Jorge Bolet at the 1970 IPL Benefit Concert: Verdi-Liszt Rigoletto Paraphrase
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 ม.ค. 2025
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A stupendous performance of the Verdi-Liszt Rigoletto Paraphrase by Cuban pianist Jorge Bolet, given at the October 3, 1970 International Piano Library concert at Hunter College - 50 years ago to the day of this upload.
Earlier that year, a fire started by thieves had caused terrible damage to the International Piano Library's offices in New York, so a benefit concert was arranged to raise funds for the organization. An illustrious list of pianists donated their performances for this stupendous gala event: Fernando Valenti, Jesus Maria Sanroma, Earl Wild, Bruce Hungerford, Ivan Davis, Alicia de Larrocha (who was president of the IPL at the time), Gunnar Johansen, Raymond Lewenthal, Jorge Bolet, Rosalyn Tureck, and Guiomar Novaes. The concert was recorded and subsequently issued on two LPs by the International Piano Library.
One of the stars of the evening was Cuban-born pianist Jorge Bolet, who despite some tremendous concert appearances and LP releases was still largely unknown to the wider public. He brought down the house with two Liszt opera paraphrases that led legendary soprano Beverly Sills - the one non-pianist performing that evening - to make a joke about him upstaging her in a performance of her repertoire, adding that she was tempted to sing the Minute Waltz. (She ended up singing the Chopin E-Flat Nocturne worked into an arrangement of arias created by her accompanist Roland Gagnon.)
Indeed, Bolet's performance of the Verdi-Liszt Rigoletto Paraphrase here is utterly beguiling, with incredible tonal colours, impeccable timing, natural inflection in the shaping of phrases, and dazzling fingerwork without any compromise to tone or musical integrity. His glistening runs and refined pianissimo shading are indeed astounding - true virtuoso pianism, at once thrilling and of the highest musicality.
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Seeing Mr. Bolet with arm raised on high is evidence that even he--at the perfect moment--would add stage theatrics to what is heard as a stupendous performance. Bravissimo!
Fabulous in every way!
He was a superb musician and knew the vocal repertoire better than most people as is evident here and in all he plays. One of my favorite musicians and trills me with his pianism. Listen to him playing the Liszt transcription of the Overture to Tannhäuser where he relishes every instrument on the orchestra and illuminates Wagner's majesty.
Fortunate to see him live.
one of the giants!!!!
The applause at the end is as explosive as the playing. These people sure knew what they witnessed.
He had fought for the previous 35 years for such recognition. This recital was one of the big turning points in his career...but he was already 56 years old.
One of the most important newspaper articles on Bolet appeared in 1973. ‘Where Have You Been, Bolet?' Where Were You, Bolet?' was written by John Gruen for the New York Times, Sunday, 28 January, 1973. It contains a marvellous character study. ‘To sit in a desperately cheerful New York hotel room with Jorge Bolet is to know the meaning of absolute contradiction. The Cuban-born pianist is simply too imposing and disquieting a figure to meld easily with screaming red-and-orange curtains, and wildly patterned bedspreads... He demands a far more austere setting, possibly a sombre Buñuel set with dark, musty wall-hangings, shadows, chandeliers, sinister rugs... In a way he recalls characters out of Poe and Hawthorne.'
I first knew this piece off a Lizst album and only the opera later. Made an excellent introduction!
Seit in den 70er Jahren im Deutschen Fernsehen eine Piano-Serie mit Bolet gesendet wurde, bin ich Fan dieses großartigen Künstlers.
This man belongs to the generation of performers who were playing the music instead of trying to show off.
Wonderful to hear again. When I first got to know of JB in 1983, pre-internet days, you just couldn't hear this, though it was often talked about. He played the Strauss/Godowsky Fledermaus to a Gramophone magazine interviewer but it was MANY YEARS before a recording ever surfaced.
That is a fantastic photograph, by the way!
It was taken at this very concert!
Thank you for sharing this record of what was certainly a watershed moment in Bolet’s career. His uniquely vocal brand of pianism is in full, glorious bloom here, a quality that myself and others should always be striving for in our playing. Hats off to Maestro Bolet!
In my opinion, this was a watershed moment indeed, later to be trumped by his entire 1974 Carnegie Hall recital which included the Bach-Busoni Chaconne, the Chopin Preludes, the Tausig and Rachmaninoff Transcriptions, the Schulz-Evler, and the Wagner-Tannhauser Overture. That event was as if Hofmann had returned to the stage in his prime.
By far my favourite pianist! Great upload...many thanks!
Good God. Bolet's playing is staggering here, both in technique and musicianship! I was fortunate to see him play live exactly once: in Seattle, when I was a boy, he played Beethoven Fourth Piano Concerto with the Seattle Symphony, substituting for the "ailing" ... Glenn Gould!
Bolet highlights the art of not over-empasizing Liszt's elaborate ornamentations, thereby keeping a perfect balance between the story of the meaningful melodies of the original work, and the frivolous chatter of the paraphrasation.
incredible musicaianship and concept. thank you
Wow! Fantastic! Thanks so much for sharing.
Splendid!
My Mom got to hear him (I think at Wheaton College??) in the early 80s, but I was in Ohio at college. What a missed opportunity. I only have the benefit of hearing stupendous recordings like this. Can’t imagine what it would have been like to have actually been present at a performance like this.
He was quite inspire that day 😮
Como é possível que Jorge Bolet tenha sido esquecido?. O seu virtuosismo revela um dos maiores pianistas de todos os tempos.
I remember an interview where he was talking about some godowski pieces being so difficult that he could not sight read them at any speed! !! Sight read!! I would need a year per measure.
The New York Times, 27 Sept.1970 gave this report: ‘What a perihelion of pianists to perform!’ On Saturday evening at Hunter College, the International Piano Library is sponsoring a benefit for itself. 10 pianists. Several months ago it was robbed; thieves broke in. ‘What they did not find was money. The IPL has always subsisted on a diet of dandelions and blue-eyed scallops. The baffled thieves instead found $200,000 of rare piano records or rolls. In fury they set fire to the IPL.’ Fortunately many discs survived including the only know copy of Grieg playing his Humoresque (worth $1,000). (There were precedents for this type of benefit concert, as Harold Schonberg pointed out. Fifteen pianists played in a benefit for an ill and indigent Moriz Moszkowski, a nineteenth century salon composer.)
The head of the archive Gregor Benko found that many pianists were sympathetic but, like Chilean maestro Claudio Arrau and others, were playing thousands of miles ways on 3 October. ‘He also found that some pianists, especially those concentrating on virtuoso romantic literature, regard each other [...] something the way Elizabeth I viewed Philip of Spain or Arturo Toscanini regarded Serge Koussevitzky. And vice versa. Fernando Valenti, Jesus Maria Sanroma, Earl Wild, Bruce Hungerford, Ivan Davis, Alicia de Larrocha (president), Jorge Bolet and the great Brazilian first lady of the piano Guiomar Novaes did play.
New York Times 5/10/1970 (Harold Schonberg)
4 Steinways and 4 Baldwins. The Library ‘was not out to make enemies!’ Novaes the grande dame of the keyboard, coaxed delicate tones from the Gottschalk Brazilian anthem. Dare one say who made the best impression? Okay pin me to the wall and I will nominate Mr Bolet for his absolutely transcendent performances of a pair of Liszt operatic paraphrases (on Donizetti's Lucia di Lamermoor & Verdi's Rigoletto).’
5’21” Bolet adds his own little harmonic touch, I think.
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