs romantic music without ever unnecessarily slowing down or speeding up the chosen tempo, and without interrupting the phrasing with arbitrary accents or sudden fades in volume.  As a result, the Liszt études, as he plays them, did not come across as mood pieces evoking some association beyond the music itself, but rather as intriguing sonic constructions, full of surprising turns in terms of structure and sonority. It is, in fact, paradoxical that after a concert by a virtuoso of such delightful technical brilliance, what lingers most strongly is the music itself — not the playing. One could hardly offer greater praise to a performing musician: that he presents music long established in the standard repertoire and, through his interpretation, casts new light upon it. In this, Jorge Bolet succeeded superbly on Saturday evening.' ​ In sy spel word niks oordryf nie: hy speel romantiese musiek sonder om die gekose tempo ooit onnodig te vertraag of versnel, sonder om die frasering ooit te onderbreek deur onaangeduide klemme of skielike volumewegsterwings.  As gevolg hiervan het die Liszt- etudes, soos hy hulle speel, nie getref as stemmingstukke wat een of ander assosiasie buite die musiek oproep nie, maar wel as interessante klankesamestellinge, vol verrassende wendings wat struktuur en sonoriteit betref. Dis eintlik paradoksaal dat 'n mens ná 'n konsert deur 'n virtuoos van so 'n heerlike tegniese begaafdheid, as sterkste indruk die musiek bybly, en nie die spel nie. Groter lof kan 'n mens dan 'n uitvoerende musikus nie toeswaai nie: dat hy musiek voordra wat lankal op die standaardrepertorium staan, en in sy spel nuwe lig daarop laat val. Hierin het Jorge Bolet Saterdagaand uitnemend geslaag.

Jorge Bolet, September 1975, Teatro Coliseo, Buenos Aires. (Newly added to website) After Brazil, Jorge played in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  Diario Crónica 26 September 1975 announces that at 9:30pm that evening, Friday, Sociedad de Conciertos de Buenos Aires  'presents the sensational pianist in a “marathon programme” of Bach/Busoni, Chopin, Strauss and Wagner-Liszt.  The venue is the Teatro Coliseo (on Marcelo T. de Alvear 1125) in the Retiro neighbourhood.  (The Coliseo was opened in 1905 by the British clown Frank Brown, and was of great importance in the origins of the Creole circus and theatre in Argentina. In 1961 the current theatre was inaugurated with the performance of The Saint of Bleecker Street of Giancarlo Menotti.)  There was a second recital on Monday 29th in the same venue, when Jorge played among other things Chopin's Sonata No. 3 in B minor Op.58 and the Mozart/Liszt Don Juan Fantasy (advert, right,  from La Nación ).​​ La Nación   (2 October 1975) reviewed the Friday recital.  'On the Coliseo stage, before a large crowd, the well-known pianist reappeared. Bolet is decidedly a keyboard virtuoso, undoubtedly more brilliant and spectacular than profoundly expressive, and whose agile and varied resources are at the service of a vehement and fiery temperament; his performance was not always very correct (accurate?) or exact in style but was vital and lively.'  It was felt that of the Chopin Preludes 'some of them were exquisitely played and made up the most accomplished and interesting moment of the evening' ( algunos de los quales fueron primorosamente traducidos, constituyendo el moment más logrado e interesante de la velada).  His stamina and vigorous technique in the transcriptions were noted.  The evening lasted more than two and a half hours, justifying the "marathon" qualification in the advertising posters. ​ Jorge d'Urbano reviewed the Monday evening for  Clarín, also on 2 October (he had reviewed JB in June 1955 and would do so again in July 1979)  'Jorge Bolet is a very contradictory pianist.  He has been defined in the publicity as a "Marathon runner", using a sports term with deplorable bad taste. And he has been compared to some of the most notable pianists of our time, with the result that the Bolet comes off very badly in such a comparison. But these publicity devices with the manifest exaggeration, should not cloud the objective view of his art, although one is very tempted to resort to prejudice against a performer who tolerates such excess in describing his alleged virtues.  Bolet is a contradictory pianist in that he uses both good and bad interpretive criteria almost simultaneously. From a strictly musical point of view, he has an obvious defect: he cannot finish a phrase or a period without a rallentando .  This procedure, applied with monotonous, persistence, ends up, converting the music he plays into something ordinary, artificial and lacking in interest. His virtuosic brilliance, which is not always very polished, is not enough to rescue that permanent and overwhelming insistence that the articulation of a musical idea must necessarily end with a change in tempo. Throughout his recital, there was only the occasional moment in which he did not apply this resource, the uselessness, of which was clearly expressed in the way he rendered the Largo of Chopin's third sonata -  one of the least pleasant listening experiences produced by an internationally renowned pianist that I can remember. Additionally, his physical violence at the piano often makes its sound unpleasant. Every instrument has an optimal volume limit. Beyond that limit, the results are unattractive. Of course, Jorge Bolet also has virtues as a pianist and performer. His mechanism is not impeccable, but it is impressive. Like almost all pianists, he often plays wrong notes and sometimes even adds some of his own. But when tackles works of pure virtuoso effect, he commands the listener's attention.'

Red Rocks Festival of Music, August 1955

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)