Stimulating Recital By Jorge Bolet

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30561, 2 October 1964, Page 14

Stimulating Recital By Jorge Bolet

Mr Jorge Bolet, whose playing of the second Brahms Concerto last week aroused great interest gave a piano recital in the Civic Theatre last evening and was given a long ovation. He can, and does, produce tremendous volume of sound without harshness, and with rare and lively delicacy, too. The great physical strength which he uses is always associated with, muscular relaxation, and both give him very wide command over a bewildering range of tonal colours at all levels. Prodigious technical powers produce cyclonic speed when required—sometimes when not absolutely required also. Some blurring resulted from his use of the sustaining pedal in moments of great excitement.

He began his programme with the four Ballades by Chopin, played with very imaginative rubato and with electrifying changes of timbre. There is never a dull moment in Mr Bolet’s playing nor any sound that is not of commanding interest. Enjoyment of the interpretations would depend upon the individual listener’s ideas about these works and. as always happens, his mood of the moment. Some would find the intense dramatic force underlying Mr Bolet’s readings stimulating in the extreme; others may find them rather larger than life and consider that many of the sounds belonged to Liszt more than to Chopin. All must concede, however, that these interpretations had logical validity if the first premises of the arguments be granted. Mr Bolet nlaved Mozart’s Sonata in D. K. 576, with lively and refreshing charm. Very beautiful and shining cascades of sound coming in delightful moulding of phrasing with immaculate nuance and vivid clarity were heard in the first movement, which

kept fine balance between the martial and the poetic moods! The second movement was played in singing tone of caressing tenderness with phrases glowing with rich and warm colouring. They soared from the instrument and came to the hearers with most satisfying and graceful elegance. The last movement had brilliant vitality and effervescence.

Mr Bolet’s rendering of “Funerailles” by Listz fulfilled all that was promised by hi? powers of technique and imagination heard in the earlier part of the programme. This was phenomenal playing giving rein to the widest powers of interpretation. The pageantry of the work, from the awesome tolling of the funeral bell at the beginning, through the moments of deep personal sorrow and heart-felt consolation, to the wider expression of national mourning for a great heroic figure, with the dark draping of the cortege itself, and also the distant but unmistakable underlying threat of possible disaster to the nation because of its loss, were all present in this magnificent performance. It was playing in the grand manner, and the strength of Mr Bolet’s touch certainly brought to mind the legendary technical power of Liszt himself. The “Funerailles” was followed by the Mephisto Waltz No. 3. Hopes could be expressed that such a juxtaposition did not carry a suggestion of the deceased’s ultimate fate. Mr Bolet made the piano give out sardonic sneers, chilling glints of the eye, the twirling of a cloak, and the flashing of the rapier, all brought together in riotous dance against a background of fiendish mockery and deadly threat. It was a stimulating and exciting recital. —C.F.B.