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Jorge Bolet's Best Liszt Transcendental Etudes · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

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  Thank you. This is Jed Disler, and welcome to
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  The Piano Maven, your friendly podcast guide
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  to piano recordings. I would like to thank you
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  for continuing to take out subscriptions through
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  my Substack page, and I've provided a link to
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  do so. And paid subscribers get free downloads
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  at the beginning of every month, so it's well
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  worth your paying for a subscription, but you
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  can also get the... podcast for free, of course.
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  Anyway, I want to talk today about the pianist
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  George Bolette, who I've spoken about on this
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  podcast before. He recorded Franz Liszt's Twelve
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  Transcendental Etudes on three occasions, the
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  first time in the studio for RCA Victor in 1958,
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  although that recording omitted three of the
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  etudes, numbers four, eight, and twelve. And
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  then Bolet recorded them complete, I think in
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  the early 1970s, for the Spanish Ensayo label.
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  And these were later reissued by RCA Victor.
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  And then in 1985, he made a digital recording
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  of the 12 etudes for Decca. And these are generally...
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  really good and very sensitive, although not
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  always quite scintillating interpretations, although
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  there are plenty of great moments. However, I
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  want to talk about a live broadcast performance
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  of the Transcendental Etudes with George Bollett
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  that took place at the Tanglewood Festival on
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  August 4th, 1964. This broadcast you can find
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  on YouTube, and I've provided a link to do so,
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  although I have had a CD -R of the list for quite
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  some time. And in these performances, Bolette
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  is on far more communicative form than in any
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  of the commercial recordings. His playing is
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  very rhetorical and tends to go more for expression
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  than sheer speed for the sake of speed. But there
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  is a sense of dynamism and drama and forward
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  impetus and a genuine feeling for the grand manner
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  with lots of attention to inner voices and bass
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  lines that give his performances a lot of textural
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  dimension and depth. The problem is the piano
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  doesn't really hold its tuning all the way through
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  the performance. But, you know, I think you can
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  get past that. And Bolet really takes chances
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  in a lot of these pieces, especially in the etude
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  number 10. He goes really wild in the coda in
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  a way that he certainly did not in the studio
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  recordings. His performance of mazeppa is far
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  less clattery than usual. I mean, not by his
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  standard. He was never clattery in this piece,
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  but this is a piece that pianists just tend to
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  bang the hell out of it. But he doesn't do so
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  in this Tanglewood performance. And then Ricordanza
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  and Harmonie du Soir have beautiful long -lined
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  phrasing and great sustaining power. Now, Feuillet,
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  their fifth etude, may not have the stunning
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  transparency and the effortless speed of the
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  Sviatoslav Richter performances, but Bolet takes
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  all kinds of chances in this piece with unusual
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  left -hand voicings and these sudden dynamic
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  surges and many accents that just catch you off
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  guard. I think it's quite an interesting performance.
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  Etudes on this recital, by the way, followed
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  Bolette's very individual and fascinating account
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  of the Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 31, Op. 110,
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  which he never recorded commercially, although
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  there are some later broadcasts with him playing
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  this. There also are some terrific encores from
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  this recital. And again, you can check out the
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  recital by following the link listed in my episode
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  description. It's kind of sad that George Paulette's
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  international career would still take 10 more
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  years to really solidify after this 1964 recital.
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  But here, the 49 -year -old Paulette still has
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  a lot of the young firebrand in him. and by the
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  time he signed with Decca in the late 1970s,
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  he already was a grand old man of the piano,
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  and he didn't always have the fire and the pizzazz
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  that he displayed in his youth. Of course, there
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  were many wonderful exceptions in the Decca recordings,
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  but if you listened to these August 1964 Liszt
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  Transcendental Etudes, And you just have to wonder,
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  where were the critics? Where were the publicists?
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  I mean, could there not have been room for such
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  a genuine romantic pianist, even in a literalist
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  zeitgeist like the late 1950s and early 1960s?
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  It makes me wonder. Anyway, we are thankful that
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  this broadcast recital exists and that it's so
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  easily accessible. This is Jed Disler, and you've
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  been listening to The Piano Maven, your friendly
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  podcast guide to piano recordings. And I look
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  forward to being with you for our next episode.