Jorge Bolet Berlin Radio Recordings, Vol. 3: 1961-1974 = Piano Works by CHOPIN; SCHUMANN; GRIEG; FRANCK; DEBUSSY; DELLO JOIO; GODOWSKY; BEETHOVEN [Complete listing below] – Jorge Bolet, piano/ Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin/ Moshe Atzmon – Audite 21.459 (3 CDs) 75:47; 71:24; 77:17 (2/1/19) [Distr. by Naxos] *****:
Jorge Bolet (1914-1990) still stands today as among the great masters of keyboard color and virtually “symphonic” sonority, a true virtuoso whose innate modesty restrained any impulse for the merely ostentatious effect. His appearances in the then-divided Berlin between 1961-1974 enjoy florid and even sumptuous representation in these performances, which feature several significant additions to the Bolet discography, including a Dello Joio sonata, Schumann’s Third Sonata, three Chopin polonaises, the complete Op. 25 Etudes, some new Debussy, and the Beethoven Emperor Concerto (3 December 1974).
Given the breadth of the collection, we may savor selected items: Bolet’s pedal and arioso phrasing of the middle section of Chopin’s Etude in E minor, Op. 25, No. 5 proves nothing less than luscious. The rich sonority in the F Major, Op. 25, No. 8 warranted my repeating the reading immediately. The polished refinement of execution finds pure artistry in Bolet’s landings and poetic sense of musical closure at codas. The massive tension Bolet imparts to the B minor, Op. 25, No. 10 first proves epic; but the music suddenly retreats to a private world of wistful remembrance, Bolet’s scalar parlando a model of exquisite phrasing. If the biting “Winter Wind” Etude fails, impossibly, to grip you, the C minor “Ocean” Etude combines luminous pearls with a sense of ineluctable gravitas that swallows any Chopin acolyte glad to be so consumed.
For contrast, audition the angular, feisty 1943 Second Sonata of Norman Dello Joio (6 January 1966). The opening Presto martellato cues us to the diverse range in the composer’s palette, alternately percussive in leaping octaves and meditative, cantabile. Suspended chords move the Adagio forward, a haunted tone-picture that achieves a potent sense of lyrical drama. The Vivace spiritoso, claimed the composer, meant to display the massive hands of Jorge Bolet, especially. The volatile demands of temperament and punishing repeated notes and galloping chords Bolet subsumes into a blistering example of his ability to accommodate and illuminate musical structure of even the most intricate fabric.
The Andante spianato et Grand polonaise brillante from Haus des Rundfunks (3 March 1971) rings out in spun gold, Josef Hofmann reborn. Besides the lustrous panache of the conception, the security of style and even temper of the performance testify to a Chopin stylist of the first rank. Of the three polonaises recorded earlier, 2 December 1966 at the same German Radio venue, that in C Minor, Op. 40, No. 2 (1839) projects a dark, liquid fervor from Bolet. Theoretically, the piece originated at the Carthusian monastery at Valldemossa. Sullen and yet nobly arched, the music conveys in bass tones first sotto voce and then forte a call to arms of sorts. The middle section in A-flat Major recalls happier moments, despite the current of menace in the texture. The two “militant” polonaises each contains the Bolet magic, his ability to shape the well-familiar into a refreshed, confidently moving work of pianistic art. Savor the monumental crescendo of his Polish hussars in the Op. 53! The ubiquitous Fantasie-Impromptu (21 February 1963) finds new vigor in Bolet’s thundering octaves and dragonfly scales, the melody’s rising up in a manner that dreams of a love beyond Liszt. Bolet’s transitions in tone, mood, and touch provide object lessons in the art of seamless, dramatic poetry.
The Debussy group (2 October 1961) achieves a marvelous transparency of texture and deft mystery we associate with another master of the Chopin style, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. The sounding of ‘bells through the leaves’ captures the Verlaine notion of ambiguity, of uncertainty’s fusion with precision. The whole tone progression moves against a pentatone black-key scale to produce a gauzy dream world. No less haunted, the Moon descends on the temple that was in static yet arresting harmony. Bolet plays the secondary theme, in separated triplets, with a sense of rising, illumined mystery, intoxicating and rife with expectation. The Poissons d’or depicts lacquer fighting fish who manage to jump out of t heir watery milieu. Bolet manages tremolo 32nd notes under the main melody, a subtle yet ever-active sound portrait of light and water in ceaseless motion. Masques of 1904 may well illustrate in music a painting of Watteau, Le Mezzetin. A troubadour sings while a cold statue has turned its back to him. A dark plaint, the music perhaps replaces tragic love with bitter irony. The intensely transparent texture Bolet creates almost convinces us the troubadour might transform the denial of the statue into a Galatea, by sheer dint of his passion.
For many auditors, the inclusion of Schumann’s F minor “Concerto without Orchestra,” his Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 14 (1836; rev. 1853), will warrant these discs for the Bolet enthusiast. Recorded 11 March 1964, the performance captures Boleti in a fiercely concentrated posture, realizing Schumann’s often fragmented melodic kernels and sequences that the composer manipulates in the style of late Beethoven, specifically Op. 101. Schumann’s “comfortable” Scherzo imitates a courtly dance, though with a heavy hand. Schumann contrasts the nervous opening with a D Major Trio that moves into D-flat and B-flat minor. Bolet attempts to make the figures sing, but the accented third beat intrudes and forces a nervous energy on the procession. Schumann’s sense of economy permeates the third movement, Quasi Variazioni: Andantino de Clara Wieck, whose figures have been anticipated in the first two movements. Bolet savors Variation 3, which transposes the falling motif up a perfect fourth. Right hand pyrotechnics and syncopes dominate the bravura Finale: Prestissimo possible, a showpiece for Bolet, who now wears the mantle of Vladimir Horowitz.
It was Artur Rubinstein who first introduced me to the beauties of Grieg’s most ambitious keyboard work, his 1876 Ballade in G minor, OP. 24, based on the Norwegian folk song “The Northland Peasantry.” The piece grew out of moments of despair following the death of the composer’s parents. Bolet (2 October 1961) plays a slightly abridged version, but equally potent in those sections where the piano’s range enjoys the full spectrum of his colors, rife with canons, scherzando passages, solid octaves, and songful expressions of national ardor.
The Lento of Variation 8 has something of both Liszt and Mussorgsky. The peasant, rustic force f the Un poco allegro e alla burla variation has Bolet in rare form, applying pointed staccato and grumbling bass touches. The finale, Allegro furioso – Prestissimo – Andante espressivo, opens in the spirit of Schumann but soon catapults into moments of demonized fury, only to relent to restate the initial tune, resigned to its fate.
Cesar Franck, the inimitable purveyor of cyclic form, composed his Prelude, Aria et Final in 1887. Familiar equally with Bach and Wagner, Franck exploits various chorale motifs associated with spiritual transformation. Bolet (26 March 1962) applies refined liquidity and stunning declamation to the opening Prelude, whose counterpoints achieve a layered power. The martial character of the first movement and the arioso second movement evolve in chaste, restrained harmony, less driven than the corresponding sections of the Prelude, Chorale et Fugue. The structure, more akin to a three-movement sonata than a fused fantasia, still exhibits aspects of its main ideas in various guises. Bolet balances chastity with emotional authority in a way I find competitive with my cherished reading by Jorg Demus.
The largest contribution to the Bolet recorded legacy, the Emperor Concerto, derives from a 1974 tour by the RIAS Symphony in Paris. Conductor Atzmon invests an energy and delicacy of inflection into his orchestral part as Bolet simultaneously inflames the solo part. The long orchestral tutti after Bolet’s entry could hardly become more “symphonic” when it streams into the aether to allow Bolet his re-entry. Bolet’s pearly play complements his astonishing capacity for lightning scales and wickedly penetrating repeated notes. The expansive first movement becomes increasingly muscular and lithe, as much a product of Atzmon’s fire as Bolet’s volcanic alterations of affect. Trumpets and drums announce that wild series of scales that motivated Bernard Shaw to exclaim that his ears had to compensate for his eyes’ ability to stare. The plastic yet ineluctable progress to the coda has a few more gems in Bolet’s legato, his sterling trill, inflected diminuendos, and those precious, music-box scales that take us to the explosive mix that defines the aristocrat of piano concertos.
I well recall my having met Bolet in Atlanta, 1987, not long after his appearance on the Metropolitan Opera intermission broadcast, in which he deftly concentrated a discussion of Liszt’s operatic paraphrases, reminiscences, and fantasies into fifteen-minutes! When a naïve admirer asked him how long he practiced to attain his degree of technical fluency, he quipped, “Seventy-three years!”
—Gary Lemco
Jorge Bolet Berlin Radio Recordings, Vol. 3: 1961-1974:
CHOPIN: 12 Etudes, Op. 25; Andante spianato and Grand Polonaise brillante in E-flat Major, Op. 22; Polonaise No. 3 in A Major, Op. 40, No. 1 “Military”; Polonaise No. 4 in C minor, Op. 40, No. 2; Polonaise No. 6 in A-flat Major, Op. 53 “Heroic”; Fantasie-Impromptu in C-sharp minor, Op. 66;
SCHUMANN: Piano Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 14; Fruehlingsnacht (arr. Liszt), Op. 39. No. 12; ;
GRIEG: Ballade in G minor, Op. 24;
FRANCK: Prelude, Aria et Final;
DEBUSSY: Images pour Piano II; Masques;
DELLO JOIO: Piano Sonata No. 2;
GODOWSKY: Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes from Der Fledermaus;
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op 73 “Emperor” –
