More Jorge Bolet on Audite

[Lance]

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com ... _SS500.jpg
Audite 21.438, Mono, recorded Berlin 1962-1973
First Master Release from Original Tapes

It wasn't until much later in his life that pianist Jorge Bolet received the esteem he should have enjoyed long before. Today, he is an highly collectible pianist by pianophiles world-wide. This is marked as "Volume 1," and I am happy to see that other volumes may follow. These are all radio Recordings (RIAS). See more information below. These are excellent performances for live radio broadcasts. Yes, one may find some fingerslips here and there, and I am not totally fond of the piano sound. While Bolet was a Baldwin piano artist and used this brand in the USA and Europe when concert grands were available, he otherwise chose to play the Bechstein, which was then under Baldwin's umbrella. One does hear occasional notes not pin-point right on tune-wise, but the genius of the pianist always shows through. It sounds to me that the pianos used were either Hamburg Steinways or Bechsteins. All the music played hereon generally a part of Bolet's repertoire.

1962-1973
Liszt:
Années de Pèlerinage. 1e Année: Suisse (excerpts)
Études d’exécution transcendante (excerpts)
Liebesträume. 3 Notturnos
Rhapsodie espagnole

Moszkowski: Acht Charakterstücke, Op. 36/4 (En automne)

Saint-Saëns / Godowsky: Le cygne ‘The Swan’
Godowsky: Le salon
Schumann / Liszt: Liebeslied (Myrthen, Op. 25/1)
Godowsky: Symphonic
Metamorphosis No. 2 ‘Fledermaus’

Chopin:
Fantasia in F minor, Op. 49
Impromptus, Opp. 29 / 36 / 51 / 66
Waltz in D-flat major, Op. 64/1
Etude in G-flat major, Op. 10/5
Debussy: Préludes I + II (excerpts)

Jorge Bolet – the last gentleman of the piano: The pianistic and musical authority and grandeur of this extraordinary pianist documented in RIAS recordings from
1962–73.

Cuban-American pianist Jorge Bolet (1914-1990), misleadingly labeled the “last Romantic” among 20th century pianists and marketed under this title when he achieved world fame at the end of his career, was first and foremost a gentleman of the piano.

Few pianists interpreted the great piano music of the 19th and early 20th centuries with such unerring stylistic assurance and technical mastery that was at the same time completely free of vanity and striving for effect.

Rather than vague sentimentality, Bolet – who studied at the world-renowned Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia with David Saperton, son-in-law of the legendary pianist Leopold Godowsky, and later succeeded Rudolf Serkin as director of its piano department – sought a balance between musical and pianistic intelligence. Thanks to these qualities, his recordings, which include not-uncontroversial transcriptions from the golden age of piano playing before 1914, are considered benchmarks. These recordings for the RIAS Berlin from 1962–73, featuring works by Chopin, Liszt, and Debussy along with highly virtuosic encores and arrangements by Moritz Moszkowski and Godowsky (among others), are no exception: here we experience a pianist and musician who rightly occupies a place among the pantheon of great pianists.

[maestrob]

I notice by checking on amazon that Volume II is scheduled to be released on January 19th. It will include both Liszt concerti, excerpts from the Petrarch Sonatas and the Tannhauser Overture.

[Lance]

Thank you, Brian. I will be on the lookout for this.

I notice by checking on amazon that Volume II is scheduled to be released on January 19th. It will include both Liszt concerti, excerpts from the Petrarch Sonatas and the Tannhauser Overture.