South Africa
...and Tchaikovsky's First
in Scotland on Jorge's début there
1963-64
South Africa
In late October and November of 1964), Jorge Bolet made his first tour of South Africa, one which included a solo recital in Cape Town.
His South African agent covered a wide range of countries, but it is highly unlikely our dapper Cuban-American - in his starched white tie and collar studs - tinkled the ivories amidst political unrest, rainforests and malaria.
1963 in Europe
On 5-7 February 1963, with Berliner Philharmoniker, under Witold Rowicki, Bolet performed his signature concerto, Prokofiev No. 2.
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Another favourite, Godowsky's Symphonic Metamorphosis of themes by Johann Strauss No. 2 ‘Die Fledermaus’ ("The Bat") was recorded on 21 February, 1963 in Haus des Rundfunks, Saal 3 Berlin.
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15 February, 1963: Jorge recorded - beautifully - some Spanish music in Studio NDR, Hamburg, West Germany (the date given in the link is 1961):
ISAAC ALBÉNIZ (1860-1909) Iberia Book 1 No.1 Evocación, MANUEL DE FALLA (1876-1946), Andaluza (Cuatro Pièces espagnoles No.4), JOAQUÍN NIN (1879-1949), Danza Ibérica (En Sevilla una noche de Mayo), JOAQUÍN TURINA (1882-1949), Sevilla Op.2: II. Le Jeudi Saint à Minuit.
Christian Johansson has stated that the Nin was recorded 16 March 1964 in Cologne, a private recording.
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Tuesday 5 March 1963, Sala Born, Palma de Mallorca, Spain: all Beethoven. 'The performer Jorge Bolet is without doubt a brilliant pianist, possessor of a magnificent technique. However based on his Beethoven recital (see programme below), he cannot exactly be described as emotional and although he was attentive to nuance, his interpretation left out the many interior details of the work. We noticed a greater rapport and expressiveness in his interpretation the Pathétique and the Appassionata. The other performer of the evening was the instrument, and not a very happy one to say the least - completely out of tune, without apparent bass or treble register. We have no idea why it was used.'
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On 15 March, 1963 in the Siemens villa, Berlin-Lankwitz he also recored selections from Liszt's Années de Pèlerinage, Première Année: Suisse, S. 160. (This is interesting, as I had always assumed he only learned this work for his Decca recording in the 1980s.)
Peter J Rabinowitz in Fanfare reviewed the Audite 2018 release:
'While Bolet was always a magician when it came to color, in these sunset years [1980s] he tended to allow his tonal plush to dominate his playing, which increasingly tended toward interpretive softness. If you want to hear him at his most imposing, you need to turn to his earlier performances... While the performance [of Rhapsodie espagnole] is marked by the same kind of sizzling authority we hear from, say, [Simon] Barere , it’s got a lot more than muscle to recommend it—as do all of the other performances on this well-curated set (...) Then, too, there’s his iridescent play of color and articulation. The reading of Liszt’s La chapelle de Guillaume Tell is slightly static in a way that looks ahead to the later Bolet, but the balance of the sonorities is a marvel.'
Jeremy Nicholas in Gramophone: 'Disc 1 opens with Bolet on top form: the first six numbers from the first book (Suisse) of Annees de pelerinage, concluding with an intense account of 'Vallee d'Obermann' that ends more in despairing torment than rapturous ecstasy.'
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In Norway yet again, on 24 March 1963 he plays with brother Alberto and Musikselskabet Harmoniens Orkest in Bergen. Slight disappointment was registered by one critic: 'Though the conductor is Spanish-American, we were sorry not to get Villa Lobos' Bacchianas Brasileiras, though we got Manuel de Falla's Three Cornered Hat and Beethoven 8.' Then Jorge played Brahms' 2nd piano concerto. (Friheten 25.3.63)
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(Friheten newspaper was founded illegally in 1941 during the German occupation of Norway during World War II. The founders were the members of the communist wing of the resistance movement.)
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28 March 1963: Beethoven sonatas in Atlantic Hall, Stavanger, Norway.
Wednesday 3 and Friday 5 April 1963 in Stockholm with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra under Sixten Ehrling. Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 3 "Eroica", Serge Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Manuel de Falla, Dances from The Three-Cornered Hat Suite. These seems to be Jorge's first concerts in the Swedish capital's Konserthuset (but he first played in Sweden in 1955).
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26 April 1963, Teatro Carrión, Valladolid, Spain: Beethoven sonatas, Brahms/Handel variations and Strauss/Godowsky Fledermaus. The critic of Baleares the next day thought Bolet a brilliant exponent of the Brahms, but perhaps excessive in the 4th variation and in the finale. 'Discerning audience members will recall the two previous triumphant performance of this formidable artist, in spite of it being 5 years since he was last here.' Libertad 25.4.1963. He first played in the city in November 1956, and before that there had been a gap of 20 years during which he had not visited Spain. (Valladolid is the city in which Christopher Columbus died.)
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11 June recital including Beethoven's Sonata No. 31 in A flat Op. 110, Johannes Brahms' Handel Variations & Liszt's Transcendental Studies (in Las Palmas on the Canary Islands.) This was followed later on either 15 or 22 June by Beethoven's Emperor Concerto Op. 73 + Rachmaninov 2 (again Las Palmas).
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Mallorca
Baleares : órgano de Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las J.O.N.S.: Año XXV Número 7085 - 1963 marzo 7
Glasgow, Scotland: June 1963
On 24 June, 1963, the Glasgow Herald (Scotland) reports Jorge Bolet's first concert in that city.
This was Tchaikovsky’s first concerto with the Scottish National Orchestra in the Kelvin Hall, as part of the summer Promenade Concerts. The programme concluded with Dvorak's New World Symphony.
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‘He has a formidable technique and an almost frightening fluency. This was no conventionally routine reading but a distinctive individual one.’
But Jorge seems to have lost touch with the orchestra in the finale. 'He posed problems at times for the orchestra, particularly in the finale, taken at a tremendous pace, and stretching to the limit conductor and orchestra in their somewhat frantic attempts to maintain contact.'
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Strangely, the review doesn't mention the conductor, but we are told elsewhere that Alexander Gibson shared the conducting with his assistant Leon Lovett, and with Sir Adrian Boult, Willi Boskovsky and Paul Tortelier. Pianist John Ogdon - who would 13 years later become a colleague Jorge for a brief time at Indiana, during the latter's final year - was playing the Schumann concerto; and Claudio Arrau, Brahms 2 (of which there is a recording and which Gibson did conduct, and he probably did for Bolet, too).
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(Later "Sir") Alexander Drummond Gibson (1926 – 14 January 1995) was one of the most significant figures in the musical life of Scotland. He created and launched Scottish Opera in 1962 and was its music director until 1986. In 1969 he conducted a memorable Scottish Opera production of Les Troyens by Berlioz – the first ever complete performance of both parts of the opera in one evening. Gibson had as special affinity for Scandinavian music, particularly Jean Sibelius, whose work he recorded several times, and Carl Nielsen.
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The detail of 'losing contact' in Tchaikovsky calls to mind an event in the career of Vladimir Horowitz.
‘His first major European success came in Germany in 1926, when he deputised for an indisposed pianist
in Hamburg, playing the Tchaikovsky First at an unrehearsed performance which Horowitz began as an unknown pianist from Russia and ended – amidst a storm of chromatic octaves – as the The Tornado from the Steppes. The Tchaikovsky First was also chosen for his New York debut of 1928, a concert at which Horowitz was joined by that scourge of head-strong soloists, Sir Thomas Beecham, also making his New York debut. Both artists were determined not to be upstaged and their failure to reach agreement on tempi led to Horowitz’s breaking free in the last movement to finish a whole bar ahead of the orchestra.’ (Michael Glover)
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1963 continued
​In July, Bolet’s mother, Adelina Tremoleda y de la Paz died in Miami-Dade County, Florida, aged 79/80.
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Wednesday 24 July 1963, Stockholm, Sweden: a programme of Pyotr Tchaikovsky with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra under Sixten Ehrling. Symphony No. 6 ’’Pathétique’’ and Piano Concerto No.1, perhaps the most famous piano concerto of all.
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11 August 1963: Prokofiev, Piano Concerto No.3 in C Op.26 at the Berkshire Festival, Massachussetts, USA on a Sunday afternoon at 2:30pm. The programme also included Beethoven's Eroica and the Suite from Zoltan Kodály's opera Háry János. This was with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Erich Leinsdorf in The Shed, Tanglewood.
There is a letter to Jorge from his agent Audrey Michaels, dated 21 October 1963 and sent to his home in northern Spain (Apartado 5, Fuenterrabia – an address that proves elusive to the researcher) about publicity material:
‘While the reviews from Cincinnati were good, I favor just mentioning your very impressive world schedule on the last page and featuring the Tanglewood reviews. The price is $520. The layout is quite stunning and will be done in black and white and a reddish-orange color. There is a sensational picture of you on the front at the piano - one of those taken of you 2 years ago in Berlin.’
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In 1956 Audrey had moved to Columbia Artists Management as Director of PR, (she was assistant to Andre Mertens, who died in July 1963) and in 1963 she formed Audrey Michaels Public Relations, serving as its President until her death in 2007.
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Monday 30 September 1963, Coventry Festival, Warwickshire, England.
London Philharmonic Orchestra and John Pritchard. 'The final work (after Berlioz' King Lear overture and Dvořak's 8th symphony in G major), Brahms' Pianoforte Concerto No. 2 in B flat, I have always found stodgy in the first movement. Jorge Bolet's splendid masculine attack in the pianoforte part almost made me change my opinion. The beautiful cello solo in the andante serves to show up the solo part's limitations as a melodic instrument. But the performance in the final rondo movement was really breathtaking in its lilt, and clarity. No wonder that Jorge Bolet Is claimed to be one of the few master pianists of our generation. And the delighted and appreciative audience last night heartily endorsed this opinion.' (Coventry Evening Telegraph, 1.10.63). Something went wrong with the Coventry Theatre's electricity, such that no bells re-assembled the audience; conductor, soloist and orchestra were kept waiting on the platform. The Birmingham Mail was less enthusiastic: the Brahms was the biggest disappoint of the night. 'The poetic feeling of the music and the vast emotional proportions of it were missing, so that, despite technical skill, there was no true depth to the interpretation.'
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In The Netherlands, on 4 October 1963 the Nieuwe Schiedamsche Courant reports on a concert in Rotterdam, at the Schouwburg, the previous evening (Thursday) with the Rotterdam Philharmonic under Ed Flipse. 'Jorge Bolet maakte grote indruck' (Jorge Bolet made a big impression). The audience responded with astonishment to his phenomenal technique in Brahms' Concerto No. 2... In earnest concentration, he never averted his gaze for a second from the keyboard... It is no wonder that Bolet has been praised endlessly. 'Zij ontstonden door het wonderbaarlijke contrast tussen en majesteitelijk forte e neen piano dat niet meer was dan en onwezenlijk-ijle streling.' (A wonderful contrast between a majestic forte and a piano that was little more than an unreal, subtle caress [?]).
In an unusual programme, there were also Cherubini's overture to Anacreon and László Lajtha's (1892-1963) 9th Symphony, with the latter of which the reviewer (and the audience?) seemed less impressed. (Among Lajtha's pupils was the Hungarian conductor János Ferencsik, who was later one of the principal champions of his music. In 1951 Lajtha was awarded the Kossuth Prize for his activities in Hungarian folk-music research.)
'Moments of fairy tale poetry'
On Wednesday-Friday 29-31 January 1964, Jorge played Prokofiev 2 with the San Francisco Symphony under Josef Krips at the Opera House (concerts which also included Schumann's Symphony No. 4 in D minor and Stravinsky's Firebird). To hear Jorge Bolet play the Prokofiev 'is one of the most sensational experiences of modern virtuoso pianism'.
The reviewer once asked JB why more pianists didn't play the second, and preferred the third. '"They can't play it, that's why," he answered, perhaps jokingly. It's too difficult for them."' Bolet is described as a mountain of a man, resembling San Francisco hotelier and Austrian consul Karl Weber. He performed the concerto with 'machine-gun speed, artillery thunder and a sharpshooter accuracy. His most powerful tone can be a bit noisy'. The concerto itself is described as having moments of fairy tale poetry. 'No one seemed to enjoy the Prokofieff experience more than Krips.'
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The performance as a whole displayed 'artistic joy in the flamboyant gusto of typically pianistic means, just as craftsmanly elaborations and ormolu adornments innately belong to the beauty of fine rococo furniture'. (Alexander Fried, San Francisco Examiner 31.1.644
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4 February, 1964: City Hall Theatre, Hamilton, Bermuda
Liszt's Rhapsodie espagnole, S. 254 (Folies d’espagne et Jota aragonesa); Godowsky's
Symphonic Metamorphosis on themes by Johann Strauss ‘Die Fledermaus’ - recordings: 9 March, 1964 • RIAS Funkhaus, Berlin – Studio 7. (Audite vol. 1)
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Here is Earl Wild, also in 1964, playing Strauss II/Godowsky, Künstlerleben (An Artist's Life). 'Wild's performance (marginally but disappointingly cut) of Godowsky's monstrous Künstlerleben paraphrase with its snaking progressions and labyrinthine complexity is more idiomatic and darkly glittering than Rian De Waal's fluent and heroic Hyperion performance.' (Bryce Morrison)
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Vienna, Austria
On Tuesday-Saturday, 7-11 April 1964, JB gave his first concerts in the Grosser Saal of the Musikverein Vienna with the Vienna Symphony (Wiener Symphoniker) under Paul Klecki, a Polish/Swiss conductor. (During the Holocaust, a number of Kletzki's family were murdered by the Nazis including his parents and his sister.) The programme was: Haydn's Symphony No. 95 in C minor, Liszt's first piano concerto and Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra. After the Tchaikovsky concerto with Wolfgang Sawallisch on 19-22 January 1965, there was a long gap in Viennese appearances until 1982 (Joseph Marx's Concerto), at least with regard to orchestral concerts. He is also not in the online archives of the Vienna Philharmonic/Wiener Philharmoniker.
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'Bolet scored a huge triumph with the Vienna [Symphony], when a scheduled pair of performances of a Liszt concerto conducted by Paul Kletzki was extended for three more concerts.' Francis Crociata
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Wednesday 10 June 1964, Konserthuset, Stockholm
Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra/ Sixten Ehrling
Richard Strauss, Don Juan
Karl-Birger Blomdahl, Symphony No. 3 "Facettes"
Johannes Brahms, Piano Concerto No. 2
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Pittsfield Berkshire Eagle (Massachusetts), 5 Aug 1964 reports on a concert at Tanglewood on 4 August.
Jay C Rosenfeld refers to the Herculean task, Beethoven's Sonata No. 31 in A flat major Op.110 followed by Liszt's Transcendental Etudes. Op.110 was 'thoroughly mature Beethoven playing...the inversion [of the theme in the final movement fugue] could not have been made more apparent except with a blackboard pointer'. In the Liszt, he kept his audience at breathless attention. 'There is no more vacuous music on the printed page. He performed like an Olympic champion. I didn't stay to see if the piano was carried off on a stretcher. The music demand hands of gargantuan size, the strength of a Samson or a Gulliver, and the imagination of Baron Munchhausen - all these Bolet had in abundance.'
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Sunday afternoon, 9 August 1964, Tanglewood, Lenox MA: Beethoven/Liszt, Ruins of Athens; Richard Strauss, Parergon to Domestic Symphony [Sinfonia Domestica], for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 73 (Hindemith, Symphonic Variations on a theme of Carl Maria v.Weber; Robert Schumann, Symphony No. 4 in D minor, Op.120).
The New York Times reported on a weekend of novelty (Gian Carlo Menotti's “The Death of the Bishop of Brindisi” anyone?) 'With two hands at his disposal, Jorge Bolet cut loose in the Liszt, which is wonderfully entertaining. The dervish chorus and Turkish march are the main material for Liszt's fanciful work, and they help to give it the quality of a brilliant scherzo. Mr. Bolet, Mr. Leinsdorf and the orchestra performed the work with a bravura and flourish that gave it a maximum amount of fun and excitement. It made an effective finale for the orchestral programs of the weekend. Attendance for the three concerts was 20,000, which was slightly below average. Cool weather may have had something to do with this, but a spokesman for the orchestra noted that among the festival weekends, this one had shown the least strength in advance sales. That might, unfortunately, be attributed to its high degree of novelty.'
20 August 1964 in Place des Arts, Montreal: with Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa, Jorge plays Rachmaninoff 3 (followed by Mussorgsky/Ravel Pictures at an Exhibition). "L'année 63 marquait pour cet extraordinaire pianiste cubain le 25e anniversaire de sa carrière: comme pianiste de concert... Vingt-cinq ans de succès et de triomphes remportés un peu partout dans le monde. Il fut acclamé en récitals et comme soliste dans les deux Amériques, en Europe, ainsi qu’en Asie et derrière le rideau de fer." (Le petit Journal, 16.8.64)​
The Southern Hemisphere: New Zealand
In 12 September - 8 October, Bolet toured New Zealand, with recitals in 8 centres and 5 concerto appearances. As a sample of an international concert pianist’s itinerary, we may look at a little of his schedule. (John Ogdon - later to be a colleague of JB at the University of Indiana) was also Down Under, as part of a four-month tour from August to November, involving more than 40 concerts and recitals in Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, Singapore and Malta. In Sydney he gave the world premiere of Malcolm Williamson’s Third Piano Concerto that June; it had been written in 1962 while the composer was living in East Sheen, London.. (Williamson was an Australian composer and Master of the Queen's Music from 1975 until his death. Nicholas Lanier was appointed by Charles I in 1626 as the first Master of the King's Musick.)
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Auckland Town Hall, Saturday 12 Sept: recital
Hotel Chalet Chevron; dinner 10 Sept. to breakfast 14 Sept.
Auckland to Hamilton, Monday 14 Sept
NZR bus departs 10.45am arrives 1.45pm.
17 September: New Zealand Symphony Orchestra under Juan Matteucci; Wellington Town Hall.
26 September: Juan Matteucci; Christchurch Civic Theatre (Brahms 2)
1 October Christchurch Civic Theatre recital
8 October: Juan Matteucci; Wellington Town Hall.
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Juan Mateucci (1920 - 1990) was born in Italy and brought up in Chile; he came from eight generations of cellists and gamba players and his father played in an orchestra. Matteucci's earliest musical experiences were at his home, where music was an integral part of family life. However, the musical evenings were anything but ordinary, with world-renowned musicians and friends of the family who had come to South America on tour. There were cellists like the legendary Emmanuel Fuermann and pianists such as Walter Giesking and Wilhelm Backhaus. Starting his musical career as a cellist, Matteucci was prompted to think of conducting by Fritz Busch, one of the many famous musicians to leave Germany during the Nazi years. Acting on his mentor's prompting, Matteucci went to Italy to study at the Conservatorio Verdi, under the master conductor, Carlo Maria Guilini. He served as Musical Director of the N.Z.B.C. Symphony Orchestra from 1965-69, conducted for the New Zealand Ballet, and was Musical Director of Auckland Mercury Opera.
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Review of the Christchurch recital on 1 October, 1964:
'Prodigious technical powers produce cyclonic speed when required—sometimes when not absolutely required also. Some blurring resulted from his use of the sustaining pedal in moments of great excitement.' The programme included the Chopin's Ballades, Mozart’s Sonata in D. K. 576, and Liszt's Funerailles and Mephisto Waltz . 'The pageantry of the work (Funerailles), from the awesome tolling of the funeral bell at the beginning, through the moments of deep personal sorrow and heart-felt consolation, to the wider expression of national mourning for a great heroic figure, with the dark draping of the cortege itself, and also the distant but unmistakable underlying threat of possible disaster to the nation because of its loss, were all present in this magnificent performance. It was playing in the grand manner, and the strength of Mr Bolet’s touch certainly brought to mind the legendary technical power of Liszt himself.'
The Chalet Chevron B&B Guest House in Parnell, Auckland, New Zealand has a rich history of providing comfortable lodgings for many generations of travellers. Built as a substantial family home in 1929, the English Cottage Style Chalet Chevron was later extended and converted to accept "paying guests". With 14 quaint bedrooms, all with private ensuite bathrooms, Chalet Chevron provides delightful accommodation on the slopes of Parnell in what is one of New Zealand's oldest, well-kept, private Bed and Breakfast Guest House.
South Africa, Winter 1964
In late October and November, Bolet made a tour of South Africa (in their summer), one which included a solo recital in Cape Town.
Hans Adler told the J'Burg Sunday Times in November 1962 that negotiations for the tour were already under way.
(This also included a recital in Windhoek, now Namibia)​​​​
This was also his first appearance with the Cape Town/Kaapstad Municipal Orchestra, on Thursday 22 October, 1964, in a performance of Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and his Hungarian Fantasia. Weber’s Der Freischütz Overture and Manuel De Falla’s ballet music The Three-Cornered Hat constituted the rest of the programme. This was conductor Peter Erös’s final concert in Cape Town; he had studied composition with Hungarian composer and educator Zoltan Kodály and conducting with László Somogyi in Budapest.
In an interview with the Rand Daily News (Johannesburg), 12 October 1964, Dora Sowden states that Jorge has just come from New Zealand by air, where he gave 15 concerts. After South Africa, he goes to Bergen, Norway (he will also go to Australia for 45 concerts the following year). He leaves today (Monday) for a 4 day trip to the Kruger National Park
​There is some interesting correspondence about the tour which was organised by the agent Hans Georg Adler. He had left Nazi Germany for South Africa in 1933. His passion was to offer South African music lovers the highest quality of international concert presence. He was Chairman of the Johannesburg Music Society (South Africa's oldest Musical Society) from 1954 until 1969. The Society was among the first to invite many international artists and groups to perform in South Africa, and it quickly expanded.
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The oldest music society in South Africa, it can trace its birth date right back to 1902, when Edward VII had just ascended the throne of Britain and the Anglo-Boer war had just ended.
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Johannesburg soon became the centre of performers' broad African tours, tours which included the large cities of South Africa (Pretoria, Durban, East London, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth) as well as visits to Kenya, the former Northern and Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Mozambique, the islands of Mauritius and Reunion, the former South West Africa, Angola and sometimes the former Belgian Congo .
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On 1 August 1964, the Belgian Congo became the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to distinguish it from the neighbouring Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville), formerly French Congo. Unrest and rebellion plagued the government until 1965, when Lieutenant General Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, by then commander-in-chief of the national army, seized control of the country. He changed the name to Zaïre, which lasted until he was overthrown in 1997. It is not to be confused with Congo-Brazzaville (formerly the French Congo, across the river).
It is highly unlikely our dapper Cuban-American, in his starched white tie and collar studs, tinkled the ivories amidst such political unrest, rainforests and malaria.
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A letter from H. G. Adler, 11 Mazoe Road, Emmarentia ext., Johannesburg, dated 25 August 1964, addressed to Miss Walter, JB's agent, states:
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'The Johannesburg Musical Society have selected Programme 1 for our first concert (Saturday 17 October) and Programme 2 for our second (Sunday 1 November) etc. Regarding the second part of the South African Broadcast Corporation programmes on 18 October, this should have been about 40-42 minutes of actual music. As Mr Bolet submitted to me only about 27 minutes of music (Beethoven 32 Variations [10´ ] and Franck Prelude, Choral and Fugue [17´ ], I added 2 Liszt Etudes, Feux Follets and Wilde Jagd which I presume will be in order.
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'Regarding visas, this is now really a matter of extreme urgency and I hope that visa applications have already been made by Mr Bolet. In case Mr Tex Compton accompanies Mr Bolet, then he must make a visa application as well. Both these gentlemen must be in possession of valid health certificates against small pox (and possibly against yellow fever). Mr Compton's plane ticket will be deducted from JB's fee.'
Saturday 17 October, 1964 in the University Great Hall, Johannesburg:
Beethoven, Sonata No. 31 in A flat Op.110
Liszt, Transcendental Etudes (in an new order)
Dora Sowden in the Rand Daily News (19 October) entitles her review: 'Strongman Bolet has a light touch' and expressed surprise: that a pianist of such physique could yet make the piano speak with exceptional delicacy! Beethoven's Op.110 was a performance of the most beautifully calculated and assimilated dynamics. 'In this sonata the composer has allowed self pity to show - not in flamboyant Tchaikovsky or egotistical Chopin style, but with quiet clear eyed pain.'
Of the Liszt, 'Whatever may be argued, I'm not sure this doughty dozen should be heard together at all. There is among them too much mediocre meandering and hot-air harmony'. Bolet produced 'Thor thunder as well as feather lightness, and he did it all in in a still, unshowy manner'. Feux Follets had controlled Will O' The Wisp deftness.
'Here was a performer who did not struggle with Satan; he had him under foot and finger.'
Sunday, 1 November, Civic Theatre, Johannesburg:
Haydn, Sonata in E flat (Hob.52)
Schubert, Fantasy in C Op.15 (Wanderer)
Liszt, Sonata in B minor
Strauss/Godowsky, Fledermaus
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​The Rand Daily News (2 November): 'If anyone regretted the announcement that Bolet had decided to play Liszt's Mephisto waltz rather than the Fledermaus paraphrase, that regret must have been swept away by the pianist's superlative playing. It threw new light in Liszt. Here was a performer who did not struggle with Satan; he had him under foot and finger.' There were moments of colossal force and beauty in the Liszt Sonata.
Max Loppert (b. Johannesburg, 1946), a South African music critic, who settled in England and was music critic of the Financial Times 1982–96 has written: 'Bolet’s career was strange: a pianist of the most extraordinary gifts, he spent his prime out of the limelight. This has led some critics to regret that [the DECCA and other recordings] tokens of his senior years lack the fire of his younger self. As a youth in Johannesburg I heard Bolet in an absolutely thunderous performance of the Transcendental Studies; by contrast his 1985 recording, made two decades after that recital, is magnificently restrained, the thunder mostly distant.'
Percy Tucker
Percy Tucker (1928, Benoni, Gauteng – 29 January 2021) was a South African ticket booking agent and author. He launched the first electronic theatre booking system in the world in 1971.
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In his memoir (1997) he adds details in chapter 24.
'I made another friend in the Cuban-born pianist Jorge Bolet, who came out for the Johannesburg Musical Society [October/November 1964].
'During Jorge's visit, his manager, Tex Compton, had a serious fall-out with Johannesburg Music Society chairman Hans Adler, well-known as a difficult and unpleasant man, and when Jorge, who made many friends here, wanted to come again, Hans refused to negotiate with Tex. Jorge wrote to Peta Fisher offering to come for Musica Viva, but Peta felt it unethical to engage a JMS artist. It took six years to resolve the situation, at which time Tex asked me to organise a tour for Jorge [1970/1?], which the pianist would back from his own pocket. This was another first for me, and one which resulted in two more successful tours for Jorge.
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'In Madrid, I decided to take up Jorge Bolet's invitation to visit him. He and Tex gave me a thorough tour of Madrid, then we flew to their home at Fuenterrabia where Jorge's brother, the orchestral conductor Albert Bolet, was also visiting. What a great time we had - Liszt, Mozart, Rachmaninov and Schumann in the mornings, trips to delightful places new to me, such as San Sebastian, for lunch, afternoon siestas, and late-night dinners in a series of magnificent Spanish restaurants.'
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Johannesburg
*September 1956 rolled around at last, and with it, on the sixteenth, the official opening of the Festival at the Johannesburg City Hall. The honour of the first event had been awarded to Claudio Arrau and the SABC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jeremy Schulman. The heightened atmosphere in the City Hall reflected the sense of occasion, and the customers certainly got their money's worth (prices ranged from two guineas to five shillings) as the eminent pianist treated them not to one but to three piano concerti - Chopin, Brahms and Beethoven. The following night the first gala performance was given by the London Symphony Orchestra.
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The English composer William Walton honoured the city's endeavours by composing the Johannesburg Festival Overture, premiered at the first of the symphony concerts under the baton of Sir Malcolm Sargent. (25 September). Ernest Fleischmann, musical director of the Johannesburg Festival Committee, had commissioned the piece to celebrate the seventieth anniversary of the city. He included in his request to “include some African themes”.
Percy Tucker
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Johannes Brahms in Liverpool
On Tuesday, 8 December 1964, with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Jascha Horenstein, Jorge played Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat major. Symphony No. 2 in D major by the same composer was also on the programme.
This is yet another reminder that Jorge was performing in Britain during the 1960s, this time in the city of Liverpool on Merseyside, a city associated among other things with the famous rock band The Beatles who had formed in 1960.
Herman Melville, the author of Moby-Dick or The whale, - the Guardian reviewer (below) serendipitously describes Brahms 2 as 'a Leviathan among concertos' - was twenty years old in 1839 when he visited the city. He had undertaken his first voyage as a merchant sailor on board the St Lawrence, and remained for a month before his ship returned to New York. What he saw there, on the thronging docksides and streets, was memorable enough for him to write a novel, Redburn, where he describes the city and its docks.
The conductor Jascha Horenstein (Russian: Яша Горенштейн, 1898 – 1973) was born in Kyiv, Russian Empire (now Ukraine). His family moved to Königsberg in 1906 and then to Vienna in 1911 and he studied at the Vienna Academy of Music starting in 1916, with Joseph Marx (music theory) and Franz Schreker (composition). Forced as a Jew to flee the Nazis, he moved to the United States in 1940, and eventually became an American citizen.
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Horenstein is particularly remembered as a champion of modern music and as a Mahler conductor.
In 1950, he conducted the first Paris performance of Berg's Wozzeck. Horenstein conducted the works of Bruckner and Mahler throughout his career, and he also displayed ongoing interest in Danish composer Carl Nielsen, whom he knew personally, at a time when these composers were unfashionable. His opera recordings included Nielsen's Saul og David. His final operatic, and British, engagement was his March 1973 performances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden of Richard Wagner's Parsifal.
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The Guardian review of 9 December 1964 :
