Jorge Bolet
European début in Holland, 1935
It was in May 1935 that Jorge Bolet made his European debut. There were recitals in Amsterdam in the Small Hall of the Concertgebouw (Wednesday, 8 May) and The Hague, in the Diligentia Hall (Friday 10th).
'A new star in the musical firmament, a pupil (sic) of Godowsky...a fervid imagination, no trace of nervousness. We hope he will not become one of those brilliant keyboard wonders of today - "Here today, gone tomorrow"- for his musical gifts are too genuine and precious.' Vaderland, den Haag
The concert agent Dr Géza Kálmán de Koos, Hollandsche Concertdirectie had arranged the bookings for this European tour.
Jorge was still represented by the de Koos agency in 1977 when he came to Britain.
Haagsche courant, 3 May 1935
Paris, Berlin, London, Madrid...
And then Paris, London, Vienna, Madrid, Milan. From memory, without consulting his files, Bolet told a journalist in 1943: the Salle Chopin (Paris), Bechsteinsaal (Berlin), Aeolian Hall (London), the Conservatorio Verdi (Milan) and in 1936 (Spain) concertos with José María Franco (Madrid), concerts in the Teatro la Comedia; and also in Gijón, Oviedo and Pamplona. It is worth noting that the Spanish concerts were in April, 1936, barely three months before the outbreak of the Civil War on 17 July.
On 31 May 1935 in the Aeolian Hall, 135-7 New Bond Street, London, Jorge made his first appearance in Britain. His programme for this first tour included Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata Op.57 in F minor, César Franck’s Prelude, Choral & Fugue and pieces by Chopin.
'Unfaltering control... his powerful fingers enable him to annihilate any technical problems.' The Appassionata was thought occasionally too theatrical but the essential urgency was well suggested, 'though at times, especially in his rather prosaic treatment of the Andante, much of the poetry of the work seemed to vanish'.
Liszt's Waldesrauschen (Forest Murmurs) and the Strauss/Godowsky Fledermaus paraphrase were also included in 'a programme which seldom called for spontaneity, the quality most lacking from Mr Bolet's style'.
The Times, 4 June 1935
“Tales from the Vienna Woods”
Upon his graduation in 1934, the Cuban government had sent Jorge to Europe for further training under Moriz Rosenthal in Vienna, during his aforementioned tour.
'Five classes of advanced piano technique,' said Jorge, but he later told friends the lessons were useless. In an interview (during his visit to Tokyo in 1988), he says he offered Liszt's Sonata and Chopin. When he finished one piece, the Master would say, 'That's pretty good, what's next?' Jorge was surprised to hear Rosenthal say of Liszt - while demonstrating at the keyboard - 'What a terrible composer, do you call that a melody?' The younger pianist said that 'I was surprised that an actual pupil of Liszt would criticise his teacher, and I was very shocked because I respected Liszt like a god.'
On 23 May 1935 Jorge gave his first recital in the Kleiner Konzerthaus, Lothringerstrasse (with his familiar programme of Franck, de Falla, Beethoven, Liszt, Godowsky).
Moriz Rosenthal
Moriz Rosenthal (1862-1946) was born in Lemberg (L’viv), on the eastern edge of the Austro-Hungarian empire; it is now a city in Ukraine.
He studied with Karol Mikuli, a pupil of Chopin, and later with Franz Liszt, without doubt the most famous pianist of the 19th (or indeed any) century.
Rosenthal recalled: 'In Tivoli, near Rome. . . I was fortunate to be his only student and to receive daily instruction in the autumn of 1878. Every afternoon
I appeared at the Villa d'Este, where I found the master composing either in his study or sometimes on the terrace, where he was gazing forlornly into the blue. The glowing Roman autumn, the picturesque beauty of the area, the Master's noble instruction - all these things blended into an ecstasy which I still feel today.'
His first concert in New York City was in Steinway Hall near Union Square on 13 November 1888 when among other things he played Liszt's E flat concerto and the Don Juan fantasy. The New York Tribune reported of the success: 'This does not mean that our people have never heard more artistic playing,
but primarily that they have never been so amazed and bewildered.'
In 1928 Rosenthal had spent the early part of the year in America, and he had given a recital at the Curtis Institute on 8 February (which Jorge may have heard). His first tour of South America was late on in life, in 1934. 'I gave four concerts in Rio de Janeiro, seven in Buenos Aires, and I also played in Rosaria, La Plata, Montevideo, São Paulo and Bahia Blanca. The audiences suffered from a virtual Chopin fanaticism.'
In New York, he lived at the Great Northern Hotel between 56th and 57th Streets (‘neither great nor northern’, he quipped). Rosenthal's last public concert in New York was at Town Hall on 15 November 1941. He died in that city on 3 September 1946.
This video has sound
“I should most probably have stayed in Europe”
“After Curtis, I decided to go to Paris. By this time, I was so sick of schools, and teachers and piano lessons, that I decided to simply live, practise on my own, and listen to a lot of music. I did all this for nine months, then went to London for another month of just living. Finally, the little money I had ran out, and this time, another member of my family came to
the rescue.
My eldest brother, Nico, who was a military man, very kindly gave me enough money, to make it possible for me to give a number of recitals in Europe. That's how my concert career began. I played recitals in Amsterdam, the Hague, Paris, London, Berlin, Vienna, Milan.”
Spain 1936 then return to the USA
There were concerts on 21 & 28 March and 4 April in Madrid. La Voz, Madrid reported that in the Teatro Español Jorge performed Beethoven's Emperor concerto under the direction of José María Franco.
On 17 May 1936, Jorge boarded the SS Columbus at Cherbourg, France, arriving in New York on the 24th. He is listed as possessing $100 and was aged 21. He was not to play in Spain again for twenty years.
After a summer in Cuba where he gave two piano recitals in Havana, he arrived on the SS Pennsylvania at the Port of New York on 28 September 1936, as a ‘returning USA resident’. He is aged 21 and his address is a friend’s house, M.Barnhouse , 1701 Delancey St., Philadelphia, PA. This is the address of Donald Grey Barnhouse, Senior Pastor of the Tenth Presbyterian Church from 1927-1960. Jorge seems to have been "adopted" by the Barnhouse family while studying in Philadelphia as a student. His elder sister, Maria, had become their daughter Ruth's first piano teacher at that time; Jorge himself taught her later on.
Ruth Beuscher (1923-199, née Barnhouse) would later become known for being the psychiatrist of Sylvia Plath. She had corresponded with her since they met at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts following Plath's breakdown in 1953. Though Plath destroyed most of their letters, fourteen from Plath to Barnhouse remain. Plath wrote her last letter to Barnhouse on 4 February, 1963; she committed suicide on the morning of 11 February - she was 30 years old. Barnhouse did not receive the letter until after Plath died.
During the period 1960-63, Sylvia Plath worked on her novel, The Bell Jar, creating a character, Dr. Nolan, based on Barnhouse.