"It turned out that we were listening to two of the last concerts of Jorge Bolet, who was discovered in Turkey in the autumn of his life."
The words of Joan Chissell's review of Liszt/Bellini,Réminiscences de Norma
"No light, but rather darkness visible"
"No light, but rather darkness visible"
John Milton, Paradise Lost 1.63
'It was during his 1987 New York season that we noticed his weight loss and increasing instances of inconsistent and/or uninvolved playing. That gorgeous Bolet sound was still there, but the ecstasy, poetry, and seemingly inexhaustible reserves of strength and power often gave way to introspection and caution. Interrupting another hundred-plus concert season to have minor surgery performed by his lifelong friend, Dr. Richard Carlson, it fell to Dr. Carlson to tell Bolet on 7 December 1988, the results of the HIV test required by the State of California whenever an invasive surgery was performed. Jorge was silent for a long moment and then looked at his friend directly and asked one question: “What do I need to do to stay active for as long as possible?”
For several months there was no question of resuming his tour, but in the spring he did return to his full schedule, recitals in the U.S. and Europe, solo recordings of two Chopin sonatas, a group of nocturnes, and the two concertos with his old friend Charles Dutoit in Montreal, this last a particular source of stress. He had performed the Chopin E Minor Concerto many times over two decades, but had never gotten around to learning the F Minor. Now he had committed not only to record it, but to play it in a half a dozen concerts. Given those circ*mstances, it is astonishing the Chopin F Minor Concerto recording came off surprisingly well, but the Chopin sonatas and nocturnes, and two Liszt concertos (with Georg Solti and the London Philharmonic) were not released. Bolet’s New York recital had been postponed once and there were rumors from Europe of embarrassing recitals, including one in which he retired with a halting apology, unable to return after intermission.'
Francis Crociata in the booklet for Marston CDs Volume 2
1988
In 1988, Elyse Mach’s book on pianists appeared. She had interviewed Bolet in the New York Men’s Athletic Club, Central Park and 7th Avenue [180 Central Park South, New York]; extracts from this important interview have been included in the relevant section of Jorge's career on this website.
1-4 February, 1988 Walthamstow Assembly Hall, London
César FRANCK Prélude, Aria et Final & Prélude, Choral et Fugue are recorded for DECCA
A 1988 recital in the Carolyn Blount Theater, Montgomery, Alabama (4 April) was taped and released on DECCA. This included a magnificent performance of Liszt's Réminiscences de Norma. Yes, it is a little stately in places (no bad thing, considering the musical source) but supremely moving. See the end of this page for a generously heartwarming review by Joan Chissell.
On Friday 4 March 1988 there was a Carnegie Hall recital which included Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 23 in F Minor, Op. 57, "Appassionata" (1804-1805) and Vincenzo Bellini (1801—1835) Réminiscences de Norma, S. 393 (1841 arr. Franz Liszt)
13 March (Sunday) Royal Festival Hall, London inc. Beethoven No.31 Op. 110 in A flat and Bellini/Liszt, Réminiscences de Norma. The programme says that Bolet plays Baldwin piano supplied by Pianomobil Antwerp. I think it was at this concert that popular British comedian Frankie Howerd was in the audience, sitting right behind me in fact (he came in at the last minute, perhaps to avoid any fuss or recognition). Bolet's performance of much of this recital a week earlier - on Friday, 4 March in Carnegie Hall - can be heard here.
The Festival Hall was Jorge's least favourite hall, one where - because of its notoriously dry acoustic. - no matter how hard he tried, he could never engulf himself with the sound of the piano. The Hall was opened in 1951 by Her Majesty The Queen, the beginning of her association of 7 decades with the venue on the south bank of the River Thames. Opinions were divided from the start: critics bemoaned its 'dry and sterile' acoustics while protagonists celebrated its cutting-edge design and 'crystal clear' sound.
4 April 1988 Live recording Carolyn Blount Theater, Montgomery, Alabama USA (Frank Bell producer)
MENDELSSOHN Prelude & Fugue in E minor Op.35/1
LISZT Réminiscences de Norma S394
FRANCK Prélude, Choral et Fugue
Sunday 24 April 1988
Konserthuset, Stockholm. Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra/ Riccardo Chailly
Edvard Grieg, Piano Concerto & Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 5.
30 April/ 2 & 3 May 1988 Rachmaninoff's Paganini Variations with the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia under David Shallon in the Auditorio Pio, Rome, the second of only two appearances with this orchestra, the first being in January 1973.
7? May 1988 with the Bamberg Symphony under Rudolf Barshai in one of the two Liszt concertos.
14 May,1988 Schwetzinger Schloss, Rokokotheather; Baden-Württemberg, Germany: recital (available on CD, Hänssler Classic), includingBeethoven, Piano Sonata No. 23 in F Minor, Op. 57 'Appassionata'; and Bellini/Liszt, Réminiscences de Norma, S. 394.
Jorge's last performance in the Netherlands - as it turned out - was on 16 May 1988, in the main hall of the Concertgebouw. (De Volkskrant 18.10.1990).
'Intimate and poetic piano playing by Bolet,' reported Katja Reichenfeld for NRC Handelsblad (17.5.88). Mendelssohn, Prélude and fugue opus 35 no. 1, Rondo Capriccioso opus 14, Beethoven Sonata opus 57 Appassionata. Franck, Prelude, Choral et Fugue. Liszt, Reminisences de Norma.
'Yesterday there was no hint of dramatic acrobatics, but a modest presence that was immediately impressive. From the first note, Jorge Bolet managed to transform the hall into a 19th century salon in which making music became intimate human work again. Playing his own American Baldwin grand piano, tuned by his own piano tuner, he showed no trace of extravagance; his playing aimed at intimacy and fine poetry. Long melody lines sounded on this instrument as if sung by a human voice, with an unprecedented wealth of dynamic shades. There is a world of possibilities between pianissimo, piano, mezzoforte and forte.
In Bolet's largely romantic programme, to my surprise, Liszt's Réminisences de Norma, announced in the program notes as the Grand Dessert, represented a high point of imagination and related mastery. An experience for the listener who still had disparaging views on the musical qualities of Liszt's music. Alfred Brendel explains why this is so in his essay The Misunderstood Liszt: “Liszt's music has the property of fatally reflecting the character of the performer. When Liszt's works give an empty and superficial impression, one can usually blame the interpreter, sometimes the biased listener, and only very rarely Liszt himself." Bolet has the rare ability to disappear invisibly behind the piano and draw all attention to the fantasy and nobility of Liszt's music. His playing is introverted and communicative at the same time. He gives the impression of someone who is trying to find his way into his memory while playing.'
9 June: a recital in Ascona, a beautiful Swiss town on the northern shore of Lake Maggiore, in the canton of Ticino. It consisted of Liszt, Bénédiction de Dieu dans la Solitude; Wagner/Liszt, Tannhäuser Overture; Schubert/Liszt, 3 songs, and Schubert, Sonata in A, D 959. Although one might not think so, some Schubert had been very much in Bolet's repertoire from the start (the Rondo from the D major Sonata D.850 in his Town Hall New York début), though there was not much on offer at Curtis with regard to teaching when he was a student. He was clearly fond of the big A major sonata (see 29 October 1940 in Town Hall recital, NYC) one of a group of three late works by Franz Schubert (D958, 959 and 960). They were written during the last months of his life, between the spring and autumn of 1828, but were not published until about ten years after his death, in 1838–39. Jorge will have appreciated such things as the lyrical rondo-finale movement, which has a seemingly endless resource of songful melody. What of the slow movement? 'Visions of terror take us to the very brink of madness... They remind me of the fact that the painter Goya died in the same year as Schubert.' (Alfred Brendel).
A date of 6 September, 1988 has also been given for this recital: Chiesa del Collegio Papio, Ascona, Switzerland
Photo: Salle Pleyel, Paris. May 1988
Cellist Julian Lloyd-Weber however, offered a spirited defence of the acoustics in 2016:
'Just because a concert hall doesn’t bathe its performers in a comforting wash of sound doesn’t mean it is not a good hall for the listener. It is no coincidence that some of the greatest performances I have ever heard have been at the Festival Hall. It has proved to be the exception to all known acoustical rules. In fact its acoustic distinguishes the men from the boys, and the finest musicians raise their games accordingly.
The slightest mistake is immediately heard - but then so is the beautiful playing of a phrase that would have been lost in a sea of reverberation in the Royal Albert Hall.'
Istanbul, Turkey: June 1988
Bolet gave two concerts in the famous Turkish city, once Byzantium, famously Constantinople and since 1930, Istanbul. Cumhuriyet (the oldest daily Turkish newspaper) has reports on 28 June 1988, 3 August (same year), and carries an obituary 31 October 1990.
For 3 August 1988, it has the comment: 'His concert was naughty from start to finish. But still, this vigorous pianist in his 70s captivated Istanbulites, especially with his interpretations of Beethoven and Franck.
By the way, the name Bolet was not foreign to those who took the horse for so many years, at least to those who were sleazy...'
(I'm sure something's lost in Google translation from the Turkish, so this is work in progress)
The obituary muses wistfullythat 'It turned out that we were listening at the time to two of the last concerts of Jorge Bolet, who was discovered in Turkey in the autumn of his life by giving two piano recitals during the International Istanbul Festival on 21-23 June 1988 in our country.'
Cumhuriyet (Istanbul) review 28 June 1988
21 and 23 June, Istanbul, Atatürk Cultural Center, Büyük Salonu (Large Hall) 9.30pm.
The recital included Mendelssohn, Beethoven's "Appassionata" Op.57, F Minor No: 23, Franck'sPrelüd, Koral ve Füg and Bellini/Liszt, Reminiscences de Norma.
(From the Turkish via Google Translate - you get the gist!) 'The subtleties of style that have been forgotten in recent years due to the excessive speed, the "rubato" that is masterfully melted in measure without interrupting the rhythm...Contemporary pianists play this sonata with a thump, almost furiously, with energetic tempos, caught up in the concepts of "excitement and passion" that its name evokes. However, Bolet says that he believes that Beethoven's tempo markings and again the nuances added by the composer can be another interpretation of "excitement and passion".
"Although Bolet didn't play Liszt in the movie (Song Without End), he has the type of features that would make him convincing in any historical movie, just as if he played the Viceroy of India of the Great British Empire in a good film."
Gerçi Bolet filmde Liszt'i canlandırmamış, yalnızcafilminpiyano seslendirmesini yapmıştı, ama jrihı bir filmde pekala Buyuk Bntanya Imparatorluğu nun Hindistan Genel Valisi rolunde inandıncı olabilecek tip özelliklerine sahipti.
The artist said that he could not lift his head from his programming and recording records, and thus had to leave the piano class at the prestigious music school Curtis Institute in Philadelphia due to this boom, which occurred, albeit late in his career.
We learned that Bolet will go on a 15-day photo safari in Kenya and Tanzania when his tour in Europe ends.
Most of the American pianists were content with being well-known in America at that time, they did not believe in the importance of opening up to Europe. It was enough for them by being roasted with their own fat.
Further concerts in 1988
A Chopin Nocturne in GenevaNewspaper review:
00:00 / 00:14
On 25 June at Meslay [nr. Tours in the Loire Valley, France] Jorge replaced an ailing Claudio Arrau in recital. 'A kind gesture from one Latin-American brother to another, both of them heirs to the high Germanic musical tradition. (Arrau was born in Chillán, Chile in 1904 and had studied with a pupil of Liszt, Martin Krause, in Berlin) But Bolet, venerable diplomat with a penetratingly stern gaze...seems completely wrapped up in himself at the piano his body bent over the keyboard from which he never lifts his eyes." [Jacque Lonchampt, Le Monde, 28 June 1988]
Arrau was happily well enough to give his next recital at the Festival Internacional de Música de Granada in Ciudad de la Alhambra (Granada, Spain) on Friday 1 July.
The programme comprised Beethoven's Piano Sonatas No.7 in D major & 26 in E flat, "Los adioses" [Les Adieux], and Liszt's Les jeux d'eau à la Villa d'Este & Aprés une lecture du Dante. [El País, Madrid, 1 July 1988]
A selection of Debussy's Préludes was recorded 21-23 September 1988, in Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco. Jorge played 16 of the 24 of the Preludes; when the disc was issued in November 1989,Gramophonesummed it up: "To judge from this issue, at any rate, this fine artist is not heard at anything like his best in this repertory." (Producer: Peter Wadland, Engineer: John Pellowe)
'Much of the playing is uninvolved, heavy-handed, occasionally inaccurate (not so much wrong notes as misread notes and rhythms), and just plain tired. To be frank, this noble artist either is not at his best or is plainly miscast in repertoire that he had no business recording so late in his career. Dance-oriented selections like La sérénade interrompue, La danse de Puck, and Minstrels plop more than fizz, although the pianist manages to wring enough character out of Général Lavine–eccentric’s lumbering gait. He begins La Puerta del Viño promisingly with heightened dynamic contrasts and slashing accents, but soon loses shape as the basic habañera underpinning fades into the background. In Danseuses de Delphes the phrases seem to wind down like an old clock in disrepair, due in part to the pianist’s slight tenutos and weighty articulation.
However, at his best, Bolet was a supreme colorist. Young pianists can learn from the multi-leveled textural differentiation Bolet so gorgeously achieves in Des pas sur la neige, or from La cathédrale engloutie’s long-lined elegance. And to be fair, Bolet summons up reserves of energy for Ce qu’a vu le vent d’Ouest.'
(Jed Distler, for Classics Today)
One has, of course, to remember that Bolet was by now seriously ill. 'Just for the record, Mr. Bolet was increasingly ill through much of his commitment to the English Decca recording company. The last recording, the Debussy Preludes, was produced at a point where he was critically ill and was withdrawn from the catalogue soon after his passing. The idea that he was trying to approach the music from a more studied and calculated position is outrageous. I knew him well, and passion was everything to him. The deliberate tempi were a symptom that all was not well with him. Please do not do this disservice to one of the last of the great "Romantic tradition" pianists by repeating the complaints of listeners who choose to assume the worst rather than to recognize that factors beyond his control were gnawing at his very fiber!'
(Morley Grossman, Edinburg, TX USA, in reply to a reviewer on Amazon)
5 October 1988: Chopin's Piano Concert No. 1 at Davies Hall, San Francisco. Marilyn Tucker (San Francisco Chronicle, 17.10.1990) comments that despite the fact Jorge Bolet has lived in Mountain View for the last ten years, the San Francisco Symphony has been a closed door to him.
Tuesday 11 October 1988
'Pianist with a touch of class. Cuban pianist Jorge Bolet attracted a huge audience to the Victoria Hall, Hanley [Great Britain], last night to hear his performance of Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. He didn't let them down. The ringing vitality ...' This performance was with the BBC Philharmonic and Sir Edward Downes (with Elgar's 2nd symphony in the second half)
Staffordshire Sentinel 12 October 1988
Journal de Genève (19 November 1988) reviewed a concert in Victoria Hall, Geneva, with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under Erich Leinsdorf in which JB played Liszt 1, which was followed by Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. The reviewer expressed an opinion that this might be JB's first appearance in Geneva (but this is not so, as he had certainly been there in 1974 and 1975).
'Son jeu léonin présente les qualités les plus hautes.' He played his own Baldwin piano and 'il sait en effet faire vibrer son instrument de façon inhabituelle, ample et intense, qui, dans le chant délicat, prolonge le son comme un long souffle. Et bien que cette conception soit, en quelque sorte, à l'opposé de ce que l'on attendrait d'un lisztien(électricité, brio, étincelles ...), on croit redécouvrir ce concerto en mi bémol sur lequel se sont échinés tant de lauréats du Concours ...En bis, Jorge Bolet parvient, dans les quelques mesures d'un Nocturne de Chopin, au sublime par l'intensité de la poésie la plus pure. Quelques secondes réellement bouleversantes.'
'His leonine playing exhibits the highest qualities.' He played his own Baldwin piano and 'he indeed knows how to make his instrument vibrate in an unusual way, ample and intense. In the delicate melodic passages, he extends the sound as if in a long breath. And although this conception is, in a way, the opposite of what one would expect from a Lisztian (electricity, brilliance, sparks...), we believe we are rediscovering this Concerto in E flat on which so many winners of the Competition have worked... As an encore, Jorge Bolet attained, in the few bars of a nocturne by Chopin, the sublime by the intensity of the purest poetry. A few truly heartbreaking seconds.' (The Nocturne is presumably a favourite encore, Op.15/2 in F # major.)
César Franck
'The Symphonic Variations, Bolet and [Riccardo] Chailly seem to suggest, are a no less bold redefinition of the concerto, not the gallic sorbet laced with Lisztian liqueur that they sometimes appear. Theirs is an uncommonly thoughtful performance, generally not at all fast until the genuinely joyous conclusion (the preceding sobriety gives it a still greater ebullience by contrast). The overall control, again, is so firm that details and contrast of character between variations can be delicately pointed without any danger of diffuseness. A very distinguished trilogy of performances, in short, and most impressively recorded, the bigness of the sound according well with the bigness of the readings, but with a no less accordant fineness of detail. No, come to think of it, "distinguished" is a weasel word for such music-making: this is great piano playing.'
Michael Oliver, Gramophone [9/1989].
'Cud is expressively chewed while Franck ruminates; but the mercurial dash of the closing pages needs more élan. Jorge Bolet is a lyrical and sensitive soloist, underplaying the drama, but contributing many a happy concertante touch to the work. Acoustically the empty Concertgebouw hall aspires towards the resonance of Ste Clotilde.' Robert Anderson
Music by César Franck, a composer Jorge clearly loved, is also recorded this year in February (and is combined with the Symphonic Variations which were set down in Amsterdam on 7 and 11 April 1986). There is a cherishable review of it by a much-missed Gramophone critic Michael Oliver (who incidentally interviewed Bolet about Godowsky for the BBC).
Tokyo, 1988
Wednesday at 7pm, 2 November, 1988: Suntory Hall, Tokyo, Japan. The concert was arranged by Kanbara Music, Asakasa, Minato-ku, Tokyo, and was sponsored by Asahi Shimbun and Polydor.
Liszt: Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude, S.173 No.3 (from Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses), Piano Sonata in B minor, S.178, Six Consolations, S.172 and Réminiscences
de Norma (Bellini), S.394
A week later, Jorge performed Rachmaninoff3 in Tokyo on 9 November with the NHK Symphony under David Atherton. It appears he was staying at the Imperial Hotel (founded 1890), overlooking the Imperial Palace, Moat and Hibiya Park. This was his third visit to the Land of the Rising Sun, the second being in May 1976, his first trip there since after the second world war. In an interview at this time, he mentions a former pupil, Makoto Ueno from Hokkaido (b.1966). He studied with JB at Curtis aged 16, and this was then followed by a period of study at the Salzburg Mozarteum. Ueno won 3rd prize at the Geneva International Competition in 1988 and since 1996 has been teaching as a professor of piano at Kyoto University of Arts. (Along with Kathryn Stott, he shared the masterclass study of the first movement of Rachmaninov 2 with JB in July 1984, first broadcast on Sunday 10 November 1985 on BBC2. Videos of this have never appeared online, though I have a VHS tape from the broadcast which I cannot now play! A video of the Tokyo concert appears and disappears online with surprising regularity.)
Recorded 9 November 1988, NHK Hall, Tokyo. The concert also included Berlioz's overture Les Francs-juges Op. 3 and Messiaen's Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum.
Messiaen's work commemorated the dead of the two World Wars. It was premiered in the Sainte-Chapelle, Paris at 11:00 in the morning on 7 May 1965, and was performed for the second time on 20 June of the same year following a Solemn Mass at Chartres Cathedral and in the presence of President Charles de Gaulle.
The piece was intended to be performed in large spaces - churches, cathedrals and in the open air. The composer had been inspired by the countryside which surrounded him as he worked on the composition – the Hautes-Alpes with their great mountains – but also the imposing images of Gothic and Romanesque churches, and the ancient monuments of Mexico and Ancient Egypt.
Marcel Grilli in The Japan Times(27 November) states that the Rachmaninoff was 'sensitively shaped and phrased', which might be a generous way of saying Jorge was not on best form. He doesn't look well in the video. He looks exhausted as he approaches the conductor to take bows with him, and seems genuinely grateful that David Atherton was "there for him".
(The flyer for the Tokyo recital has an interesting photo. It seems that when Jorge became Head of Piano
at Curtis, his first decision was to rehang a fine portrait of Liszt in his studio which had been put in storage - he was not having that!)
Royal Festival Hall
And we have to end with London's Royal Festival Hall where - along with Barbican - I heard Jorge Bolet play in the second half of the 1980s. On Sunday 5 February 1989, Jorge gave what turned out to be his last solo London recital. I was in the audience.
London's South Bank
1989-90, Chopin in Montréal
Publicity material for the 1988/89 season includes Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal Symphony (Charles Dutoit), Orchestre National de France, Monte Carlo Philharmonic (Riccardo Chailly), Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, San Francisco Symphony and the NHK (Japan) Symphony, recitals at Carnegie Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Champs Elysées, Alte Oper Frankfurt and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall; appearances at the Bath and Roque d’Antheron Festivals, tours of the Far East and Australia and a tour of Belgium and Germany with the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Sir Edward Downes and Bernhard Klee.
There was an advertisem*nt for a recital in the Mozart Saal of the Alte Oper Frankfurt on Sunday 2 December 1990. He had once before in the 1980s played there on Friday 12 September 1986:
ROBERT SCHUMANN Fantasie C-Dur op.17, FRANZ LISZT 6 Consolations, Venezia e Napoli, JOSEPH HAYDN Andante con Variazioni, Klaviersonate Es-Dur. (It would have been Jorge's first apprearance in Tokyo's Suntory Hall.)
Il Piccolo di Trieste 5 October 1988 announced a recital on 25 November in Monfalcone (Friuli-Venezia Giulia, northern Italy): the first recital in this region ofpianista insigne, ma solo recentemente scoperto in tutta la sua grandezza artistica("illustrious pianist, but only recently discovered in all his artistic greatness"). Schubert, Schubert/Liszt, Wagner/Liszt, Tannhäuser
On Tuesday 6 December 1988 in the Theatre des Champs Elysées, Paris he played Rachmaninov 3 with Orchestre Colonne under Philippe Entremont (also: Lutoslawski's Funeral Music and Mozart's Symphony No. 38 in D, "Prague"). This orchestra, founded in 1873, had been giving Parisian concerts for 114 years. Jorge played on a Baldwin SD10.
On Sunday afternoon, 4.20pm, 22 January 1989, there was a television broadcast in the UK on BBC2 entitled MASTER CRAFTSMEN - JORGE BOLET AND LEOPOLD GODOWSKY. ‘The music of Chopin reworked by Godowsky and played by Bolet. The pianist talks to Michael Oliver about Godowsky's technical skills and how his transcriptions shed new light on the music. As part of a recital given at Findhorn in Morayshire (Scotland), Bolet performs a number of Chopin études in Godowsky's versions.’ (The producer was Hilary Boulding.)
There is a nice anecdote that when Bolet came to play in Dundee (Scotland), he asked specifically to be taken to the Angus Hotel (now demolished), because he claimed it provided 'the best cup of coffee outside the Americas'.
30 January-2 February, 1989 St.Barnabas, Woodside Park, London: recording session (disc issued October 1990)
SCHUBERT Piano Sonata in A minor Op.143 D784; Piano Sonata in A D959
Pr: Peter Wadland Eng: John Dunkerley
On Sunday 5 February, Jorge gave what turned out to be his last solo London recital in the Royal Festival Hall. I was there and recall some difficult moments. For the programme see 16 April.
Tuesday 14 March 1989
Rachmaninoff 2 with the Philharmonia and Vladimir Ashkenazy in the Royal Festival Hall, London (also Sibelius 2 and Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune)
Sunday, 16 April, 1989 at 8pm Jorge gave - again as it turned out - his final recital in Carnegie Hall. He began with Liszt's Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude(1848-1853), following this with Schubert's Piano Sonata in A Major, D. 959 (1828). Then some Schubert/Liszt songs and ending with Wagner's Overture to Tannhäuser, S. 442 (1848 arr. Franz Liszt).
Reviews of the New York performance were very positive (and part of the recital can be heard on MARSTON cds. Bolet's long-time producer Peter Wadland said that while the London performance was patchy (and he apparently apologised to Peter afterwards), the New York recital was one of his best.
On 25-26 May 1989, the two Chopin concertos were recorded in St. Eustache, Montreal with Charles Dutoit. Francis Crociata has informed me that Bolet had had to learn the second concerto (F minor) for this recording as he did not have it in his active repertoire. He would, probably, have been much happier adding the Rachmaninoff'sPaganini Rhapsody to the 'second side' of this disc. (There is a stupendous recording of this latter work, live in Karlsruhe, Germany from March 1978.)
Jorge had just performed the first Chopin concert with the OSM and Dutoit on Tuesday, 16 May in the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, Montreal in a concert that included Wagner'sFaustOverture, Debussy's La Mer and Jacques Hétu's Images de la Révolution,Op.44. Carol Bergeron inLe Devoir(18.5.1989): 'At 74, Bolet no longer seeks to impress and his Chopin has become a serene, poetic reflection. We are far from the jubilant feats, for which this youthful score is usually a pretext. But Bolet's performance bore the somewhat worrying traces of a certain fragility, which presumably the forthcoming recording will not reflect.' Of the new work, 'This homage to France is probably the most successful orchestral score by the Québec composer. From its first hearing, the work seduces the listener with the exceptional quality of its orchestral paste (pâte orchestrale). Complex without ever being dry, its harmonic writing delights the ear.'
'Jacques Hétu died just too soon to enjoy the first performance of his Fifth Symphony, on 3 March, with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra under its chief conductor Peter Oundjian. But he did not want for public hearings: although his music is unfamiliar in Britain, he was one of the most frequently performed of all contemporary Canadian composers. His music has something of the angularity of Bartók and the astringent lyricism of Honegger; a keen sense of drama and colour gives it immediacy; and his readiness to invoke extra-musical images – as in the arresting and moving five-movement suite Images de la Révolution of 1989 – allowed audiences ready points of contact.' Jacques Joseph Robert Hétu, composer; born Trois-Rivières, Quebec 8 August 1938; died Saint-Hippolyte, Quebec 9 February 2010. (Martin Anderson, The Independent, May 2010)
As it turned out, when the Chopin ConcertosCD was issued in October 1990, I myself happened to be listening to the slow movement of the F Minor concerto when I turned the page in my copy of The Times, and came upon Jorge's obituary.
JB signing a programme after his last concert.
(Mattheus Smits, Krommenie The Netherlands)
Last recordings
Francis Crociata: "The Debussy Preludes disc was the last issued Bolet recording, made in August 1988, in the opera house in San Francisco. I find it to be full of interest and the signature Bolet sound—here as beautiful and well-formed as ever—is particularly well-suited to Debussy. Knowing this disc dates from so late in his life, the temptation is to dismiss it out-of-hand..., but I'll submit that would be a mistake. Sure, in his Decca Liszt, Chopin and Rachmaninoff recordings there are individual pieces which are disappointing recordings—but I can’t name a single issued recording where there is not enough vintage Bolet to make the purchase worthwhile. And, as I’ve probably observed before, I heard him a lot in his last five years (up to and including his last Carnegie recital on Apr 16, 1989) and only one of those recitals could be described as disappointing. That was the spring 1988 program built around the Norma Fantasy. In April ’89— six months after he’d received the AIDS diagnosis, he could still play the Tanhäuser Overture as impressively as he did in the 70s.
"Several discs from the last years were not successful. These included the Liszt Concertos with Solti & London Philharmonic. (The Schubert-Liszt Wanderer from the same sessions was issued--not bad, but not top-shelf Bolet.) The Second and Third Chopin Sonatas, and a disc of seven Nocturnes he had not previously recorded and the Berceuse. These Chopin discs were also made in California in spring 1990 (Davies Hall, San Francisco; 23 & 24 February)--after he had revived from a coma of several weeks' duration. I've not heard the sonatas, but I did hear the Nocturnes and found it to be one of the most moving and disturbing piano discs I've ever heard. The Bolet tone was mostly gone-- disconcertingly monochromatic--and technique putting one in mind of the concerts and recordings of Horzowski in his 90s. But, as with those Horzowski miracles, the playing contains perhaps Bolet’s most profound spiritual content--it's irresistible to project the impression that it was the last testament of a great artist thinking long about his own imminent passing."
'The two Chopin Sonatas Jorge recorded were not issued, and were recorded in a digital format/medium for which playback machines are no longer available.'
Envoi
Bellini/LisztMiss Chissell's text
00:00 / 00:39
Joan Chissell reviewing one of JB's last recordings, issued after his death
The author (1919 – 2007) was a British writer and lecturer on music, and music reviewer for The Times 1948–79. She made a special study of the life and works of Schumann, winning the Robert Schumann Prize awarded by his birthplace, the city of Zwickau, in 1991.
'As applause and an occasional cough confirm, these are live concert performances, recorded in 1988 when Bolet was already 74. And never—on the admittedly all too few of his discs to have come my way—can I recall him playing with more personal warmth. This is at once apparent in Mendelssohn's E minor Prelude and Fugue, where without a moment's loss of contrapuntal clarity he responds with such immediacy to romantic undercurrents—and not least in the mounting urgency and might of the chorale-peaked Fugue. The final return of its searching, chromatically inflected E minor opening subject, in a tranquil E major, is benedictory.
'For the best of all you must wait to the end. Totally unrestrained by Liszt's virtuoso demands, Bolet plays the Reminiscences de Norma not only with a truly orchestral range of dynamics and colour but also with quite exceptional intensity—always knowing so well how to 'guard' secrets until the great moments of revelation arrive. In short, I felt I'd been taken just as close to the heart of the matter as when hearing the opera itself, with Callas in the title role, in the age-old, open-air theatre of Epidaurus on a never-to-be-forgotten night in August 1960. All thanks to Bolet—and Liszt too.'
Jorge Bolet died on 16 October, 1990
On 8 June 1989 in Berlin, Jorge gave his last public recital.
On 5 November 1989,his sisterHortensia Adelina Bolet Tremoleda died in Hialeah, Miami-Dade, Florida, USA.
A year later the pianist passed away at his home in Mountain View (25 Toro Court, Portola Valley), California on Tuesday afternoon, 16 October 1990, at the age of 75. The cause of death was heart failure, said his personal manager, Mac T. Finley. 'But Mr. Bolet had been in declining health since late 1988 and had a brain operation in the summer of 1989 from which he never fully recovered.'
'A copy of Mr. Bolet's death certificate is in the Jorge Bolet Collection at the International Piano Archives-University of Maryland. Cause of death is given, simply, as AIDS. The pianist learned he was HIV positive in December 1988--
a little under 2 years before his passing.' [Francis Crociata]
Portola Valley was named for Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola, who led the first party of Europeans to explore the San Francisco Peninsula, in 1769.
In Jorge's last months, pianist and devoted friend Teresa Escandon was once by his bedside as he listened to his Carnegie Hall recital of 1974. (He used to spend holidays in Mantanzas, Cuba, with relatives who were friends of her mother. Nuevo Herald, Miami 23 January 2008)
Teresa cried, but Jorge said, 'No llores. No te acuerdas del Salmo?'
("Don't cry. Don't you remember the Psalm?") And she remembered:
"Ponme como sello sobre tu corazon porque el amor es fuerte
como la muerte."
"Set me as a seal upon thine heart, <as a seal upon thine arm> for love is
strong as death... "
[Song of Solomon 8, v.6 in the King James Bible of 1611]
Jorge playing the piano on the day of his last birthday celebration, 15 November 1989.
(Mattheus Smits, Krommenie, The Netherlands)
